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Ok, so that spinoff movie, and backdoor pilot, left a bad taste in your mouth, I get that. Trust me, I understand. You feel burnt badly by the general frustrating nature of the prequels? I’m right on board with that. I’m looking you in the eye and telling you I understand.
But trust me on this, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is great. Of course, not every episode is golden, and a few stories could have done with some judicious editing, or just not made it past the initial development phase, but as a complete work, The Clone Wars is fantastic. It’s every shade and texture of the Star Wars universe writ large.
One week we’re watching a thrilling western with a group of bounty hunters, the next it’s a prolonged political thriller in the Republican Senate, and after that there’s something childish involving droids. Not all of it works, but it explores every facet and idea of Star Wars can be, and I appreciate its scope and vision.
It delves deep into the mythology, explaining and exploring the imbalance of the Force, and the original Jedi and Sith temples. It demonstrates the training necessary to become a Force ghost, or assemble a lightsaber, or what it takes to make it through Jedi training. It’s thrilling and engaging, unafraid to go very dark and mature, or balls-out weird and wild. The Clone Wars is what the prequels wanted to be, but failed.
The first season or two features clunky and blocky animation for the main characters, and their interactions with the environments are cursory and strange, at best, but stick with the show and it becomes gorgeous and fluid. By the final season, the animation is dynamic and alive, the characters movement contain more grace and balance, and the environments are things to get lost in. I’m particularly fond of anything having to do with Asajj Ventress and her home world of all-powerful witches.
This series is an action-packed love letter to Star Wars, bridging the gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. By the time the final episode rolls, we can see where the chaos and imbalance of the Force is going, setting the stage for the original trilogy and beyond. This is some of best storytelling in the expanded universe, and luckily, for us, Disney has let it remain canon. So what does a Star Wars story look like? The Clone Wars has some surprising answers, and they’re very malleable.
