Lit Clone Wars Multimedia Project vs. The Clone Wars

Wow, I was really angry back in 2014. That probably wasn’t healthy.

 

While one can definitely make the argument that TCW was was more enjoyable, I will always die on the hill that the MMP was tonally superior, and far more consistent with the PT.

The problems with TCW lie at the core of the show. It is a fun, entertaining kid's show, ostensibly set during a pointless war amidst the rise of fascism. Perhaps the premise doomed it to fail in these regards. Either way, I think the show is somewhat irresponsible considering what the Prequels are about.

The Prequels make it very clear that the Republic is a proto-fascist state. It has an army of (storm)troopers that are willing to commit genocide. The vast majority of senators are fully onboard with the Empire, and presumably their constituencies are in agreement. The clone war itself is completely pointless and was created by the Sith. The main characters in the PT insist that the war must be ended as soon as possible. As flawed as the Prequels were, I believe they have a principled anti-war message at their core.

I don't believe TCW meaningfully engages with any of these key points from the Prequels. TCW gives the entire conflict the Disney treatment. Just as colonialism can be pinned on one evil person in a Disney film, the rise of fascism in TCW can only be pinned on Palpatine and a select few. The masses of soldiers that make the regime possible are free of any blame.

TCW insists that we cheer for the Republic and the war that it fights. To that end we can't view the Republic as unsavory or the war unjust. While the show portrays Padme as righteous in wanting to end the war, the show implicitly shows the war as being necessary. Every time we encounter the CIS it's clear that they are an evil force that must be vanquished. Padme seems almost incorrect for wanting to stop the Republic from defeating such an evil foe. No separatist in the show has a legitimate reason to support their side of the conflict. Conversely, nearly all the Republic's soldiers are shown as moral individuals. The clones are raised their entire lives for war, but this isn't much of a problem since the war is constantly justified. Even clear war crimes the Republic commits are shown as the correct course of action. When Order 66 is initiated, it can only happen due to every clone being mind-controlled. Similarly, the only evil non-clone soldiers of the Republic are few and far between "bad apples" (Krell, Tarkin). TCW constantly shows that masses of people are incapable of committing crimes. Only the evil leaders and their armies of robots can be blamed. Even Anakin, often very unlikeable in the Prequels, is a charming hero for the entirety of TCW.

On the other hand, the MMP perfectly compliments the PT's themes and even fleshes them out in many cases. The Jabiim arc is a perfect example. The seperatists are very brutal and unsavory, yet they have perfectly valid reasons for resisting the Republic. Ultimately however, the war is shown to be a horrible conflict where no side can meaningfully claim victory. Naturally, the clones are largely much less likable because of the negative light in which the war is portrayed. The clones are raised to not question war or their government, and are quite callous as a result. Even a more likable clone like Alpha has no qualms for killing anyone in the way of a Republic victory. The fact that the clones carry out Order 66 is ultimately no surprise. It only makes sense to portray the soon-to-be stormtroopers as the Empire's staunchest supporters. Within the Republic, we see a society that already resembles the Empire in many ways. The Jedi genuinely seem like moral people compared to their backdrop. Unfortunately the conflict is simply too big for the Jedi to effect anything. The war mostly goes on despite the Jedi's inhibitions. With the Schism arc we see that not participating in the conflict is a very rational choice. Ultimately, the Jedi's disagreements on how to handle the war shows how questionable the entire conflict is.

 

To no ones suprise, I prefer the Multimedia Project. I think it shows the horror of the war and the war it makes good people into bad people. Jabiim, is this in a nutshell. Anakin didn't go in planing to leave a bunch of people to die and sending his friends to their deaths. But it happened, because he felt he had no choice. We see the senate vote Palpatine more and more powers.

The comics aren't the only example, Shatterpoint has Mace, struggle through people being horrible, while trying and succeeding in being a jedi. As well the Cestus Deception has Obi and Kit trick the people of the planet, through fales flag attacks, after Ventress exposes them (side note she is really good in that book even if not in there much), the back up plan is to nuke the factories from Orbit.

And of course it ends in Labyrinth of Evil, a great story I have spoken of at length in another thread.

