I watched all of Clone Wars so you don't have to (but maybe you should)

So I watched the entirety of the Clone Wars animated series. I know there are many who are passionately devoted to this show and Dave Filoni is drawing on significant elements of continuity established therein for the live-action Disney+ shows, so I wanted to grok all the interconnected threads.

Being the obsessive that I am, I started with the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars shorts. I didn't get Cartoon Network when they first aired so had never seen them. I'm glad I made the effort. Highly stylized and action-oriented, these shorts introduce character who play significant roles in Filoni's Clone Wars series, even if Tartakovsky's version is no longer canon.

The animated Clone Wars movie that launches the series introduces Padawan Ahsoka Tano and pairs her with Jedi Anakin Skywalker. This movie was met with much criticism upon release. It's not great. It tries very hard to be hip and edgy for pre-teens but only manages to come off as annoying. Quality wise, it's about on par with the direct-to-video animated sequels Disney used to pump out for their classic films. It is understandable why this one is not held in high regard. It almost put me off watching the series, but I soldiered on.

Seasons 1-4 of Clone Wars is much better, relatively speaking. I didn't feel it great, mind you. Compared to the animated shows aimed at kids from the 80s and 90s, yes, these episodes are more sophisticated and polished. There's still an echo of shoehorned "life lessons" apparent throughout, though. It's still a kid's show, albeit one parents can watch with their kids and not get too restless. The mid-Atlantic newsreel voiceover to start the episodes was certainly a choice, but I don't think every Star Wars project needs to replicate the opening crawl from the original films. The stylized animation took some getting used to but I came to accept it. So yeah, light years ahead of Ewok Adventures and Star Wars Droids.

Season 5 sees an interesting shift. Stand-alone and two-part episodes are abandoned in favor of five story arcs. Some are juvenile with those pesky life lessons, but others... Darth Maul returns. There is intrigue on Mandalore. Ahsoka is framed for murder and expelled from the Jedi Council. The series takes a serious turn and stops being a kiddie show. I take exception to George Lucas' revisionist history that Star Wars was "always a kids show." No, the original Star Wars was an "all ages" show. There's a big difference. In season 5 Filoni took Clone Wars from being a kids show to being an all ages show. It started feeling more like Star Wars and less like a Star Wars spinoff.

Season 6 and 7 came about after Clone Wars had been cancelled by Cartoon Network. At the time, they had 65 unfinished episodes in various stage of production for (presumably) three more full seasons. 25 of these unfinished episodes were ultimately completed (heavily referencing some of those other unfinished episodes that weren't so fortunate) to comprise two final seasons of 13 and 12 episodes. Again, these seasons lean heavily on multi-episode story arcs. What's more, they directly reference events from the prequels and build on the personalities of various clone troopers established earlier in the series. There are stakes here. Even a casual fan of Star Wars knows the ultimate outcome of many of these plotlines, but it's engrossing because we don't know how it will play out, who will live or who will die or who will fall somewhere in between. The final four episodes take place concurrently with events from Revenge of the Sith and presented as a story distinct from the rest of the Clone Wars series. And it works so well. The final two seasons of Clone Wars elevate all three of Lucas' Star Wars prequels, flawed though they may be. This isn't some backhanded compliment like saying JJ Abrams' sequel trilogy making the prequels look better in comparison. No, these final 25 episodes genuinely make the prequels better, filling in certain plot holes and adding context and character and a great deal of "what if?" for roads not taken.

It's doubtful seasons 1-4 could ever had achieved that level of sophistication and depth given the corporate and studio mandates Filoni was operating under, but the early cancellation likely gave him the freedom to go for broke and tell the stories he truly wanted to tell, corporate pushback be damned. If that's the case, then bravo, sir. Success on all counts.

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