Full Series TCW- Not About the Actual War

The show's name- Star Wars: The Clone Wars, has become misleading over the years. The first few seasons portrayed the war actually quite well IMHO, but since then we've really just been hit with loads of BS that kind of stem away from the actual point of the show- the Clone Wars that Obi-Wan Kenobi mentions in ANH. This show was supposed to show onscreen the effects of the Wars in the galaxy itself, yet it has strayed extremely far away from it. A few gripes:

1. Ahsoka (who never really should have been a character in the first place), became basically an all-powerful Mary Sue, and the end of season five took us from away from the galaxy to watch her be immature and leave the order for no good reason.
2. The resurrection of Darth Maul (which was unnecessary), took us from the Republic to CIS to make it: Jedi vs. Sith?, Sith vs. Sith, Nightsisters vs. who knows what?
3. Bounty Hunters. There is no need for a war between Jedi and Bounty Hunters when we should be seeing Jedi vs. CIS.
4. Mandalorians. Same thing as above, and all the less interesting.
5. Rex's decreased role hurt and has shown the decreasing importance of the War and more into, well, the stuff above.
6. The lack of CIS leaders. How are we supposed to take the other side seriously when we don't even know why their fighting.
7. The decreasing importance of the Senate.

What TCW really should have done, now the series is coming to an end, is taken hints from previously written novels such as Labyrinth of Evil, Shatterpoint, and Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, which really delved into the characters thoughts, all while showing the effects of war, setting the tone of war. I thought they did this well in the first couple seasons as I mentioned above, but it has tailed off in a major way since then. Thoughts?

 

1. The setting of that arc involved citizens protesting something... what was it? Oh, right: the war. That had just as much bearing on her departure as the accusations did.
2. This isn't the West Wing. Don't watch adventure serials if you don't want resurrections.
3. Bounty Hunters are great.
4. Mandalorians are great.
5. Rex was in 59% of the first season's episodes and 60% of the fifth season's episodes.
6. Most CIS leaders were shown to be greedy barons with little concern for their people, which makes perfect sense as the easily-manipulated figureheads of a shadow rebellion. It's the fans who read some noble purpose into their activity.
7. This isn't the West Wing. Don't watch adventure serials if you want politics.

 

I totally agree on this thread. This gives the Micro- Series better credit for whats happening during the "war".

 

Microseries managed to show more of the actual war in one thirty montage than TCW managed in three seasons.

 

Yea, verily.

On the contrary, Mandalorians have been part of Clone Wars lore from the beginning. If anything, the series needed more, not less, Mandalorian content.

 

1. She wasn't immature. She was being a teacher and guide for rebellions and younglings. I liked those two arcs, it shows her in a leadership position. And Ahsoka finally getting upset over the war, being expelled from the Jedi Order and basically left to die at Palpatine's hands seems like a damn good reason to not want to trust the Order again and leave.

2. While the 2 first Maul episodes took a tiny bit away from the war, they tied it back in quickly by showing all the different mercenary groups and Death Watch and crime lords joining in the war to take Mandalore. So it ended up tying into the war. It was the Clone WARS, not the Clone WAR. It was just a little third faction, another war added to the vast wars already going on.

3. Quite a few times, those Bounty Hunters are shown being hired by the Republic or the CIS and tying into the war story. Cad bane stealing the holocron for Palpatine, Bounty Hunters protecting Felucians from Hondo on a war ridden world ripe for pirates, etc. Plus, who doesn't want to see Boba Fett slowly become a badass?

4. They are very important to the series in showing the efforts of people trying to stay out of the war and be peaceful. People don't want war, including the New Mandalorians. THAT is the point of them. Then you have Death Watch attempting to reignite that warrior stance the Mandos have, and from the looks of it, they do. They do a grand performance to try and become warriors and it works. Plus, Satine and Obi brought an interesting development, showing that Obi can still have feelings but, different form Anakin, he is able to let go of those feelings and follow his code.

5. We had Rex in Onderon, Ahsoka arc, Krell, Slavers, Citadel, and some one off showings in the second half of the series, plus we have Clovis, which he will probably be in, as well as the Order 66 arc.

6. I do agree that we should have seen more of the CIS leaders. I wanted to see more of the CIS Parliament! Clovis is our last hope of seeing some CIS leaders. Don't let me down Filoni!