As well I hate the chips. Since in my view it shifts the focus of the tragedy of the war, from it's victims and the Jedi to those who commit the crimes. in the MMP the clones humanity, was (largely) skin deep.

As well the CIS have wins, they feel like a threat, we also see more of them through Voss. While the MMP did often shift focus from the front lines it still felt like it was all connected to the war, while TCW doesn't. I mean we end up fighting Maul more than the CIS in later seasons it seems (though season 7, where this does happen, might be skewing my memories).

Which is not to say TCW is bad. It does Padme MUCH better than MMP, since she only really shows up in Labyrinth of Evil as a supporting character to Bail and in some eps of the 2D cartoon.

To me the MMP was like Transformers Beast Wars, having a smaller scope of characters lead to it focusing in more on them and giving the bad guys wins to keep them threatening, while TCW was more like G1, having a larger cast allowed for more story but it also went wondering off and the bad guys are kinda useless.

 

I personally think the storyline of the Multimedia Project is much more coherent and interesting, but the emotions conveyed by TCW are not comparable to anything. When Ahsoka left the Jedi Order I felt her pain and her sadness almost as if I was tasting all those feelings myself. The same goes with the end of the Seventh Season. So I could say that I prefer the Multimedia Project in terms of the overall storyline, but I prefer TCW in terms of emotions and atmosphere.

 

@SpecForce Trooper

Funny enough your reasons for disliking TCW is the reason I prefer it...Because it feels more true to Star Wars's tone.

Yay...Growth

 

I like both, but at the end of the day I will prefer TCW over the MMP. Especially for the following reasons...

-I prefer Anakin's relationship with Padme in TCW over the MMP. I also like Padme more overall in TCW.
-I prefer the clones in TCW over the clones in the MMP. Not that there aren't clones that I like in the MMP, standouts include Alpha and Fordo. But they still don't get as much focus as the clones in TCW.
-I prefer Anakin and Obi-Wan's relationship in TCW over the MMP.
-I prefer Ventress in TCW over the MMP, I felt like she was given a much more interesting character arc while in the MMP her story ends just when it could have gotten more interesting.
-Anakin's relationship with Ahsoka in TCW, giving him a dynamic that's absent from the MMP.

Overall, I just prefer Anakin's story in TCW over the MMP because of how TCW depicts his relationship with Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and Padme, as well as his growing mistrust of the Jedi and his slow fall to the dark side.

Also, TCW has Hondo.

 

I think a lot of it depends on how much are you ok with TCW’s pretty much reboot of the Prequel Era in general and prefer the tone and style overall

 

@Jid123Sheeve
Describing it as nearly a reboot is very useful way to look at it. I think there's a reason many people love TCW in spite of their dislike of the PT.
While somewhat charming in RotS, Anakin is still a bratty school shooter for the majority of episodes II and III. TCW's Anakin takes enough liberties to be considered essentially his own character. We don't see any progression from the AotC Anakin to a more likable character in TCW.
Personally I prefer the dry humor and darker, angsty tone of the MMP. I think the comics were lacking in comedy at times, but combine the best of the comics with the microseries and you have a pretty great tone. This could've been refined a bit and would make for a great full-length series, but TCW took a radically different approach.

 

See, I actually think this is a misreading of TCW's views of the decline of the Republic, the portrayal of the clones, and it's overall thesis on war.

Yes, the show as it is when it begins is largely in the classic serial adventure mould of movements in the war. Episodes are largely light-hearted and portray the conflict positively (with some exceptions, Trespass and The Hidden Enemy are both early eps that disrupt this narrative). But by and large, the first part of the show is very traditional heroics, much like Rebels or the OT.

This is intentional, so as to gradually show the effects of the war. As it progresses, the series darkens, and situations become more complicated. The Clones, very simple heroic figures at first, are emblematic of this. By Season 4, the show goes to great lengths to begin casting them in a darker light, whether it be the sustained grimness on Umbara hardening them, the callous disregard for the natives on Aleena, or even ending up as outright antagonists in multiple arcs (Ahsoka fugitive or Fives conspiracy arc). The show becomes very suspicious of the idea that the clones are necessarily a force for good.

