That's my take as well.
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That's my take as well.
It's muddied because The Clone Wars actually started in the EU, but was brought over to DisneyWars as the acquisition occurred when tCW was in... season three, IIRC? So, it is part of the EU but also DisneyWars, with the DisneyWars elements becoming more pronounced after season three (and especially when the tie-ins occured, like Rebels).
Basically treat it as a gradient; with each season, it was becoming more and more grey until it went into Disney's black than the old EU's white.
Basically treat it as a gradient; with each season, it was becoming more and more grey until it went into Disney's black than the old EU's white.
Yes but at the same time no. The clashes with canon in TCW started long, looooong before the Disney buy out. Look at how characters are treated even in the early seasons.
Plus, you get stuff like this:
Durge/Legends
Durge was a male Gen'Dai bounty hunter who was active in the galaxy for almost two thousand years. Able to survive several near-death situations due to his Gen'Dai heritage and enhanced battle armor, he fought in several wars and collected a multitude of bounties. Over the centuries, Durge...
starwars.fandom.com
I do remember hearing that TCW was originally going to center on a bunch of original characters during the Clone Wars- some of which were reimagined and recycled into the main characters in Star Wars Rebels. If true, I genuinely think this would have been the better path to go down.
Canon and characterization clashes or not, it still began as part of the EU before Disney snapped up the IP. When they gobbled and cocked it all up, tCW went in a direction that was more along Disney's goals/aims with their "canon" (which includes Rebels, et cetera) than the EU's stuff, and we saw stuff like soft retcons in later seasons.Yes but at the same time no. The clashes with canon in TCW started long, looooong before the Disney buy out. Look at how characters are treated even in the early seasons.
Plus, you get stuff like this:
Durge/Legends
Durge was a male Gen'Dai bounty hunter who was active in the galaxy for almost two thousand years. Able to survive several near-death situations due to his Gen'Dai heritage and enhanced battle armor, he fought in several wars and collected a multitude of bounties. Over the centuries, Durge...
I do remember hearing that TCW was originally going to center on a bunch of original characters during the Clone Wars- some of which were reimagined and recycled into the main characters in Star Wars Rebels. If true, I genuinely think this would have been the better path to go down.
It's a complicated mess.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
One of the biggest shames of the TCW is how Filoni compounds on wrecking General Grievous’s character and his frank refusal to make the enemy’s foot soldiers remotely intimidating. There was a time where Battle Droids were faceless, soulless, killing machines.
Now they are jokes in large part thanks to him.
Now they are jokes in large part thanks to him.
Exactly this. Though they didn't do Dooku any favors either.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
And that was just a taste of what would become of the Empire at Filoni’s hands.
I can only imagine the reason it happens is because Filoni wants his zany pew-pew action scenes but can’t think of ways to do it without his OCs getting cut down. So he makes the enemy stupid instead of getting the protagonists to pick their battles more carefully.
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
It's probably because Grievous appeared like a complete chump in Episode III...never mind that was only because Windu had damaged his life-support, so he couldn't fight like he normally could.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
And the two times he “ran away cackling” were unsalvageable situations. They could have had a bit more of Lucas’s moustache twirling villain in their, but also synthesised it with the “Terminator with Lightsabers” of 2003.
Edit: The again, Ahsoka would not have lived very long if that were the case. Bugger me, imagine her as a Palawan against 2003 Grievous?
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
Good commanders know when to run and when to stand and fight.
She'd be dead. Grievous able to fight at his fullest was a threat to Jedi Masters. Ahsoka was something of a prodigy with lightsabers (that, or more likely because she was trained by Anakin who was a prodigy in every sense of the word), but against Grievous?
Not a chance in hell.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
What time were the Battle Droids faceless soulless killing machines? They could be shattered by a light push in Episode 1, lost in droves to Gungans riding giant chickens, and even their tanks were taken out wholesale by Jar Jar's slapstick antics. In episode 2 they were given silly voices because even the fail in episode 1 was deemed too much. By episode 3 we had even Super Battle Droids straight up getting waxed by R2-D2 improvising an oil slick. Even George Lucas in interviews mentioned how he intended the droids to be mostly useless.
If anything TCW made them a significantly bigger threat than they'd been in the Prequels.
Which was Lucas’s mistake. What he should have done was focus more on the notion that the droids are deadly against normal people, but don’t do so well against Jedi. Which would help sell the idea of the Jedi being amazing.
And they were threats, or at least not treated as total jokes and slapstick; mostly in the 2003 series and in other spin off media. TCW absolutely doubled down on making them a joke though.
The voices in tPM were actually intimidating; then we got a comical overhaul in AotC onwards.
There was actually a shot of a clone trying to punch a B1, and all it did was cause him to reel back in pain with a broken wrist; the droid in question just looked at him for a second, and then it promptly shot him, so a broken wrist was the last of the clone's worries then, haha.
Clones using the butts of their rifles was enough to take down a B1, but then you've got the B2 droids -- against normal people/militias, they're unstoppable monsters (we saw this in The Mandalorian, in a flashback to Djin's origin story), so unless you're a Jedi, a highly trained Mandalorian commando, or a clone trooper, you're pretty much fucked.
It was basically just plot that made them comedical failures to the heroes.
Typhonis
Well-known member
That's the other problem....the CIS was nerfed hard. I can say it with a strait face because you can run the numbers and see it for yourself.
Let's say the CIS was loosing a dozen B-1s per clone they killed. That is a net win for the CIS. Large scale industrial warfare against someone that can job lot an army? Yeah attrition tactics are not going to work.
Heaven help the Republic if the loss rate was only 5 to one.
Let's say the CIS was loosing a dozen B-1s per clone they killed. That is a net win for the CIS. Large scale industrial warfare against someone that can job lot an army? Yeah attrition tactics are not going to work.
Heaven help the Republic if the loss rate was only 5 to one.
Blame Sidious for that -- IIRC in the EU and Disney, he purposefully caused the CIS to be limited because one side winning that early? It'd spell doom for the Sith's plans.
Anakin made an actual point in his confession that he went out of his way to kill the non-combatant women and children…
Yeah I'm aware. The issue like always isn't on what happened but how you manage to interpret them. Doesn't change how slippery your slope is unless one of those Jedi Younglings force pushed Padme in her swollen babymaker.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
In fairness to him I think that's how he rationalised it. In truth, anything in the vicinity was dead meat to a rampaging force user in the grip of grief and rage. Darth Vader came to adolescence in Order 66; he was born the day Shmi Skywalker died.
Hayden actually did quite well in acting that scene because he does manage to emote guilt, if not horror, mixed in with the rage. Padme saw that and chose to comfort him.
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
Not to mention, you can practically count the number of competent CIS leaders on one hand: Darth Tyranus, General Grievous, Admiral Trench. Well, the ones that appear on-screen, at any rate, there were a few more in other material. The rest, though? Just a bunch of corporate sleazes that would make even the most one-dimensional Moff from Disney Star Wars look a genius in comparison.
To be fair, a lot of Imperials in the early days of the Star Wars EU were pretty one-dimensional as well.
But yes it would have been nice if the CIS was actually shown on screen to be morally grey rather then just ‘the bad guys’. So much for the ‘there are heroes on both sides’ bit from the opening crawl of Revenge of the Sith.
I really do think that the prequels would have benefited from better dialogue and moving episode 1 up to the beginning of the Clone Wars, then 2 is set during it and 3 being the wrap up.
Not sure if I would have made the Clones the bad guys or not. I mean, it’s called the Clone Wars but the Clones were on the side that won and then more or less discarded them. Would have made more sense to call it the ‘Droid Wars’.