JLCM: Clone Wars

[joerules]

Shit - this is totally on tonight isn't it...

[terribleparable]

Sidebar: This post reminded me that the Clone Wars show premieres on Cartoon Network tonight and I need to TiVo it.

Wow, remember when the Clone Wars were a foggy and mysterious aspect of the Star Wars universe? A titillating name that everyone in the galaxy seemed to know but never really discussed?

Wasn't that nice?

Lucas really needs to stop with the Anakin Skywalker stories, immediately. Not only has he turned one of cinema's great badasses into an unlikable whiny teen, but now he's already told the Anakin Skywalker story start to finish. If he insists on ruining Star Wars and wringing every possible dollar out of it he could at least move on to ruining the expanded universe.

To elaborate on this period of Anakin's life, to continue to portray him as a young, nearly-flawless superhero with a thousand friends strikes me as especially morbid. You know Anakin is going to kill his entire supporting cast, if not directly then tacitly by supporting Sidious' rise to power. That's the end of Star Wars: Clone Wars. Anakin has a nightmare about his wife dying, goes crazy, and murders all of his friends and an entire school of jedi children.

[Tom Brazelton]

With this I completely agree and the only reason I wanted to TiVo the show was to compare it with the movie.

I think it's dumb to try and cram a thousand stories in between Episodes II and III. I would be much more interested in seeing some of the expanded universe stuff - stuff written after Ep. VI be turned into a cartoon than this stuff.

Everything about Clone Wars feels like a foregone conclusion. So what if Ankian wins battle after battle if we all know he eventually loses the war.

[mailer daemon]

Like most others, I can agree with all these sentiments. What I would prefer to see is stories from between episodes 3 and 4. I haven't played "The Force Unleashed" yet, but that's kind of what I'm talking about. It wouldn't have to be all darth vader stories. It could be the last remaining Jedi out doing their own individual good in the universe or something like that.

I wouldn't mind a show of "Who Darth Vader kills this week", but that just wouldn't market well.

[gerbo321]

So I guess you guys aren't the type to belief that the journey is more important then the destination? I really don't see why you can't ignore what is coming and just enjoy what is in front of you. If you don't like the show because you don't like it, that's fine. But I didn't hear any of you bitching during the first Clone Wars series.

[mlsterben]

I wouldn't mind a show of "Who Darth Vader kills this week", but that just wouldn't market well.

I think, if done properly, it could market well. Just have a bunch of really short episodes, like the Clone Wars cartoon series, and have Vader kill people in interesting ways, or just have people randomly getting Force choked, like in that SNL "Punched Before Eating" thing.

[joerules]

I'd love to see stuff from the future done but I don't think that or, "we know how this is going to turn out" are good enough reasons to write this stuff off. Isn't the journey better than the conclusion? Uggh, even I don't believe that bullshit half the time, but more Star Wars in my mind is hardly a band thing. they're doing some fun expansions here and I'm eager more to see how they'll expand the universe than I am to see what battles Anikan wins.

[terribleparable]

But I didn't hear any of you bitching during the first Clone Wars series.

Good point, but I'd argue that the first Clone Wars cartoons benefited from better timing (released right after episode II, so they acted as a bridge to Revenge of the Sith), their inherent novelty, and their wider scope of characters. There were huge story-archs in those little 5 minute gems that didn't include Anakin or Obi-Wan at all. And while I'm not a very big fan of Tartakovsky's "show the exact same incidental thing happening over and over again" approach to direction he managed to make Force battles fun to watch.

Clone Wars 3D is clearly a Lucas/Anakin joint, and at this point Anakin Skywalker is like George W. Bush, nobody wants to waste time on that asshole anymore.

[Tom Brazelton]

But I didn't hear any of you bitching during the first Clone Wars series.

Good point, but I'd argue that the first Clone Wars cartoons benefited from better timing (released right after episode II, so they acted as a bridge to Revenge of the Sith)

This.

Within the context of the prequels, Anakin had not yet "turned." So it was relevant to show his exploits during The Clone Wars.

But after Episode III hit theaters - after Lucas and company SHOWED us the evil Anakin does - the genie is out of the bottle. It becomes much more difficult to go back and say "Ignore what's going to happen next in the saga. Let's go back and revisit some of Anakin's wacky adventures!"

