Clone Wars TCW Episodes To Watch With The Saga

'Lair of Grievous' just so we know Grievous wasn't trolling everyone about his lightsaber collection and that he could actually kill Jedi.

But in all seriousness, I actually started watching every episode of TCW today in order, and then I'll watch ROTS after, but you can't really include any episodes of TCW as part of the saga, because even though some of the storylines may link, there's a big difference between animation and realistic CGI, and it just wouldn't tie in with the saga very well if you were to watch any episodes in between.

They forget it all anyway, so it renders all that null. Anakin knows he's the chosen one (and I don't buy he didn't know it already) - forgotten. Anakin knows he's destined to fall to the dark side - forgotten.
In fact, i'd rather I could magically forget about this arc too.

What? You can't pick and choose TCW eps. It's all canon, right? So you're going to have to watch all, or none.

Especially since the OT never mentions that Anakin is the "Chosen One."

The Son told Anakin to turn to the Dark Side after Anakin was horrified by a vision of himself turning to the Dark Side.

And Anakin did what the Son told him.

Does not compute. Anakin was more of a gullible schmuck there than he was in ROTS, and that's saying something.

Forgot what? The characters forgot their trip to Mortis? I wouldn't think so given the dialogue at the very end of the episode, where they are in disbelief that they've only been gone a moment.

If you mean the TCW crew seemed to forget Mortis and never built on those concepts, then yes, I agree.

I count that among my big three list of useless concepts in regards to the Force:

1. Anakin is the "Chosen One" (not really shown to mean anything IMO)

2. The Force needs to be "balanced" (never touched upon in the OT. Light Side was always shown to be good, Dark Side = bad, why would you only want to balance the two? What use does the Dark Side have? Why is too much Light bad?)

3. The Jedi ability to use the Force has diminished... (mentioned once and then not again, with no real consequence shown of what that means).

All introduced in the PT, none of which are ever mentioned in the OT, and all of which the PT does a terrible job of explaining IMO.

1. Why couldn't have Anakin just been a talented Jedi that fell to the Dark Side and betrayed the Jedi, helping with their annihilation? What exactly does making him the Chosen One add to the story aside from turning him into Space Jesus and kind of robs Luke of his story, since Lucas tries to retroactively make it "the story of Anakin" across the entire saga.

2. In the OT, Dark Side is always regarded as bad/evil and Luke is trained to confront those that have been seduced by that evil and kill them (but ends up redeeming Vader). No mention of the Force being out of balance or why exactly the Jedi need to balance good and evil. Evil seems like something that should be imbalanced with good, in favor of good, as much as possible.

3. Per the OT: Is the Dark Side stronger? Nope. (paraphrased)

This exactly. Well said!!

I would say that watching any episode featuring Ahsoka at this point (as part of a saga marathon) would be distracting, since her fate is unresolved and so it would just be a character there and suddenly not, with no mention as to why, when you move onto ROTS.

Mortis is one of the arcs I would include if I were going to scrap Ep. I and Ep. II. Like it or not, the Chosen One theme does pop up again in Ep. III so it would serve as an introduction to that. It also has Anakin referencing his slaughter of the Tusken Raiders from Ep. II so that's also covered in relation to Ep. III. And we learn about, see, and hear Qui-Gon Jinn from Ep. I so that's covered. Depending on how I wanted to structure it I might only include Overlords since it's more perfect than the next two episodes in the arc and it ends in such a way that doesn't make the rest absolutely necessary (it shows them flying away from the planet, so you can just assume they got away that way instead of the Son kidnapping Ahsoka like we see in the beginning of the next episode).

I agree that on the whole GL failed to develop the Chosen One concept over the course of the PT, and that Mortis managed to spend three episodes on the idea without any further clarification (I take the point of view of the Force-wielders as just that - a point of view - and not in-universe word-of-god). I think a strong case can be made that it stems from his earliest Star Wars ideas. If you look at early drafts of the very first film (now known as ANH) there are plenty of concepts that never made it in the OT that GL used in Ep. I. One of these ideas was to have a character billed as "The Son of the Suns" who there was a prophecy about, and the connection to the Chosen One concept from there seems pretty obvious.