One thing that slightly skews the perception of how the clones are portrayed in TCW is the fact the primary lens we're given on their development is through Anakin's clones in the 501st. The is mostly due to his anarchic influence, different to most Jedi's methods of leading their soldiers. Obi-Wan's troopers never really develop in this same way (example, Cody, who is much more by the books than Rex, and carries out Order 66 without a second's thought because of this). When we see other clone units, they're often more regimented and strict (particularly the Coruscant guard, closest to Palpatine's influence). Personality is something the Jedi encourage, but Anakin, being the person that he is, allows it to flourish more than most, which leads to the wrong idea that all clones are as free-thinking. There is the concept of the chips, but one could argue that it adds to the horrors of war in a way. The foot soldiers never really have a choice whether to follow orders from higher up in the real world either. It doubles the horror, all victims in Palpatine's game.

I don't think that's particularly far from the way the Prequels themselves presented the conflict. Take for example the opening 20 minutes of ROTS, which set the template for much of TCW's tone in the early days. It's all very light and jokey, with one direct moment of surprise darkness in the death of Dooku. But otherwise the conflict is presented rather unambiguously as good, at least within those confines. The rest of the movie throws shade on that conception, but then so does much of TCW.

(Anakin's likability being supposedly higher in TCW is also due to expanding from the opening ROTS. Simply stated, AOTC and ROTS are the worst days of his life, burdened down by terrible portents and visions of his loved ones dying. Not to excuse him any crimes, but as we see in parts of AOTC and the start of ROTS, he's not always so sombre or moody. Him being jovial heightens the fear in those moments when he truly has something to lose. Not to mention all the times he does actually flirt with dark side tendencies)

There are episodes, for example, on how funding the war is leading to the vast bankrupting of the Republic, leaving social services starved and the citizens of the galaxy suspicious at best of the Jedi or war. There's Palpatine unilaterally taking control of the banks, or his callous experimentation on the Zillo Beast. Those episodes, the 'political' ones, usually star Padme, and usually end in Pyhrric victories at the most, outright losses more regularly. This feels to me very Prequel-like, particularly TPM, in which the ending is outwardly the happiest in any Star Wars movie, with it's joyful parade. But all the while, control of the galaxy has already passed into Sidious' hands. We don't see much of the average person in the films themselves, due to time constraints, but I think there's a clearer view of how people could be convinced by Palpatine, of how the Senate is already selling itself out for the war's sake, than we get in the PT (a few lines about voting the Chancellor more powers in ROTS being the most gesturing towards that idea).

Then there's the view of the Separatists. Again, seeming very black and white, given the litany of one-off Sep villains in early seasons. But again, we also see the Sep parliament on Raxus, ordinary people who go along with Dooku for his ideological views, just as easily as citizens in the Republic believe in Palpatine. It's not done often, but there's enough there to give a sense that from their point of view they see the Republic as equally culpable. We see the 'evil' of the Seps, but they think the same of the clones or Jedi. It makes us question which side truly has the moral high ground, and when one ends up becoming a dictatorial empire at the end of the conflict, it's not hard to see why the Separatists have a moral argument to make.

(Tangent, but combining the ideas lined out in Heroes on Both Sides, along with the 'propaganda newsreel' vibes of the opening, lends a delightfully cynical view of early The Clone Wars as little more than skewed narratives favouring the Republic, and conjure in my mind a parallel version starring Dooku and Grievous as heroic reconstructed figures of myth, just like the Jedi or clones. I hope someday we get a proper narrative from that point of view, it'd be fascinatingly subversive).

I do think part of the message of TCW not coming across quite as clearly as it could have is due to the curtailed runtime. It never got to fully pan out its story, with a similar trajectory to the Prequels (starting out uncomplicated and adding depth and nuance). Given the way it ultimately ended, with the very artifice of the Republic's war effort completely shattered and broken, left to die in the snow, I'd hardly say the show as a whole has a pro-war message.

I just really think that a lot of the show has to be ignored to declare it in such a black and white way to what came before, even if my direct experience of the pre-2008 era is mostly confined to the microseries (which was as its core itself a very simple adventure serial with a pro-Republic bent for the most part).

