Why Star Wars: The Clones Wars is Awesome
Alright, buckle up kids, because I am going into full rant mode.
So The Clone Wars had a lot of problems, there's no denying it. There were weird timeline breaks where episodes were aired out of order, some truly terrible dialogue, the entire Mortis thing, an unhealthy amount of Jar Jar Binks... But there were good things as well, and more beauty and horror and joy than could reasonably be expected from it.
Narrative Complexity
First and foremost, the thing I admire most about The Clone Wars was its dedication to telling complex stories. The prequel movies in general tried really, really hard to do a lot of world-building (galaxy-building?) and throw in a lot of background information that wasn't available in the stream-lined story-telling of the original movies. Some of it worked, a lot of it didn't. But The Clone Wars made a valiant attempt to stay in line with that increased narrative complexity, introducing new characters and keeping up with the old ones, telling new stories and trying to explain some of the movie storylines.
In my opinion, a lot of what made that complexity possible is the muti-episode arcs that the series is mostly comprised of. Over the course of the series, there are actually very few stand-alone episodes, instead relying on stories that played out over the course of 2-5 episodes. This isn't exactly a novel approach as plenty of other short-form animated shows also do this, but The Clone Wars really tried to maximize that set-up, sometimes even taking the opportunity to show the same story from multiple perspectives (see the season one arc about Ryloth, from "Storm Over Ryloth" about a space battle where Ahsoka is faced with the lethal consequences of war among her men, "Innocents of Ryloth" where some of Kenobi's clone troopers must deal with capturing a city while trying to avoid civilian casualties, and "Liberty on Ryloth" which shows Mace Windu engaging in delicate negotiations with native Twi'lek revolutionaries. That's a lot of ground to cover in the course of three half-hour episodes, and I give major props to Filoni and his crew for putting together that kind of roller coaster whenever they could. Sure, not every story arc was high-quality, but a lot of them were.
Aside from the use of multi-episode arcs, the other narrative quirk that allowed for a a high degree of complexity in The Clone Wars was the use of many different POVs. Instead of just following Anakin, or Anakin and Ahsoka, Filoni and his crew decided that they would craft any kind of story they wanted around whatever character fit the story best. It was a decision that gave the series an incredible range or genres to pull from. As previously mentioned, action-based stories from the front lines of the war were told by Jedi generals (like Kenobi and Windu) and their clone troopers (like Cody, Rex, Boil, and Waxer). Political intrigues play out with Padme, Jar-Jar (oy vey), and Chancellor Palpatine. Mystic vision quests are undertaken by Anakin and Yoda. Cat and mouse thrillers follow Asajj Ventress and the ARC troopers like Fives and Echo. Everything had its place, and this series had a place for everything.
Focusing on Complex Politics
Plenty of children's series are based around conflict. Superheroes and myths, grand struggles between good and evil, shadowy hunts for the truth, all abound in this genre. But I can't offhand think of any other series that so specifically focuses on war. And certainly it was a war simplified and cleaned up for youth's consumption, but it was war nonetheless. And not just about the front-line battles. Plenty of those were featured in the series (although even those were often complex, featuring sieges, full-frontal assaults, negotiations with local guerillas, trapped behind enemy lines, sabotage missions, communication disruption missions, etc), but you also saw other sides. You got to see Padme working against legislature to create new troops and increase the Chancellor's direct powers. You saw negotiations rise and fall between the Republic and the Separatists. You saw the struggle of systems who didn't want to join the war on either side, but were pressured and trampled by one side or another.
In addition, The Clone Wars spent time explicating the thing that really made the prequels what they were: a long con. For that, you had to really focus in more on the direct and indirect actions of Chancellor Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious), because he was the one responsible for playing each side off of the other. In the prequel movies, you're made vaguely aware that he is, in some shady way, responsible for the the Separatist movement and the creation of the clone army (even if you don't really understand how). The Clone Wars carefully, quietly builds on that, also showing how Palpatine built up his own power base (electing himself more and more powers, making himself look better through "assassination" attempts), how he made the public desire security over freedom, how he turned the public view against the Jedi, and how he slowly isolated and gaslighted Anakin.
