Full Series Micro-series vs. TCW

How about Pablo starts to appreciate different artistic styles? All characters and action moments in CW micro series and Samurai Jack are overpowered, because that's Genndy's artistic style, not because they are really meant to be that overpowered. I am starting to think that's nitpicking at the micro series just to find a way to make it non-canon...

 

Unfortunately, the new Story Group is probably going to nitpick at a lot of different content (TV, EU & games) if they feel it doesn't fit in with whatever rules they use to decide what is canon and what is not. What will become of our beloved Holiday Special?

 

If we look at TCW, they pick things that were established as cannon and replace it with something worse. If they continue like this, then that means they'll make something worse than the Holiday Special! That would be quite an achievement...

 

That would be quite an achievement indeed!!!

 

TCW has more stories and better action.
Plus TCW has infinity more characters.

 

Which makes the show infinity better than the micro-series

 

Cough.

 

If more=better, then TCW > all the films combined. O__o

 

Lost is a perfect example of this.

I mean seriously, guys. Has anyone ever heard of the phrase "less is more"? It's important to begin with the end in mind. I mean, I know that the Original Trilogy was practically made up on the fly but there's no reason that The Clone Wars couldn't have been planned from beginning to end. I can understand that younger fans might identify with TCW more because they grew up with it but the reasoning for why TCW is infinity better than the Micro-Series by claiming that TCW is better simply because it has "better action" and is "longer" is kinda dumb.

All of the duels in the Prequel Trilogy were more action-packed and longer than the duels in the Original Trilogy...but does that mean that they're better?

 

I've often wondered if the erratic nature of the first couple seasons wasn't a result of the creative team not knowing how long the show would really last. GL was funding the show out of his own pocket and said they would do 100 eps but that didn't mean CN would continue to pick it up. Several of the S1 and 2 episodes had "prequel" and "sequel" episodes which were released in subsequent seasons. Perhaps these episodes were at least written early on but the team decided to go with the episodes they felt would best showcase what the show had to offer? I dunno. Just thinking out loud. And yes I realize the show was a ratings success after season 1 but, as we've learned with the BC debate, the episodes are produced much sooner than they are aired.

 

I always felt that the erratic nature of the TCW episode structure was due to GL's whim. He did the stories that he wanted to do when he wanted to do them. Want to do a murder mystery? Sure. Godzilla next? Okay. Wait.... let's bring back Darth Maul? Coming right up. That simple. Because it was his will that it be done that way.

 

George Lucas is an extremely visionary person but in my opinion he's terrible at micro-management. That's why he failed with the Prequel Trilogy. He tried to do everything on his own and as a result kind of made a mess of things. The Original Trilogy would not be what it is without George Lucas but it also would have sucked terribly if George Lucas hadn't relied on highly specialized people to help him out with the stuff he's not so good at. I mean, he didn't even write or direct Empire Strikes Back and it's hailed as a cinematic masterpiece!

 

He did write ESB, just not the screenplay.

 

That Wookie in the top right corner looks like Jim Carrey's Grinch

 

I think watching CW Chapters 1-21 > TCW > CW Chapters 22-25 really goes well together and completes the animated portion of the war. Plus since the character designs are fairly similar, there is some visual continuity that helps keep them together as one.

 

The Microseries at least had a nice flow, whereas TCW felt quite disjointed, to me, anyway.

 

Both shows had strengths and weaknesses, and I liked both about the same. But to me the key difference lies between the main strengths of the microseries and the main weaknesses of TCW. The microseries was lean, focused, and knew exactly where it was starting and where it was ending. TCW, on the other hand, was IMO very unfocused, scattered, and just kind of meandering along as if it wasn't supposed to be serving a larger purpose or even ending by a certain point in the larger story.

 

I don't really consider the micro-series to be all that "focused" when it comes to knowing "exactly where it was starting and where it was ending." It may seem that way because it had the time constraint of finishing up before ROTS came out and therefore had a much more limited scope in terms of production possibilities and story elaboration. However, it definitely did not know where it was ending considering there were no plans to continue the series beyond chapter 20 but because of fan reception, a more intensified lead in to ROTS and GL's son wanting to know what happened with the battle at Hypori, Lucas told them to make more. They had know idea when they started that they would be ending with the opening crawl of ROTS.

TCW on the other hand, I think had the luxury of time. They could do whatever they had wanted to do for as long as it would take to elaborate on the characters. I think TCW benefits from this because unlike the micro-series, they had the opportunity to develop the characters we had seen in the films and help explain why they act and feel the way they do in ROTS. The microseries never really did anything to further the character arcs outside of what is essentially a montage of Clone Wars events. Sure, we had the Nelvaan journey that Anakin takes, but once again, that was not planned at the beginning and I think it happened when the crew realized that they would have time to develop character a little further when the show got extended. Had they have known how awkward the events of ROTS would be (in terms of Anakin's fall to the dark side, the republic's turning their backs on the Jedi, the Jedi suspicions of Palpatine, etc.), I think they would have wanted to dive deeper into why these things happened the way they did - but they just didn't have the time. That was the point and strength of TCW, IMO. They were able to explore the "why" much better - and they had a much clearer idea of where to end up because they had already seen the events of ROTS, whereas Tartakovsky's crew had not.

So essentially, I respectfully disagree and think the exact opposite of your assessment.

 

If your version of these events are true (and you do make a compelling argument) it sounds as if the Micro-Series' primary weakness was that it existed at the whim and desires of George Lucas. That's not something the showrunners could help,

 

TCW didn't develop many characters at all IMO. It was weird sometimes, like how we saw much about Ventress and Savage and how/why they changed as characters, but Ahsoka is suddenly older and like a Knight, and Barriss shows up and bombs the Temple..

 

So I figured I'd bring Narutakikun 's locked thread subject (Leland Chee's new canon comments) into this thread because I think it has relevance to the subject of TCW v. micro-series...

My take on this is as follows:

Because TCW was still airing after the Disney takeover and the TCWBC is going to be released under Disney, TCW is automatically part of the new canon. Since the micro-series was not released under Disney (and because TCW had already relegated it to C-canon) I think that pretty much means that the micro-series is no longer to be considered as "part of Star Wars canon." The hierarchy was always in place to shoehorn the events of lower level canon that were not in direct contradiction with higher level canon into the overall canon of the franchise. Because there is no longer a hierarchy, I think it is safe to assume that any story that has anything that can be construed as a contradiction of something in any post-2013 star wars stories, will automatically be relegated as non-canon - the whole story, not just that part. So instead of using the hierarchy to shoehorn micro-series events that weren't in direct contradiction with TCW, the entire micro-series is now non-canon.

So be it.