Edit: The contrast between early TCW and its later darkness adds to the critique. Every move, every supposed win is part of a fake war for false ambitions. Like moves on a game board, but ultimately meaningless. It allows the show to acts as simple exciting action, before criticising the entire endeavour as hollow and suspect, becoming a tool of evil. The critique is expanded to encompass the entire genre, all simplified adventure stories, highlighting the way such narratives are constructed.

Edit 2: There are some other aspects of TCW too worth highlighting that I didn’t mention, which further complicate a ‘Republic good’ simplistic narrative. The growth of criminal underworlds and Maul’s rise only occur due to the blindness of the Republic caught up in its pointless conflict. There’s Ahsoka’s choice to step away from it all due to a moral horror at how the soul of the Jedi has been sold out in support of a corrupt system. The creation of the Onderon rebels, who we know (even back in 2012) will end up only fighting the institutions that created them. Or how someone like Yularen, nominal good guy ally, ends up sitting in conference on the Death Star.

 

I mean I do think Clone Wars approach is Prequel Era with the OT's Tone

Probably why it fits better with the NuCano which i think broadly wants to keep a more OT tone to many of its major projects, some exceptions of course.

 

Hope you don't mind me jumping in, I don't want you to feel ganged up on, but I disagree with some of your views.

The show has no thesis on the war. Since in the first and last seasons a major plot is getting people involved in the war and it is shown as a good thing. That this fight is a 'good fight' as moral as the later rebellion against the Empire. But we know it's not because the Republic these people are fighting for will vote to become the empire in a few years.

I don't think there was a plan to always go darker, I think some stuff got more serious, as tends to happen with non-comedy shows, they wanted to up the drama.

While I agree with Ahsoka, don't forget the driving force for that is Tarkin and for Fives it's Palpatine's fault, there is nothing siad about the inherint nature of the clones, they are just soliders ordinary people who happen to look alike. But as to Umbara, no. The only reason there is bad stuff on Umbara is Krell. We don't see ANYTHING from the view of the people who's home is being invaded, they are just enemies.

What eps had Aleena?

But if all we see is these people then that is what we are being shown. That might sound dumb but let me explain. If all we are shown is X as an example people will assume X is the default (as seen with aliens in Star Wars). So if the show is focusing on these human clones, in season 1 we also see Yoda and Plo Koon humanising there forces, then people will assume that this is the default.

So why would these people shoot their friends if, unlike in MMP where they are shown to obey and be ruthless, even the most human ones, what can we do?

I would argue they reduce it. In the MMP the Clones were always bad guys we just didn't know until order 66. The Jedi and the audience thought they were mostly ok, a little rough and ruthless, but over all good people. But they weren't they were soldiers they obeyed orders whether those orders were; take that hill, kill that droid gun, sacrifice yourself so civilians can escape or shoot your commander because they are involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the government. The clones aren't the victims though, they are the enforcers. If the horror is focused on them you lose focus on the people they are hurting.

There is a difference between a movie where everything is in the same 'viewing' at least in theory, and a show where people might at best watch 2-3 ep arcs at once. So there is more of a disconnect between the lighter stuff and the somewhat darker stuff. The MMP is able to get the mix better, likely due to the different mediums, in my view at least.

100% agree, same with MMP, since Anakin is able to act more like an action hero where he excels.

Doesn't Palpatine lose the vote about the social services though? He just goes around it another way. Which to me UNDERMINES the message, since it shows that the Senate isn't as corrupt as it should be. In the MMP the Senate is totally in the pocket of Palpatine. Also the Zillo Beast is all due to Palpatine, it is all due to a bad egg, not inherent in the system like it is in the MMP.

Which we also see in the MMP, where it is fear of attack (terrorism is featured in the comic) that leads to the Senate giving him more and more power. While we do see something like that in TCW, the power bombing it is more about just keeping the war going.

We see them in 2 episodes I think. While it does do a decent job of showing both sides, we mostly focus on the one good person who gets killed. I think the MMP does a better job of showing why people join the CIS, Jabiim, felt ignored until Ore was discovered, and then in the Voss arc there is the ishi tib, who were ruled by a Republic backed dictator until Dooku killed him.