And the most important thing the Palpatine did to further the war was to create disposable armies for both sides. For the Separatists he arranged for the TechnoUnion and the Trade Federation to fund the never-ending droid army (this is more seen in the movies, but Palpatine stringing the Trade Federation along is also important to the animated series). And for the Republic, Palpatine arranged to have an army of clones created (and largely trained) away from the oversight of the Jedi and the Republic. Think about it. A draft makes people hate a war, because they themselves are forced to fight in it. They need to see it resolved or risk losing themselves and their families to the war. But when the war is stocked by clones and robots, ending it isn't so much a priority for everyone. And that's some heavy shit for a kid's series.
Making Sense of the Prequels
I appreciate that the prequels tried to have a complex discussion about the nature of politics, with the dueling drives of freedom and safety, ideology and manipulation, simplicity and the rule of the mob. I think the trilogy accomplished relatively little of that discussion, instead getting bogged down in the spectacularly terrible love story of Padme and Anakin. But still, it tried.
As such, a great part of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is that it tried desperately and brilliantly to make good on the promise of the prequels. It told us how all the stupid things in the prequels happened. How did Anakin shift away from the Jedi Council. How did the Jedi fall out of favor with the public? Well, he was gas-lit by Palpatine, who used the growing isolationist, conservative tendencies of the Jedi Council, and their occasional elitist disregard for the lives of others, to use Anakin's deep emotional connection to his friends and family against him. Not just "secret marriage, bad dreams, must kill children." How was it that the public let the Separatist Crisis break into open war and continue as long as it did? Well, as mentioned, the war relied on a complicated long con perpetrated by Palpatine and the minions he confused, blackmailed, and convinced to help him for the greater good. He helped make the Galactic Republic corrupt and slow, and then used the fact of its corruption to disenchant Count Dooku and make him the head of the Separatist Alliance. There were a thousand little things that made the prequels and history, rather than a two-dimensional backdrop.
The Clones
One of the most difficult, and glorious, parts of The Clone Wars is the existence of the clones themselves. In the prequel movies they are introduced as a faceless, almost inhuman army. Who needs to get emotionally involved in an army that appears identical even without their helmets, and has zero individuality in the movies? The Clone Wars blows that out the water, keeping the initial view of the clones as societally insignificant, while also quietly introducing an entire subculture unique to the clones (especially if you read any of the Karen Traviss Republic Commando series, which I highly recommend).
However the clones, along with the droids, remain the basic foot soldiers of this war and the series uses them as such. They are killed in incredible, horrifying quantities, and there is an intense existential horror associated with watching so many people (and I include droids here as well, as many of them show demonstrable personality and free will) both onscreen and off.
It's hard for me to say whether or not this strange disconnect is intended by the show runners. I would like to say unequivocably that it is, but then you have to face the fact that the show runners have inflicted this mental trauma on purpose. In, you know, a kid's show (I know I keep saying this, but it bears repeating).
Perhaps the best example of this dilemma is the Umbara arc (Season 4, Episodes 7-10). This is an incredible arc, focusing almost exclusively on the clone troopers as they are forced to work with a Jedi general who dislikes them, patronizes them, and treats them as entirely expendable. Spoiler alert: through the arc the troopers are forced to confront their need to obey the chain of command vs. their loyalty to one another. It's one of the best arcs describing the emerging consciousness, culture, and free will of the clones, and also their short and brutal life expectancy.
So yeah, the clones. I have feelings.
TLDR: The Clone Wars is an awesome series because it uses and bypasses the conventions of children's animation to tell complex stories about culturally relevant topics, and because it makes the prequel trilogy into a fully formed story by filling in many of the narrative gaps left by those movies and gives agency to many of the characters and groups that were left two-dimensional in the films.
