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Lit Clone Wars Multimedia Project vs. The Clone Wars

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Orman Tagge, Aug 23, 2014.

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Do you prefer the Clone Wars multimedia project or The Clone Wars?

  1. Multimedia Project

    62 vote(s)
    64.6%
  2. The Clone Wars

    34 vote(s)
    35.4%
  1. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    wasn't born before '99 or after?
     
  2. Noash_Retrac

    Noash_Retrac Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 14, 2006
    I was born in '89 and I could name 200+ Star Wars characters off the top of my head from both the Movies, EU, CW and other sources.
     
  3. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    mace towani ftw
     
  4. Dawud786

    Dawud786 Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 28, 2006

    Edited.
     
  5. vnu

    vnu Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2012
    Agreed.

    But I preferred the Multimedia project. It was more linear then TCW and did a great job picking off where AotC ended and bridging us to RotS. The Separatists were much more of a threat. If you watched just the TCW, you'd have no idea the Separatists actually got victories. I still just can't accept the fact that Darth Maul survived. I think he was cloned.
    TCW did bring some good elements though:
    +Hondo
    +Cad Bane
    +Actually, the majority of the bounty hunters and their episodes were really good
    +Mandalore and the Death Watch
    +Quinlan Vos (even if they butchered him)
    +Y-Wings and Z-95 Headhunters
    +The clones were generally pretty good.
    +Some really great arcs that come to mind: Geonosis, Umbara, Mandalore, Dathomir, The Chosen One arc, the Yoda arc, the Order 66 arc)


    My favorite elements from the multimedia project:
    +The Separatists
    +Did a much better job of covering all of the interlocking characters (Obi-Wan and Anakin, Quinlan Vos, Boba Fett, Count Dooku)
    +Introduced way more Jedi and other characters (What!!!?!!?!?!? There's more Jedi then just the Council?????)
    +Jabiim, Durge, the really old 2D CartoonNetwork Clone Wars, Dark Rendezvous, the old Clone Wars video game for XBox, GameCube, and PS2, Labyrinth of Evil.
    +The battles were much bigger

    Although the Dark Times is my favorite era now and I had been a fan since before TPM came out, it was the multimedia project and its tale of the Clone Wars that really got me hooked onto the EU
     
    AusStig, Dawud786 and spicer like this.
  6. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    *Look at poll*

     
  7. Sable_Hart

    Sable_Hart Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2009
    As is ever the case with the prequel-era, it's a mixed bag.

    On the one hand, I love what TCW brought to the table in terms of fleshing out the clones, pretty engaging story arcs (Umbara, Slaves of the Republic, Mandalore, etc.) exploring supporting characters, and introducing more elements to an otherwise potentially bland crisis of clones vs. robots: Death Watch, Nightsisters, Umbarans, etc. Resurrecting Maul was a thinly-veiled marketing ploy that surprisingly rolled 6's and gave us "The Lawless," which is easily one of the best Star Wars stories ever told in any medium. Anakin became likable without totally sacrificing his darker aspects. And, of course, Palpatine is reaffirmed as the galaxy's biggest BAMF. That said, it also gave us a lot of really sub-par episodes and stories and crappy moments.

    On the other hand, the multimedia project wasn't nearly as dynamic or multifaceted in its approach. Next to TCW, it's pretty static and straightforward. But it also gave me Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, which is by far the greatest Star Wars book of all time.

    It's a tieeeeee
     
  8. Zeta1127

    Zeta1127 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    But clones vs. droids is the Clone Wars, so I couldn't care less about Death Watch, Talzin Nightsisters, or Umbarans.
     
    AusStig likes this.
  9. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    I agree, that's why the NJO is terrible because there's no Sith. Star Wars is about Jedi vs Sith.
     
  10. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    This. I mean more could go on than just Clones and Droids but it feels like Maul coming into the picture takes away from Dooku, Grievous, Nute Gunray, San Hill, Wat Tambor, Poggle the Lesser etc. Savage was interesting but was regulated to sidekick when Maul came back. When was the last time we saw the Separatist council?
     
    AusStig, LelalMekha and Zeta1127 like this.
  11. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    Actually forget my crappy prior post:

    The real bad Clone Wars novel is Shatterpoint, because the Clone Wars are about clones vs droids, not the Korunnai vs the Balawai. I couldn't care less about that garbage.
     
  12. Zeta1127

    Zeta1127 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Well, I didn't mean nothing else couldn't happen during the Clone Wars, I just meant I couldn't care less about TCW's sideshows to the main clones vs. droids conflict.
     
  13. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    agreed about the summertime war
     
  14. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
    I do think there's a case to be made that some of the "side" plotlines in TCW - like Maul, for all that he was way more interesting than he should have been - had essentially nothing to do with the Clone Wars. But trying to reduce the Clone Wars to just droids versus clones is silly.
     