We see people suffer from the CIS on Ryloth, Zygeria and the leamur people. We don't see people suffer from the Republic attack, as mentioned the Umbarans get no focus.

Would be fun to see. I like the idea that the galaxy never learned Dooku was Palpatines servant and he gets recast as a noble-proto rebel post Empire.

Well the show has arcs, like 3-5 episodes long, so it's not like they had no scope.

But the show also devotes a lot of time to the righteousness of the struggle, even as late as the Bad Batch Arc or the attack on Mandalore, it was shown that fighting was a good thing. We don't see any civs during the Siege of Mandalore arc, just an evil force (not even CIS just some other force) being forced out.

I think you are playing down a lot of the show. And the 08 show was VERY limited in scope, being a few min long most eps. The entire show is only 2 hours long. But that is also just a part of the project. The books and comics did a lot of the work.

I don't think this really holds up since the war seems to go nowhere through out most of its run, we don't really get a sense of the ebb and flow of the war the same war we do in the comics and Labyrinth of Evil.

But that is mostly due to Maul. A bad guy, going out of his way to make it grow even then it mostly affects Mandalore, outside the Republic. Ashoka got hung out by the Jedi so she leaves them, that is a ciritism of the Jedi and some what the Republic.

But the Onderon Rebels are good and then they fight the Empire, while it has elements of what you mention it is a weak example.

We never see his turn, so he just seems to move along with things.

Not saying there is nothing, it's just not much.

I also think TCW missed a great opportunity to ad depth, through Umbara. Even just give one of them a line like "I am fighting because your here" OR "Why don't you go wreck your own home". Something to make these people more than just enemies.

 

I do wonder in some regards with the reboot aspect of it all, if George was trying to make The Clone Wars mesh better with the Original Trilogy then the Prequels do (Not that anything in Star Wars ever truly meshes)

For example I feel like Anakin is far more closer to how Obi-Wan described him in A New Hope then the Prequels as being "A Good Friend"

Although to be fair even with matching Clone Wars Obi-Wan has a bit of a bias of his "Friendship" with Anakin and in both TCW and The PT it does seem like a very one sided friendship not gonna lie...not gonna lie.

 

Guys you don't have to see these as two divergent arcs at all. Here try this, https://boards.theforce.net/threads/clone-wars-media-timeline-one-canon.50056004/#post-57347125

 

One canons are fun and all from a timeline perspectives

but that still doesn’t address things like tone and character dynamics

 

Yes we do. This is a discussion about that after all

 

That's something I just don't agree with, time again the war is shown to be tearing out the heart of all that's good in the Republic

But there's a clear growing trend of the show increasing in complexity around Season 3, the show grows with its audience just like the Prequels. I could point to the increase of episodes dealing with heavy topics, but to argue it wasn't intentional seems to miss vast swathes of what the show was trying to accomplish.

But the Ahsoka arc is same one in which we see major protests against the clones, in which an ordinary citizen of the Republic (Letta Turmond) is motivated enough to commit a terrorist bombing at the heart of the Jedi due to her views against the Clone War. In which the very engines of war are turned against Ahsoka in pursuit, and in which even the Jedi council is unable to escape being tarred by the failings of the story. It's not for nothing that Ahsoka leaves in that arc, it's an inherently political story about how the political system is unsalvagable from within.

Season 4 Episode 5, Mercy Mission, in which the clones are shown as ignorant and uncaring in the face of a natural disaster, wanting nothing more to get off the world and back to the war, leaving C-3PO of all people as the nominal protagonist (who the clones are also constantly insensitive too, so they completely miss the entire problem in the episode relating to the cultural rites of the Aleena)

That is partly true, stemming from Season 1 being the defining memory that casts a shadow over the rest of the show. Later seasons are definitely more complicated on that matter. But even then I'd argue it's no different to the portrayal in ROTS, where Cody goes from joking around with Obi-Wan to callously murdering him seconds later. TCW just extrapolated from that, rather than making the clones more emotionless as in the mircoseries.

I think that's debatable, it is possible for the clones to also be victims. They are, after all, artificial slaves indoctrinated and forced to fight, the concept is inherently dehumanising. Palpatine and his war machine, the non-clones that run things, are still culpable, and the idea that the average front line soldier in most wars is ever fully independent to choose is tenuous. I suppose it comes down to personal taste, on whether one wants to explore the nature of the clones one way or another.