So The Clone Wars had a lot of problems, there's no denying it. There were weird timeline breaks where episodes were aired out of order, some truly terrible dialogue, the entire Mortis thing, an unhealthy amount of Jar Jar Binks... But there were good things as well, and more beauty and horror and joy than could reasonably be expected from it.
Narrative Complexity
First and foremost, the thing I admire most about The Clone Wars was its dedication to telling complex stories. The prequel movies in general tried really, really hard to do a lot of world-building (galaxy-building?) and throw in a lot of background information that wasn't available in the stream-lined story-telling of the original movies. Some of it worked, a lot of it didn't. But The Clone Wars made a valiant attempt to stay in line with that increased narrative complexity, introducing new characters and keeping up with the old ones, telling new stories and trying to explain some of the movie storylines.
In my opinion, a lot of what made that complexity possible is the muti-episode arcs that the series is mostly comprised of. Over the course of the series, there are actually very few stand-alone episodes, instead relying on stories that played out over the course of 2-5 episodes. This isn't exactly a novel approach as plenty of other short-form animated shows also do this, but The Clone Wars really tried to maximize that set-up, sometimes even taking the opportunity to show the same story from multiple perspectives (see the season one arc about Ryloth, from "Storm Over Ryloth" about a space battle where Ahsoka is faced with the lethal consequences of war among her men, "Innocents of Ryloth" where some of Kenobi's clone troopers must deal with capturing a city while trying to avoid civilian casualties, and "Liberty on Ryloth" which shows Mace Windu engaging in delicate negotiations with native Twi'lek revolutionaries. That's a lot of ground to cover in the course of three half-hour episodes, and I give major props to Filoni and his crew for putting together that kind of roller coaster whenever they could. Sure, not every story arc was high-quality, but a lot of them were.
Aside from the use of multi-episode arcs, the other narrative quirk that allowed for a a high degree of complexity in The Clone Wars was the use of many different POVs. Instead of just following Anakin, or Anakin and Ahsoka, Filoni and his crew decided that they would craft any kind of story they wanted around whatever character fit the story best. It was a decision that gave the series an incredible range or genres to pull from. As previously mentioned, action-based stories from the front lines of the war were told by Jedi generals (like Kenobi and Windu) and their clone troopers (like Cody, Rex, Boil, and Waxer). Political intrigues play out with Padme, Jar-Jar (oy vey), and Chancellor Palpatine. Mystic vision quests are undertaken by Anakin and Yoda. Cat and mouse thrillers follow Asajj Ventress and the ARC troopers like Fives and Echo. Everything had its place, and this series had a place for everything.
Focusing on Complex Politics
Plenty of children's series are based around conflict. Superheroes and myths, grand struggles between good and evil, shadowy hunts for the truth, all abound in this genre. But I can't offhand think of any other series that so specifically focuses on war. And certainly it was a war simplified and cleaned up for youth's consumption, but it was war nonetheless. And not just about the front-line battles. Plenty of those were featured in the series (although even those were often complex, featuring sieges, full-frontal assaults, negotiations with local guerillas, trapped behind enemy lines, sabotage missions, communication disruption missions, etc), but you also saw other sides. You got to see Padme working against legislature to create new troops and increase the Chancellor's direct powers. You saw negotiations rise and fall between the Republic and the Separatists. You saw the struggle of systems who didn't want to join the war on either side, but were pressured and trampled by one side or another.
In addition, The Clone Wars spent time explicating the thing that really made the prequels what they were: a long con. For that, you had to really focus in more on the direct and indirect actions of Chancellor Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious), because he was the one responsible for playing each side off of the other. In the prequel movies, you're made vaguely aware that he is, in some shady way, responsible for the the Separatist movement and the creation of the clone army (even if you don't really understand how). The Clone Wars carefully, quietly builds on that, also showing how Palpatine built up his own power base (electing himself more and more powers, making himself look better through "assassination" attempts), how he made the public desire security over freedom, how he turned the public view against the Jedi, and how he slowly isolated and gaslighted Anakin.