It feels like a bait and switch.

[terribleparable]

Not to reduce this thread to Lucas bashing, but the more I think about it, the more I think having Hayden Christensen back for Episode III was just lazy and detrimental to the plot.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I think Vader turning evil at age 25 (or so) and as a jedi knight removes some of the prestige of the character. Having Vader turn at such a young age means was never a serene master of the force like Yoda or Qi Gon Jin, he was a whiny overgrown teenager who never grew up and allowed his infantile possessiveness to destroy his life.

I just think it diminishes Vader as a character, and that toppling a noble jedi master from grace would've been so much more evil.

[joerules]

Annnnd that's the point of the Clone Wars. So that we can see his adventures as a master of the Force.

[opie301]

I just think it diminishes Vader as a character, and that toppling a noble jedi master from grace would've been so much more evil.

And here I have to disagree with you. I think the whole point of this character is that he is young and full of power. He is young and reckless. During his time as a Jedi there is nothing that he has not been able to accomplish with the force, except save his mother. This is a boy who has only ever seen the Force as a tool.

The seeds were planted very early, by none other than Qui Gonn, that the rules of the Jedi are restrictive and binding; that the Jedi Code is the only thing holding him back from using his power to bring about real change.

He has been on the road to the Dark Side from the very beginning. But it is as a young man, chafing under the restrictions of the Jedi, that this fall makes sense. This is a corruption by a father figure, Palpatine, who is telling Anakin that all of his dreams can come true if only he rejects the Jedi, who keep such knowledge secreted away from him.

The corruption of a mature Jedi Master doesn't reflect the relationship that Vader and the Emperor share in the classic trilogy.

[terribleparable]

Joe - But he's not a master in Clone Wars, he's the same old whiny knight who has to be chaperoned.

And here I have to disagree with you. I think the whole point of this character is that he is young and full of power. He is young and reckless. During his time as a Jedi there is nothing that he has not been able to accomplish with the force, except save his mother. This is a boy who has only ever seen the Force as a tool.

--- snip ---

The corruption of a mature Jedi Master doesn't reflect the relationship that Vader and the Emperor share in the classic trilogy.

You're totally right about the first bit, but I think it still comes down to poor storytelling that Lucas effectively forced Vader to mature between movies.

The discrepancies between the Vader we know and Anakin Skywalker are too great to reconcile off-screen. By having Vader actually mature in the first three episodes (which could've been done by cutting out a lot of the Attack of the Clones fat and actually delving into the 20 years between episodes III and IV) and find some kind of tenuous balance in the Force would've made fall to the dark side so much more dramatic. I think aging him would've made his role as the Chosen One seem more assured, it would've allowed the jedis to relax a bit and think they'd done well, and it would've increased the heartbreak as they saw Anakin turn.

As for the second bit, I'd argue that any relationship with Sidious would be master and pupil, father and son. Those are the kinds of partnerships Sidious asserts, you're never his equal, you're always the caesar to his augustus.

[joerules]

But... he IS a master in the CLone Wars movie. He gets a Padawan, he's given tasks equal to Obi Wan. He out performs everyone. This is the tales of Anikan the Jedi Master.

If you go back to the first pages of this thread you can read my problems with that but there is some good in telling these tales.

[terribleparable]

But... he IS a master in the CLone Wars movie. He gets a Padawan, he's given tasks equal to Obi Wan. He out performs everyone. This is the tales of Anikan the Jedi Master.

If you go back to the first pages of this thread you can read my problems with that but there is some good in telling these tales.

But he never actually attains the master rank. He's given high-ranking missions as an acknowledgment of his skills as a jedi, but he's never considered mature or balanced enough to be a master (and certainly not a council member, that was a sticking point in Revenge of the Sith).

Having a padawan is something jedi knights usually do both to instruct a young jedi and gain some insight themselves, and usually when your padawan is ascended to knight rank the teaching knight is raised to master rank.

And at this point I'm just bashing Lucas again, sorry, I'll stop. I've already made my opinion of Clone Wars known, it's just kind of morbid.