That seems like an odd way to view TCW to me. It all went out in one consistent medium with the same title each time. Whereas the MMP was a varied set of texts, spread across multiple mediums, with no clear united authorship. Yes, it's possible to rate each episode individually, but you can't ignore the fullness of the text, which for TCW means the whole run of the show. It'd be like criticising TPM for valourising war without seeing the latter two prequels.

Padme 'wins' in that vote episode by making a big impassioned speech. But we don't actually see if her vote mattered in the long run. We end on Palpatine, scheming away, and later episodes show that Padme's words weren't enough to stem the tide of war. It's a purely symbolic victory that has no effect on the rising tide of corruption within the Senate.

That's certainly possible, as I said, I would like more eps from the alternate Sep perspective.

Regarding Mandalore, now that's just not even true, we do see civs on Mandalore all the time, including times in that last arc in which the clones are shown moving people around the city. There's also their previous importance in all the prior Mandalore episodes, be it through bombing campaigns, food shortages, government corruption, outside attacks. The citizens' perspective shapes a lot of the story of Mandalore.

And, the framing of the arc is clearly presenting it as a negative outcome for Mandalore. The audience is primed to expect Order 66 and the founding of the Empire. The whole big Siege is tinged with that fact. Even a new viewer won't fail to miss the ominous music after the siege is over, or Maul's portentous predictions.

The whole Mandalore conflict in TCW was always a microcosm of the war, with Republic intervention being stated many times as the number one worst outcome during the early seasons. Yes, Maul is a particularly black and white villain (slightly more complicated by Ahsoka's doubt over his proposal), but I don't think the wider context of everything leading up to that point can be ignored. Satine's goal of pacifism is gone, an occupying force walks the streets, Ahsoka sides with an ex-terrorist. Rebels further showed the terrible after-effects (though it aired before due to cancellation weirdness). It's one of the most blatant arcs, where the subtext of the awful interventionist policy of the Republic becomes text at last. Reading it as a mere liberation or salvation for Mandalore is the wrong message.

Now Bad Batch, I might agree with you, that arc really is a much more simple adventure plot, though Rex's arc of nostalgia falling away by the end is an interesting development. I think it's another example of the curtailed run sabotaging some of the show's messaging, since it was never meant to be 'one third of the final season' when written, though it was always meant to be a bit of breather after the previous clone-centric arcs.

But then we're back to the micro vs macro debate. If the microseries shouldn't be given greater priority even as it's the most visible and accessible part of the project, then why should the earlier unreconstructed parts of TCW take more precedence than the parts with more depth?

 

This isn't really what happens though. The Republic isn't really bad until order 66. There is a big divide between the Republic and the Empire. While in the MMP and especially the Dark Lord Trilogy, it is made clear that there is NO difference between the Republic and Empire besides name. That is the tragedy of the Clone Wars, not that the good guys lost, but that they thought they could win at all.

To claim it was some kind of plan is to read into things where there is nothing. It wasn't part of a plan, they just wanted to make things more dramatic.

What do you think they wanted to accomplish?

So they have issues with the Jedi not the clones. But again they are only turned against Ashoka due to Tarkin. What effects does the bombing have though? Yes Ashoka leave and that could be read as a condemnation of the Jedi but I still think it pales to what the MMP did. It's one arc, not an on going theme. This isn't something that is built up through out the show the arc just kind of happens. It also felt like it was as much directed towards the Jedi for not trusting her as being part of a fallen Republic.

So it was a one off ep, I think you are over stating this.

I wouldn't say there were emotionless in the Microshow, but again that was a small part of the whole MMP. Also I think TCW goes to far against it, since Cody didn't change he was still the guy he was before and after order 66. While TCW tells us "the old Cody is dead, now Chip has control".

I don't think it is debatable.

If you feel that then you disagree with the post WW2 war crimes trails which said "I was only obeying orders" was not a defence. Everyone is in the end responsibile for their own actions and lot of people take the easy option. Just go along, don't ask questions, just obey, which I find more insidious than "a mind control chip made me do it".