And the most important thing the Palpatine did to further the war was to create disposable armies for both sides. For the Separatists he arranged for the TechnoUnion and the Trade Federation to fund the never-ending droid army (this is more seen in the movies, but Palpatine stringing the Trade Federation along is also important to the animated series). And for the Republic, Palpatine arranged to have an army of clones created (and largely trained) away from the oversight of the Jedi and the Republic. Think about it. A draft makes people hate a war, because they themselves are forced to fight in it. They need to see it resolved or risk losing themselves and their families to the war. But when the war is stocked by clones and robots, ending it isn't so much a priority for everyone. And that's some heavy shit for a kid's series.
Making Sense of the Prequels
I appreciate that the prequels tried to have a complex discussion about the nature of politics, with the dueling drives of freedom and safety, ideology and manipulation, simplicity and the rule of the mob. I think the trilogy accomplished relatively little of that discussion, instead getting bogged down in the spectacularly terrible love story of Padme and Anakin. But still, it tried.
As such, a great part of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is that it tried desperately and brilliantly to make good on the promise of the prequels. It told us how all the stupid things in the prequels happened. How did Anakin shift away from the Jedi Council. How did the Jedi fall out of favor with the public? Well, he was gas-lit by Palpatine, who used the growing isolationist, conservative tendencies of the Jedi Council, and their occasional elitist disregard for the lives of others, to use Anakin's deep emotional connection to his friends and family against him. Not just "secret marriage, bad dreams, must kill children." How was it that the public let the Separatist Crisis break into open war and continue as long as it did? Well, as mentioned, the war relied on a complicated long con perpetrated by Palpatine and the minions he confused, blackmailed, and convinced to help him for the greater good. He helped make the Galactic Republic corrupt and slow, and then used the fact of its corruption to disenchant Count Dooku and make him the head of the Separatist Alliance. There were a thousand little things that made the prequels and history, rather than a two-dimensional backdrop.
The Clones
One of the most difficult, and glorious, parts of The Clone Wars is the existence of the clones themselves. In the prequel movies they are introduced as a faceless, almost inhuman army. Who needs to get emotionally involved in an army that appears identical even without their helmets, and has zero individuality in the movies? The Clone Wars blows that out the water, keeping the initial view of the clones as societally insignificant, while also quietly introducing an entire subculture unique to the clones (especially if you read any of the Karen Traviss Republic Commando series, which I highly recommend).
However the clones, along with the droids, remain the basic foot soldiers of this war and the series uses them as such. They are killed in incredible, horrifying quantities, and there is an intense existential horror associated with watching so many people (and I include droids here as well, as many of them show demonstrable personality and free will) both onscreen and off.
It's hard for me to say whether or not this strange disconnect is intended by the show runners. I would like to say unequivocably that it is, but then you have to face the fact that the show runners have inflicted this mental trauma on purpose. In, you know, a kid's show (I know I keep saying this, but it bears repeating).
Perhaps the best example of this dilemma is the Umbara arc (Season 4, Episodes 7-10). This is an incredible arc, focusing almost exclusively on the clone troopers as they are forced to work with a Jedi general who dislikes them, patronizes them, and treats them as entirely expendable. Spoiler alert: through the arc the troopers are forced to confront their need to obey the chain of command vs. their loyalty to one another. It's one of the best arcs describing the emerging consciousness, culture, and free will of the clones, and also their short and brutal life expectancy.
So yeah, the clones. I have feelings.
TLDR: The Clone Wars is an awesome series because it uses and bypasses the conventions of children's animation to tell complex stories about culturally relevant topics, and because it makes the prequel trilogy into a fully formed story by filling in many of the narrative gaps left by those movies and gives agency to many of the characters and groups that were left two-dimensional in the films.
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