Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) Discussion Topic

Honestly I didn’t enjoy the last episode terribly much other than a few highlights. Disney animated Star Wars has never handled Jedi fighting without killing well and having virtually a whole episode surrounding that (aside from maul being kick-butt as usual) was a bit dull. The character/dialogue scenes were great just not the combat. Highlights would be maul, character/dialogue scenes and Vader making me almost cry.

TCW finale spoilers ahead:

I would argue that Ahsoka not willing to kill all the clones was what added a lot of dramatic weight to the episode. She was physically capable of blasting through them Starkiller-style, but she intentionally chose to not kill any of them if she could help it (which made things harder for her and likely allowed Maul to escape. What exactly did you not like about it?

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Mostly the choreography of the scenes. It was really uninteresting. Block lasers and push people was the gist of it. The droids doing the elevators and the resulting issues were some of the only aspects I found to be creative

I thought this season was great overall. First couple episodes and some weaker moments and I wasn’t crazy about some things. Last couple episodes we’re some of the best Star Wars content we’ve gotten in a long time imo.

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Just a few thoughts, if you’ll take them:

I just finished the show. I’m not sure if it counts as binge watching, it took about 6 months to watch from TCW movie to S7 finale. I considered myself a casual Star Wars fan before watching, but its kind of like I can’t get enough now. Except, not in the way where I’m going to go immediately and watch Rebels or anything. Wanna savor what I’ve got for a while, and it’s definitely savorable.

I never expected to like the Clones as much as I did. From the first few episodes, I was caught off guard about how deep a question the show brought up - what makes a person a person, whether or not war should compromise, etc etc. The troops really were a highlight, and I’m completely blown away by Dee Bradley Baker’s versatility in the show (then I looked at his filmography section on Wikipedia that lists all his works, and my jaw hit the floor! seriously amazing stuff).

Anyways, may or may not have looked into the character arc continuations that are in book form. (well aware that’s at my own risk.)The Wookiepedia summaries just weren’t cutting it. I’m impressed with how expansive the Star Wars universe is, it’s one of those, the more you dig, the more you find to be overwhelmed by XD

Anakin finally started using conditioner on his hair, that was a nice Disney animation perk :slight_smile:

Didn’t the last season use motion capture for some of their animations? I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere. Maybe that’s the change in combat style you were picking up on? [/spoiler]

Edited for Double Post - BioKnight

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First of all, welcome to The Clone Wars’ fandom. I certainly agree that the nuanced portrayal of the clones in this series is among its strongest traits. Personally, I consider the four primary story arcs of TCW to be the stories of Mandalore, Dathomir/Maul, Ahsoka, and the clones – which is why I am so happy that the four-part series finale featured each of these threads.

One more thing - I can see that you’ve just joined the boards, and I want to let you know that double-posting as you’ve done here is against the rules, which can be viewed here: Rule Index: All Rules Here. Don’t fret - this is a mistake made by many new folks.

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Welcome to the TCW fandom! If you like the clones and the TCW characters, I highly recommend Karen Traviss’ TCW tie-in novels that were published back when the series was fist coming out. They tie into some of the previous 2003-2005 Clone Wars stories that the new series has since steamrolled, but they offer some fantastic insights into Anakin and Ahsoka’s characters that the show itself only hinted at.

She wrote a novelization of the much-maligned 2008 film which IMO improves the source material substantially. It makes Ventress, Jabba and even the spy droid into much more nuanced and layered characters.

No Prisoners, her direct follow-up story which takes place shortly after the Battle of Teth is probably my current favourite Star Wars novel (despite being a really short juvenile-length read). It focuses on Rex’s efforts to rebuild his company in the 501st (after only 5 of them walked away alive from Teth) pairs a very emotionally-volatile Anakin and a very dogmatic Ahsoka up with a group of rogue Jedi knights who protested leading the clone army on ethical grounds and allow marriage within their ranks (you can imagine how this… doesn’t really sit well with Anakin). It winds up having some absolutely brilliant unintentional foreshadowing for Ahsoka and Rex’s journeys throughout the rest of the series (especially everything that happens with Fives, Echo, Lux and Barriss).