But yes it is a personal view.

You don't site down to watch the Entire show in one sitting, at least not when it came out. You can look at each ep, each arc and then the show entire. But the show isn't consistent. It isn't telling one long story, it is tell a lot of small and medium some times connected, sometimes not stories. The comics and books of the MMP told different stories, but they seemed to refer to each other more than TCW did.

TCW might be one show, but it isn't one story, this isn't even like NJO where the story drives the war. In TCW the war kinda just happens, as I said before we don't get a sense of loses or victories affecting anything.

While there are some exceptions to this the show mostly does it's own thing. Which isn't bad it runs for 7 seasons, more than 130 episodes. But some of it feels disjointed, like the Naboo plot when Grevious is captured or the Slavers.

While the Mandaore stuff does keep going it stops being about the Clone Wars and becomes the Maul wars. This isn't one fully cohesive story, and I don't think it's peaks as high as the MMP and I think the troughs are lower. Which is not to say I think it is bad, just not as good as what came before.

See even that undermines the message of the PT. It was that Palpatine had already won. He was just weakening his enemies before the final blow. There were no victories to be found in the senate, symbolic or real. The corruption isn't rising during the clone wars, it had already been filled before the war started. In the Republic comics there is a similar situation, where Bail (who is the focus of Coruscant stuff in the comics) give a smilar speech, though about freedom. And it does nothing, he loses the vote and things just carry on. Which I think keeps the theme better.

You should read the epic legends collections of the Clone Wars then. They show what i was talking about.

Where are they during the battle? I don't recall that.

But that was before. They stop mattering once Maul takes over and the mando civil war starts.

It is bad because of order 66 not the battle itself. The war, the conflict is good and honourable. Which I don't like as a view of the Clone Wars.

I disagree. This isn't like the war, because the Heroes can win, it isn't being run by the same guy on both sides. Maul is a black villain and they beat him. It is only bad because of order 66. Satine's sister switches sides and isn't treated like a bad guy after Maul takes over (much).So agin I disagree with your view.


The tragedy of the war was that that the Jedi thought they could win, that they thought there was anything good in the Republic to defend. In the MMP there wasn't, while in TCW it is. Rebels makes this explicit, the Empire won the war.

It might not have been intended as that when first written, but it became that. It still has the same message. Which is that the fight is good.

Well even assuming it is the most visible part. It's not the main part. Should TCW be judged by the movie? Since before season 7 that was likely the most famous part of the show.

You also pick out some parts of the show, the Ashoka arc 4 episodes out of 130+.

We all highlight different parts of the stories we consume. Agin I would recommend getting the Epic collections of the Clone Wars comics and also the books when they are reprinted.

 

@AusStig I just think you're being very uncharitable about The Clone Wars' messaging regarding the overall themes presented.

You point out individual incidents that imply the show is presenting war is a 'good thing', but then say that my examples of the growing darkness are one-offs that don't meant anything. You can't have it both ways. Like the Aleena example, present in Series 4 at the start of an increase the clones' sense of menace, making them sinister figures. It's part of a trend, not an isolated incident.

That's partly what I was pointing out by highlighting the microseries as a simpler tale, it's not the full extent of the wider story, but it is still a part of it. I'm sure the old multimedia project has a similar depth, I was never stating it didn't (as again, I've not really dipped my toe into its full expanse). The idea of TCW being some kind of dumbed down story that valourises the war simply doesn't match the way the series presents such themes when taken as a whole.

Sure, some arcs are just 4 episodes out a whole, but that's how the old project worked too, multiple works coming together to tell a whole, despite some telling simpler narratives.

 

Nope. It sort of worked for a while, but then TCW just. had. to. keep. going. Now it goes into ROTS, totally invalidating Labyrinth of Evil/Tartakovsky, and I’m not willing to lose that.

 

I still vastly prefer MMP force of nature Grevious to TCW mustache twirling Grevious.

 

And you haven't even read most of the MMP so you really have no idea about it.

TCW doesn't and never did have a plan. Is the mortis arc part of this plan about the war? Are the nightsisters? So much stuff happens that has nothing to do with the war. Mual is a great example of this, he has nothing to do with the war and he takes up a big part of the show a lot of the darker stuff is about him. That isn't a comment on the war, that is making things darker and more dramatic.