I agree, a lot of this depends on Ahsoka having a worthwhile-enough ending to also be included to resolve that end of it. I'm still holding out hope that that will be the case.

Nah, we can watch what we want. If I don't want one of the episodes to be in my personal canon, Mickey Mouse isn't going to break my door down and kick me in the gonads.

Or...

Gascon is the best thing that happened to Star Wars. He is the real hero. Also, buy WALL-E, it's a great movie.

I might have an answer to these points. I understand where you're coming from, and this is how I've come to understand the situation you describe.

I see the GFFA as any habitable location, like a valley. The Force is like the river that feeds the region. The water brings life to the plants, animals, and humans. The Jedi are kinda like the Fish & Wildlife Services that keep an eye on the river, making sure there are no pollutants, animals are safe, etc. A Sith Lord is like a robber baron that comes to the valley and builds a dam upriver. The Sith harnesses the power of the river, converting the energy into electricity (explains Sith lightning, eh?) to build factories that pollute the water supply. F&W Services are stuck with a dirty river that can't be used to its fullest potential. So when the Force is in balance, it means the river flows naturally and life in the valley prospers equitably.

I second this explanation.

The Jedi serve the Force, whereas the Sith seek to abuse it.

That's one of the things I'm really interested to see in Eps VII-IX as George Lucas has always said balance was restored at the end of ROTJ. The EU disagrees, obviously. Let's see if the films do too.

With regards to balancing the Force, I think the PT leaves more questions unanswered than Mortis. Like I wrote above, I just see the Force-wielders as another set of characters with their own perspectives on things, I don't take everything they say as in-universe word-of-god. So the Father thinks that too much "light side" (not a fan of that term) is actually a bad thing and you need some dark side in order for there to be balance. Fascinating philosophy we've never before heard expressed in this high level of Star Wars canon, but it's just the philosophy of one character, not a be-all-end-all definition of the Force or balance of the Force.

But it still remains a problem with the PT because even at its very end during the epic Kenobi/Skywalker duel Kenobi says Skywalker was supposed to bring balance to the Force because he's the Chosen One. I think a scene where the Jedi Council has a conversation about this and different views are expressed would have worked really well to show that there isn't absolute consensus on what balance of the Force means, rather than it simply not being explained because GL never bothered to go there. The one thing I appreciate that goes in that direction is when Yoda says the prophecy may have been misread.

I almost wish the original trilogy had gone deeper into this, with balance having been out-of-sync for over 20 years. Was there a risk that the Force would desert the Jedi?

Does the Force have a plan for the galaxy? What does the Force want? I'd really like more exploration of these ideas - I'm not saying I want those questions answered, just explored.

My issue is that the idea was poorly defined to begin with. In the OT there was a very dichotomous nature to the Force: dark side = bad, the implied light side (never referred to as such) = good. And it's a tale of the light side Jedi attempting to triumph over the evil Sith. It's very black and white, like Christianity's concepts of heaven/hell, God/devil.

The PT then all of a sudden throws the word "balance" out there. It never explicitly says that the light side and dark side must be balanced, but I felt that was implied when they start talking about how the dark side clouds everything and the shroud of the dark side falling, etc. It just seems like the dark side is out of control and the Jedi want to restore balance.

@Dark Lord Tarkas throws the idea out there that the Father's interpretation might not be the word of God IU, but I feel like it's meant to be OOU, when we have Filoni talking about Lucas having given a presentation about the Force and how it works, etc. I assume this was done during the writers meetings prior to the script for the Mortis arc being written. And in Mortis it's much more clear that the Father is speaking of balance between the light and dark side, and he throws the idea out there that too much light is bad just as too much dark is.

But the OT pretty much established that light side/dark side are pretty much used interchangeably with good/evil

Luke: "How will I know the good side from the bad?"