7. Clovis arc seems to bring back some of that Senate action we have been missing. We also spent basically the beginning of Season 3 dealing with political things. I do with more of those had shown the Senate. Imagine a 4 part Senate arc showcasing Palpatine, backstabbing, arguments form both sides for something and etc. Much like the Clone Bill arc!

 

So basically, Ahsoka should have been pleased the Council didn't trust her and just gave her over to the Senate? You've been through what she did, you wouldn't want to stay with the people who basically handed you over to be executed. The Council considered her guilty apart from Obi-Wan and possibly Yoda.

Granted, Ahsoka didn't help matters by making herself look implicated by trying to escape. Especially when in Sabotage when she tells Letta 'running means you are guilty'. Really she did not think that through but when you are placed in that situation yourself and you knew you were innocent, you would do exactly what Ahsoka did.

Your comment on her being a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is perfect in every way. They do not make mistakes, yet Ahsoka did make mistakes. Therefore she is not a Mary Sue. Also I'm sure a Mary Sue is also meant to represent the author. Basically you are saying Dave Filoni is Ahsoka while we all know he has an obsession with Plo Koon.

 

Despite Ahsoka being relatively mature in some situations, I may need to remind you she is still 16. Raging emotions happen in most teenagers, even Jedi. And it isn't the Jedi Order that is to blame for Palpatine's actions, it's that they didn't try and defend her. They expelled her for something she wasn't convicted of yet and left her rather than defend one of their own. THEN, they go and say that this was her great trial. The Jedi Order leaving her to die wasn't a trial, it was a death sentence. She can't trust them anymore. That's why she left. Not over hurt feelings, over the fact that she doesn't trust the Order to do what is right.

 

And yet she acts as if she's Yoda's age at times.

As for her departure - it was incredibly forced.

anakinfansince1983 And why would the civilians be anti-Jedi/anti-clone when they constantly win battles in TCW?

 

Remember back in Season 3 with the whole ordeal Padme made about protecting the civilians and helping them rather than more fighting and how in Senate Murders the bill ended up being passed? They are probably pissed over things like that happening over and over again. They don't care about taking this world or that world, they just want it all to stop or for the government to at least think about them.

 

I'm aware of the disconnect between the Republic winning endless battles and Padme's random accusations.

 

1. Sure, they could've handled the finale better, but that was apparently the most plausible way they could find to make her "not on ROTS."
2. I loved the resurrection of Maul. Well, not the resurrection per se, but what it entailed, which is a bunch of great episodes.
3. Bounty hunter episodes were by and large some of the best out of their seasons.
4. Couldn't disagree more. Mandalorians are always welcome, but the pacifists were unnecessary.
5. Agree, the Rex episodes were usually the best (see: Umbara).
6. They started to remedy this in Season 5 with the Super Tactical Droids, but I agree there weren't enough Sep commanders.
7. Ew, Senate. "Totally unnecessary" sums up every single one of the Senate episodes.

 

Look at many wars in our history. Wars cost money. Ex: Iraq and Afgan have put the USA into even deeper debt. Winning battles doesn't mean good for all. The money has to come from somewhere for the Republic and that somewhere are the banks and the people. And when you get as desperate to make more money and Clones as the banks and Kamino did, the the money will HAVE to be borrowed from banks and taken away from the budget of the government, like education, health care, social services etc. plus probably higher taxes (they didn't go THAT deep into government in TCW, but higher taxes are a high probability.)

 

You're delving into political war with Iraq and Afghan. As for the major wars, such as WWII, public support would be greater if your allies are winning. That's war. Don't forget the surge in public support thanks to catalysts -- Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were some, although the former had long term success following the initial attack because we defeated Japan.

 

Those catalysts are very true. However, there doesn't seem to have been that many catalysts for the main Core Worlds of the Republic. Part of Coruscant lost power for a while, but there was also the backlash created from Padme's speech. Thus why they don't have major city (planet?) wide protests like Ukraine for example, but smaller protests, probably because people were scared of the CIS and wanted clones. The thing is, the war was going on for 3 years at that point and there is no end in sight. The only reason the war didn't continue past 19 BBY was because of the fact Anakin killed all of the leaders of the CIS and threw it into chaos and disarray.

