Why Clone Wars Isn’t Divisive (But The Star Wars Prequels Are)

Why Clone Wars Isn’t Divisive (But The Star Wars Prequels Are)

The Star Wars prequels cover the same ground as The Clone Wars – but why is the latter well-received, while the former was controversial?

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars covers similar ground to the Star Wars prequel trilogy – but it has proved nowhere near as divisive. In 1999, George Lucas returned to Star Wars for the first time in nearly 20 years. Moviegoers flocked to the cinema to watch Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, which launched the prequel trilogy.

Over the next six years, audiences saw the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker enacted on the big screen. It was a story Lucas had always hinted he would one day tell, and he enjoyed exploiting the latest developments in CGI to realize his vision. By all accounts Lucasfilm filed hundreds of patents for technological innovations, but the results were unfortunately mixed. The fanbase fractured, while critics were generally unimpressed.

Following the prequels, Lucas went on to help create the 2008 animated series The Clone Wars alongside Dave Filoni (having previously made a 2D shorts version earlier in the decade), which finally came to an end in 2020 to great acclaim. Curiously enough, the reputation of the prequel trilogy has improved with time. But why did viewers initially react so negatively to the prequels, and then go on to embrace The Clone Wars?

Clone Wars & Prequels Cover Similar Story Ground – But Only One’s Divisive

There’s a significant overlap between the Star Wars prequel trilogy and The Clone Wars. It isn’t just that they explore the same time period, or even that they feature many of the same characters; the overlap can be seen in thematic and narrative terms as well, because they both tell the story of the Clone Wars, the collapse and ultimate destruction of the Jedi Order, and the fall of Anakin Skywalker. This was signposted in Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 7, where the final episodes were concurrent with the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.

For all that’s the case, though, the prequels were initially slated by fans and critics alike, who felt they failed to live up to their potential. Lucas initially depended far too much on CGI, and he was critiqued for wooden dialogue and some poorly scripted scenes; the actors struggled to realize the characters, with the romance between Anakin and Padmé feeling particularly unbelievable. Some of Lucas’ humor failed to resonate, and the backlash against Jar-Jar Binks was so severe the actor, Ahmed Best, contemplated suicide.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars wasn’t without its controversy; the introduction of Anakin’s Padawan Ahsoka raised eyebrows, and she was initially unpopular. Still, it was a massive ratings success, becoming one of Cartoon Network’s highest rated shows and earning nominations for the Daytime Emmie Awards and the Annie Awards. The photo-realistic animations were considered ground-breaking, and the voice actors became fan favorites. Even Ahsoka won viewers over, to the extent Disney has cast Rosario Dawson to play the character in live-action in The Mandalorian season 2.

Clone Wars Is Aimed At The Audience Lucas Thought Star Wars Was For

George Lucas has always maintained Star Wars is for children. Unfortunately that was actually a problem with the prequels, because Lucas was still focused on children, even though kids technically weren’t his primary audience anymore. The first wave of viewers were people who had grown up with Star Wars, who were now in their 30s and had their own imagined ideas of how things had played out. They were shaken at the out-of-touch Jedi Council, bemused at the idea Jedi couldn’t love given the original trilogy themes, and bewildered at the young Anakin Skywalker. It didn’t help that the prequels included a number of marketing fails, the most prominent of which was Darth Maul. The Sith Apprentice played a prominent role in both marketing and merchandise, but was discarded by Lucas with little thought in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, because he considered Maul nothing but a tool to drive the story forward.

In contrast, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was clearly aimed at kids from the outset. It aired on the children’s channel Cartoon Network, meaning parents assumed this series was for their children. When they settled down to watch it too, they were surprised and delighted to find subtle and intelligent adult themes woven into the narrative. It became that rare and much-coveted thing; a children’s animated series that nonetheless brings pleasure to parents as well. Showrunner Dave Filoni recognized his audience were growing up with the series, though, and he took the same approach as J.K. Rowling with her Harry Potter books; each season was a little more mature than the last, culminating in the darkness and spectacle of the recently-released Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 7.

Clone Wars Had Less Pressure To Succeed – & Fewer Expectations

It certainly helps that Star Wars: The Clone Wars was under far less pressure than the movies themselves. When audiences turned up to watch Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, they were already deeply invested in the world and its characters, while its blockbuster status meant it needed to please a far bigger audience too. In truth, Lucas was a victim of his own success, because there was no way the story he told could be as captivating as the countless versions people had imagined over the decades.

But Star Wars: The Clone Wars was not subjected to the same kind of pressure. As good as a children’s animated series may be, it doesn’t carry the same weight as a movie, still less a chapter in the Skywalker saga. In hindsight, the introduction of Ahsoka Tano should have clued viewers in to the fact Lucasfilm believed they were telling an important story in the Star Wars universe; Ahsoka offered a new window on to Anakin Skywalker himself, and subtly reinterpreted the Chosen One through her relationship with him. But that only became visible with time, leaving audiences delighted as they realized the story mattered more than they had thought.

Clone Wars Redeems The Prequels’ Worst Mistakes

This different context allowed the writers of Star Wars: The Clone Wars to redeem some of the worst elements of the prequels. Take the example of Jar Jar Binks, who proved so controversial in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and was increasingly sidelined in the prequel trilogy. He appears in a number of episodes of The Clone Wars, even starring in some episodes, and that feels natural given this is a kids’ series. Jar Jar is still portrayed as clumsy and played for comedy value, but the writers go to great effort to show up his best qualities: the purity of his heart, his compassion for other living beings, and his almost empathic ability to win friends. If viewers weren’t won over by this reinterpreted Jar Jar, of course, they could simply skip those episodes; they were deliberately constructed to serve as side-stories from the main arc.

Another prominent example is Darth Maul, who was restored after his apparent death in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Maul was given an actual character arc, portrayed as the pawn who had been discarded but had now returned to the board as a player. The dynamic between Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi was a powerful one, with the two seeming to be locked in an endless dance of death; Maul was even responsible for the death of the woman Obi-Wan Kenobi loved, Duchess Satine of Mandalore.

Clone Wars Was Better Overall Than The Star Wars Prequels

Ultimately, there’s one simple truth; Clone Wars is better than the prequel trilogy. There’s a sense in which this was inevitable, because such a long-running TV series naturally has more time to expand upon characters, develop their arcs, and conduct extensive world building. The episodic format means viewers can pick and choose their favorites, forgetting the ones that annoyed them and focusing on the positives; mistakes and missteps can be corrected by gentle changes in characterization and narrative structure.

But there’s another reason for the difference in quality. George Lucas may have a phenomenal imagination, and he may excel at world-building, but he’s inconsistent when it comes to characterization and dialogue. Harrison Ford famously challenged him, yelling at him, “You can type this ****, but you sure can’t say it!” The “I Know” scene in The Empire Strikes Back was particularly controversial, added at Ford’s insistence much to Carrie Fisher’s annoyance. By the time of the prequels, though, Lucas had become a larger-than-life legend. Nobody was going to challenge him when it came to making a Star Wars movie. In contrast, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was a team effort, with Lucas essentially serving as guide and allowing others to do their own things. He was joined by showrunner Dave Filoni, a Star Wars fan who could turn his vision into something powerful and profound, and by a vast writing team who were more than up to the task. With that kind of coordination and team ethic, there was no way Star Wars: The Clone Wars could possibly fail.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/star-wars-clone-wars-prequels-good-divisive-reason/

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