So if it's a concept of balancing light side and dark side, it becomes a concept of balancing good and evil, which is nonsensical. If you balance something with its complete opposite, you get nothing. Evil is undone by good and good is undone by evil. Why would you want to strike that balance?

Some (in the past when I've had this discussion) raise the point that it's supposed to be a Yin/yang concept of the Force similar to Daoism. But from what I've read of Daoism, and I admit I don't know much, but evil is not incorporated into the yin/yang concept. Yin/yang demonstrate a natural balance that is maintained through the counteracting nature of opposing forces. But good and evil are not incorporated into that concept, but rather balance IS good and imbalance is bad/evil.

So if you say that the Jedi preserve balance which is good and the Sith disrupt that balance and thus are bad. That makes sense in a yin/yang concept. But the issue arises when characters consistently equate the dark side to bad/evil and treat it like a plague (not consistent with yin/yang).

It's like they laid out a very stark black white concept, but then overlaid it with another by introducing the concept of balance, but the two are irreconcilable IMO with how they are presented. It would make sense to say that the Jedi preserve the balance and are good while the Sith disrupt it and are evil, but then why do the Jedi only adhere to the light side and show fear of the dark side as evil?

Evil falls outside of the yin/yang concept whereas in Star Wars Lucas put it smack dab in the middle as part of the duality, and it doesn't really make sense like that.

@TaradosGon

The Father was wrong though, he admitted it at the end. He realised that Anakin's purpose was not the one he originally thought, and that he'd misinterpreted the prophecy of the Chosen One.

You're looking at it in a dual format, but I actually think Mortis conveys the Force in three distinct ways:

1. The Son (the dark side of the Force) - He represents the Sith, who abuse the Force and use it for their own ends, usually destruction.

2. The Daughter (the light side of the Force) - She represents the Jedi, who use the Force to help others, selflessly.

3. The Father (the follower of the Force) - He represents the Force, in the true sense. He follows the Force's will wherever it takes him, whether it stray light or dark. IMO, that's why he fades away and the Daughter does not.

If we look at it as a scale, then, the Son weighs the scale down on one side, and the Daughter equals it on the other.

When the Daughter is killed, the scale is out of balance, and the Son has to be killed to restore it.

The Father weighs down neither side, as he straddles the middle, following the Force.

The Jedi however do not follow the Force as a whole. Just the light side (they're constantly warning against negative emotions and those things that lead to the Dark Side). Which doesn't make sense to me if the Force as a whole (including the Dark Side) is meant to be balanced and good, while too much light is bad.

I see that as a contradiction. Along with.

Qui-Gon: "Feel don't think. Use your instincts."
Obi-Wan: "Use the Force. Think."



Qui-Gon's method seems like it leaves room for passion and negativity.

Qui-Gon definitely seemed more like the Father than any of the other Jedi. The Force was telling him to bring Anakin to the Jedi, and so he did. Luke's EU New Jedi Order follows this path much closer, allowing attachments and so on, but of course that's not coming from Lucas.

Having too much Light seems like it naturally spawns more Dark though. I mean, look at it this way - the prequel Jedi do not allow attachments. That is going to backfire at some point, and it does, Anakin falls in love with Padme, and because the Jedi Order doesn't allow it, he keeps it secret. Had the Jedi followed the Force completely, Anakin wouldn't have had to keep that secret.

Almost as if the Force deliberately took down the Jedi Order in the prequels...

i agree with this guy

None of them. A switch from Live Action to CGI to Live Action is too jarring, and I can't take Hayden seriously after seeing Lanter's amazing performance.

I think the change from PT CGI to the OT is pretty jarring anyway, especially since my canon OT is the 90's THX remasters from before the Special Editions.

On a series marathon a watch the micro-series not TCW. It is the Clone Wars and it is fast and easy.

i would watch the Nightsisters Trilogy/Darth Maul Return arc and Mauldalore Arc and i would close my eyes and hold my ears that moment where Ahsoka appears in Brothers