 

I cannot fill nor correct TCW and/or Lucas' writing errors, although TCW made it clear that the Republic side was winning. On screen, we saw them win. Off screen, TCW spoke of successful CIS attacks, albeit limited in comparison. The home front, in this case the Republic, would be absolutely supportive of the Jedi and clones. Its economy would be powered by the folks on the Republic worlds.

The major disconnect is why would the Republic civilians be against their own Grand Army if they're winning?

Lack of money? The Galactic Republic? That I can't buy.

Here's a simple solution: Palpatine did it. Don't forget, he's running both sides. As for ROTS - Vader's actions didn't end the war; Palpatine's actions did. He allowed Vader to go to Mustafar, kill the Jedi, ect.

 

I'm all in favour of anything that makes Ahsoka less sympathetic, but really, the story of the Jedi from the OT's impressions is that, very much as in the PT, they were too attached to ultimately counter-productive ideas of non-attachment, hence Obi-Wan's counseling Luke that "the Emperor has already won" if Luke can't kill his father, and Luke going and proving him wrong in perhaps the most emotional sequence in the saga.

 

The earlier seasons were better for focusing on the war. The CIS Council Leaders were made to be bad strategists since they got captured, but at least some were present early on in the series. It's also annoying that they hardly used the Separatist Congress.

There were some good political episodes in S3 like Supply Lines. Sphere of Influence, Heroes on Both Sides and Pursuit of Peace. Lot Dod was a pretty well done CIS villain since he was recurring and pretty competent, but he was old news after S3. It would have been a big deal for Dod to have been killed or captured later on in the series, unlike one time villains like Riff Tamson and King Rash. We needed competitive recurring OC CIS commanders, TCW team eventually went in the right direction with Admiral Trench.

On another note I wonder why two CIS Admirals were saved for future use (Trench and Mar Tuuk) but none of the CIS commanders that lead ground attacks.

 

I actually liked how versatile the show was in terms of story. Yes, it was called the Clone Wars, but I took that as a moniker for the hundreds of different adventures occurring in that time period. The Gathering is one of my favorite episodes and I thought Darth Maul's Mandalore storyline was one of the strongest arcs in the series.

 

Star Wars: Stuff occurring during the Clone Wars

 

This was my main complaint of the show in Season 4, I was hoping Season 3 was a one time thing with such a focus on other SW things and politics where we only had 5 or 6 episodes with the War actually happening in it. The more Lucas was involved the more the show got away from the conflict between the CIS and the Republic, it is unfortunate but it is what happened.

I felt Season 2 did a perfect job of balancing some side stories with the war, Voyage of Temptation still is one of my favorite episodes and was brilliant in letting the Clone Wars but with a side conflict with the Mandalorians and them lining up with the CIS. Even Season 6 seems to be split between side stories and the war.

I didn't mind arcs like the Trandoshan dualogy which was pretty much perfect imo, the Mandalorians, Maul returning (though at first I hated it) and several other things but it was quite obvious Seasons 3-5 we got away from the war and more stories Lucas wanted to do during the war not about the war, and he was obviously regretting the decision of killing off Maul.

I haven't seen you post here in a long time, maybe it is because I haven't been around here much. But yeah that is a pretty accurate title for the show from Season 3 onwards.

 

I liked the show well enough, but I think it was an uphill battle for me from the start because they retread a time period that I felt was adequately covered from 2002-2005, with the microseries being all that I personally needed to get my Clone Wars fix. I didn't need 5 seasons of 22 episodes, each 20 minutes long of battles that don't matter. The CIS winning is irrelevant, since Palpatine can reverse those losses at any time, and Jedi victories are irrelevant since Palpatine can wipe them out with but a single command.

The microseries had the advantages of being more succinct as well as capitalizing on ROTS hype. TCW seemed to just wander forward and backward in the timeline, going from battles to completely arbitrary adventures that are only tangential to the war in any sense.

I had very little hype for the show, had no interest in seeing the TCW film, but having set my expectations so low, I actually was surprised by Season 1.

With Rebels, it's a conflict that matters, that does not have a pre-determined (in universe) outcome and has the benefit of riding tides of nostalgia as well as Episode VII hype.

I liked TCW, especially from an animation standpoint. But I really don't think it should have been made over a multitude of other stories that can be told in the Star Wars universe.

I'm actually looking forward to Episode VII more than anything, because for once, I'd like to get out of this time frame that centers around Palpatine and Anakin.