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It has nothing to do with the mo-cap, the Maul V Ahsoka fight was beautiful (the fight they used that for). My problem was the whole episode surrounding the fact that Disney almost refuses to put an on-screen kill by a Jedi in CW

Yes! These look great! Haha, every time I crack open a book on break at work (like Ender’s Game or something), people walk by and ask if I’m reading a romance novel, and it really bugs me. Maybe if my books have a HUGE DOPE CLONE TROOPER with heavy artillery on the front, they’ll stop making assumptions. And yeah, I’m all for juvenile-length reads. Just re-read some of my trusty Bionicle books, which are technically for grade schoolers. I’ll definitely look into your recommendations, thank you!
[quote=“EmperorDuckie, post:384, topic:1453”]
It has nothing to do with the mo-cap, the Maul V Ahsoka fight was beautiful (the fight they used that for). My problem was the whole episode surrounding the fact that Disney almost refuses to put an on-screen kill by a Jedi in CW
[/quote] [/spoiler]
didn’t notice that! Sounds like a good reason to go back through S7 to me! must scrutinize :no_mouth:

@Spyaang, love your breakdown of the main arcs you parsed out, that helps reframe and organize a lot of content in retrospect, and for future rewatchings, which are probably inevitable. Also, haha, yes, it’s been a while since I’ve been on message boards, the formatting and reply/double posting was really kicking my butt for a little while back there. Thanks for the pointers!

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Maybe because Jedi aren’t really supposed to kill. And, we did see Anakin kill trench on screen. Most of the deaths though are accomplished by other characters.

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Well, Disney has only produced 12 episodes of the show, four of which dealt with a plot that was essentially free of Jedi (Ahsoka’s arc in the middle), and the other eight of which were arcs where only one or two Jedi played prominent roles, or had the opportunity to kill people (and, as @Krelikan noted, we do see one of those Jedi killing on screen).

My main point being, most of the Disney episodes didn’t place their Jedi in a position to kill anyone, and when they did, they either did kill the person, or did not because they had reason to avoid it (as with Ahsoka and Maul).

Honestly, despite all my growing disagreements with the way Disney has handled Star Wars, their supposed lack of killing isn’t one of them. I’ve never really seen evidence that Disney deliberately kills fewer people in Star Wars than previously…

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If anything, considering that Episode VII saw the destruction of both the Hosnian System AND Starkiller Base, the Disney era has had the highest body counts out of all three eras, lol.

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True indeed.

If you really want to get into what Disney likes, try Death Stars. Four out of the five Star Wars films they’ve made contain technology that is inspired by, derived from, or actually is the Death Star. :persevere:

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Four?
I know starkiller base, the final order, and the death star in rogue one (which is very different, as it’s less of a plot point and more a mcguffin). What’s the fourth?

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In TLJ, the “battering ram” the First Order uses to break down the door of the Base on Crait is described by Finn as being “miniaturized Death Star tech.”

Not an actual Death Star, no, but directly derived from it…

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Rebels and Disney’s Clone Wars, other than major plot moments, have Jedi avoid killing most of the time, which is one of my least favorite aspects of their animated series. With this already being an annoying factor to me, you can probably imagine the order 66 episodes which are nearly completely built around that would be frustrating

Hah. If anything, you could argue that Rebels’ Jedi kill more “people” (depending on how you define people in star wars) than the Jedi of the Clone Wars. The rebels show very little mercy to stormtroopers. If the troopers are shooting at them, they shoot back, and they shoot to kill. Most of the Clone Wars saga’s good guy killcount is battle droids.

Oh, the horror, just imagine someone actually having a moral dilemma when being faced with the idea of having to kill their friends and comrades to protect themselves. Especially Ahsoka. It’s been established on numerous occasions that Anakin and Ahsoka in particular got super attached to their clones, why are you mad that she’s acting in-character? This is quite literally the entire point of the finale, to highlight the tragedy of order 66, former allies turning on each other and being forced to kill in cold blood. This argument makes no sense lol

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:point_up: This.

I get your frustration with the Order 66 thing, but I actually thought it was a nice change of pace from the other Order 66 events we see, such as in ROTS, the comics, and Jedi: Fallen Order. Pretty much every Jedi, even Obi-Wan and Yoda, killed all of the Clones who turned on them. Ahsoka showing a reluctance to kill her friends actually struck me as being more realistic. I can’t fault the Jedi for defending themselves, obviously, but there haven’t been many reflections on how they felt about having to kill men who, until that point, had been friends to them.

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I’m not saying you’re wrong, but that is very different.

A. It isn’t a planet killer. Nowhere close.
B. It isn’t a major part of the movie, and only shows up at the end.
C. The heroes don’t destroy it.

I’d argue the “miniature death Star” was just a nod to the fact that it existed, to make the story feel more connected.

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It is, but it still amounts to a mention of the Death Star. Either way, the general point still stands, which is that Disney seemingly loves the Death Star, to the point that we’ve seen three movies from them with planet-killing technology, as opposed to two in the OT (one-and-a-half, really, if you note that the Death Star II didn’t blow up any planets).

Maybe it’s not Disney, but the directors they hire…one of them, in particular, seems to like Death Stars…

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