  15. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    Maul was a wild card in the Clone Wars. He introduced a third faction that wasn't under the control of the Dark Lord of the Sith. The Death Watch were allied with the CIS initially. AFAIK so were the Umbarans but I never watched that arc.

    I don't think I'm going to complain about novels with Star Wars on the cover that don't have Star Wars in them, so I wouldn't complain about an episode of the Clone Wars in which the Clone Wars isn't front and center.
     
  16. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
    The Umbarans are probably the most prominently-featured non-droid CIS forces in the show, so yeah.

    And I'm not really complaining about Maul; as I said, he was far more interesting than he had any right to be. But I do think there's a lot more solid basis for saying that the heavy focus on him in later seasons meant it got shifted away from the war a little then there is for complaining about any episode not featuring droids vs. clones.
     
  17. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Shift to Civil Wars on planets then. The Mon Calamari vs. the Quarren, the stuff on Onderon, etc.
     
    AusStig likes this.
  18. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    Oh I wasn't referring to you complaining about Maul. :p
     
  19. Valin__Kenobi

    Valin__Kenobi Author: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Praji star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Mar 30, 2004
    That's a really good way of putting it. In comparison the multimedia was definitely more A-to-B-to-C, connect-the-dots, but that's precisely what it was meant to do. It bridged two projects that were not under its control, one of which was still being changed during production.

    TCW had the huge advantages of knowing how the story would end, and of Lucas' involvement meaning that ideas didn't have to be rejected just because they were too "big" or off-the-wall to contemplate. (Qui-Gon in the lost episodes, for example, would never have been tackled without his blessing.) And since Lucas is never reluctant to pull the rug out from the basic underpinnings of even his own stories, this resulted in some honestly bizarre material being chucked in and shaking up the setting. Some turned out brilliantly, much was utter tripe, with the rest plotting a solid course down the mediocrity valley, but even at its worst TCW was engaging in a trainwreck kind of way ... which is more than can be said for some of the by-the-numbers EU stories we've gotten over the years.
     
  20. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    The issue with TCW sideshows was not that it took away from clones vs. droids. The issue is that it took away from the war itself and seemed to have nothing to do with the movies. The show very often sacrificed continuity and consistency for the sake of drama and/or promoting characters.

    Maul is a good example of this, although admittedly I ended up liking him better than I did in TPM.

    But...Mandalore. Was there a point somewhere? Were the Separatists recruiting them or were they just being attacked by some gangs?

    Pirates. Again, was there a point somewhere? Seems that pirates were used in some of the comics to demonstrate the lack of security in the Old Republic and make Valorum look bad so that Palpatine could more easily take over, but I'm seeing no connection here.

    The Hardeen arc. A point there other than the Jedi Council trolling Anakin? Don't even get me started on The Box. Just...why?

    Mina Bonteri had the potential to be an interesting side story showing the "heroes on both sides" but the show completely dropped the ball on that one in favor of Lux romancing Ahsoka.

    The Nightsisters arc worked as a side story as it changed the dynamic of the Separatists when it showed how Ventress moved away from working for Dooku and went to working for herself.
     
  21. Sable_Hart

    Sable_Hart Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2009
    Can't speak for everyone, but as much as I love the prequel storyline, incessant droid vs. clone action has the potential for some major boredom. (Especially when the droids aren't particularly engaging, being generic robots and all.) Introducing third party factions and connecting them back to the Republic or Confederacy in one way or another is a pretty novel way to keep things fresh. New dynamics, new engaging characters, new opportunities, etc.

    TCW suffered a horrific identity crisis due to a lack of cogent vision (the show began as an ensemble effort that concerned the war itself, then clumsily transitioned into another Anakin-centric chapter in the Star Wars saga, then apparently became the Ahsoka/Ventress Chronicles but not really?) but a lot of the ideas were highly inspired.
     
    Valin__Kenobi likes this.
  22. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    This was interesting to me because it was a failed attempt to convert Anakin before Episode III.
     
  23. Dawud786

    Dawud786 Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 28, 2006
    TCW had to depart from the clones vs droids conceit of the War, because how long can you go with competent clone troopers blasting slapstick battle droids?

    There's no reason whatsoever that those doofy looking battle droids from TPM felt somewhat menacing on Geonosis in AOTC. Then GL went with slapstick battle droid humor in ROTS, even the scarier super battle droids and droidekas got the comedic treatment. So TCW rolls with that. Why was that a smart decision for a war about clone troopers fighting for the fate of the galaxy with these goofball battle droids?

    So, yeah, the other tangents departed from the main theaters of the war... but how could you not, given these dopey droids?
     
  24. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    The Box. Seeing however many Bounty Hunters it was competing against each other was awesome.
     
    Darth_Garak likes this.
  25. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    The battle droid "humor" was obnoxious and never should have been there in the first place.
     
    AusStig, Davak24, Riv_Shiel and 5 others like this.