You would place a single episode over 2 long arcs, or eve more. Since your examples are very isolated.

They aren't sinister in that episode. They are just ignorant, it was a comedy ep focusing on C-3PO.

But you only have half the story. Only the TCW part. So you are judging it by the microshow.

Have any of the eps shown the horror of war? Shown how bad it is for the people who fight in it? The closet we get is Umbara, but even then the Clones only suffer due to Krell, who is also evil.

We see some suffering on Mandalore but that is tangental to the war, it's not due to the invasion or anything like that. In TCW the battle is a just one.

But they tended to reinforce the themes of the other works. Something that TCW doesn't always do.

 

@AusStig, this'll probably be my last reply cause I feel like neither of us will ever convince the other, but the idea that TCW had no plan is vaguely farcical. When it was cancelled, as Season 5 was airing, Season 8 was already scripted to first draft, Season 7 was being made into animatics, and half of Season 6 was already in the can. That's not to say this level of advanced planning was present right from Season 1, but it's clear that by the middle of the run the crew was already developing the seasons simultaneously, with a clear end goal in sight.

All of the side stories were by and large planned to feed back into the war, or directly comment on it. Maul for instance, whose rise in imitation of the Clone Wars in miniature, that can only occur due to the cracks in the Republic caused by their moral failings in the Clone War. One might ask what Anakin's force-trip on Nelvaan has to do with the war, as a counter-example. Both are comments on the larger picture of events, and seeing Maul as some unrelated incident misses the reason that arc is actually a part of a show called The Clone Wars.

As for the other arguments, I don't know why the idea that TCW is one cohesive whole is somehow hard to grasp, but that disparate authors all wrote their works for the multimedia project in multiple mediums with a single oversight. It's just not the case. It's true, I don't know the details of the whole project in full. But they are, by necessity, largely independent works. Labyrinth of Evil, the comics, and the Microseries, for example, are only nominally part of a cohesive web of stories. They may mesh well, but each one is a defined thing, separate from the rest. It's the same with the crafting of any era of Star Wars, and I see no reason why TCW can't also take a varied approach to its storytelling.

 

But you DID say that. You said that the light hearted early seasons were part of a plan. So which is it?

No it's not. Nothing about Maul is a reflection of the was in miniature as you seem to think. Why? Because the war is being run by Palpatine on both sides. The heroes can't win because they don't even know where the enemy is.

Maul just strong arms some crime gangs and Mando terrorists into working for him. I don't think he even shows up on Republic worlds. The war didn't create crime.

Have you seen the 03 cartoon recently? The mission to Nelvaan is about going after Grevious, the commander of the CIS armed forces and deals with an attack on a Techno Union facility. They are also sent there to keep them away from Coruscant during the attack. It is all about the war. Thats' what I mean in the MMP even the side stories linked into the war in a way TCW doesn't.

Because TCW feels more disconnected. The Books in the MMP each had a timeline, giving the impression of a unified whole. TCW does not have that. TCW is a bunch of stuff that happens, while some of it is referenced agin others are not. TCW lacks something like a Labyrinth of Evil to bring it together at the close. It also has some dumb stuff happen through out in a way I find hard to mesh with the darker elements.

 

I feel like "The Arc" of TCW is less in the state of the galaxy but more in the characters

Ashoka does get more matura as time goes on.

Rex becomes a bit more open minded about things and more questioning about the war and following orders

"The Recruits" like Echo have there little evolution as time goes on (And as they dwindle down)

Maul does his thing.

 

Ok, by the advanced planning I meant scripting things 3 years in advance, not that they just wrote scripts blindly with no idea whatsoever in mind (given the production timeline it’s clear that the trajectory was being built towards by Season 3 at the very latest). It’s not like that was the case in the old days either, unless you think every author wrote with Labyrinth of Evil in mind as a conclusion.

Having no timeline somehow makes TCW non cohesive, as opposed to all being a single tv programme? I don’t even get that at all. Sure, I guess the show got cancelled, but even the actual finale does tie everything together, including Maul. I don’t know what else the show could do to have a thematic resolution.