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Ashton Houghton

Prof. Dunham

Eng 1101

1 October , 2021

Why The Clone Wars Is a Great Show

Star Wars is known obviously for being one of the biggest and most successful

franchises of all time for films and just in general. I have been a huge fan of this franchise ever

since I was little ,owning video games, watching the films basically religiously and listening to

videos and audio books on the comics all the time. But one show whilst is popular, I believe it

does not get enough credit as much as it deserves is a well known show that came out in 2008,

“Star Wars the Clone Wars”. I really do believe this show is Star Wars at it’s best, I had recently

rewatched all of its 7 seasons and after 13 years it definitely holds up as an amazing show for

Star Wars fans and for people who are not even into Star Wars, it really does a really great job

in explaining and developing plot points for the Star Wars prequel trilogy, such as character

development and central themes to star wars plus give pretty good backstory to the characters

we all know and love. It does have it’s problems here and there like any show but for the most

part it is great and here’s why.

I cannot talk about this show without talking first about the clones, before in the movies

they were really just kinda mindless drones with really no personalities to speak of, but here in

this show that is not the case in the slightest. From episode 1 of the first season it’s no doubt

that there is way more character to these previously though emotionless husks of men as

portrayed in the films. One of the huge reasons that the clones are some rememberable in the

show compared to the films is in huge part to the voice talent of Dee Bradly Baker. He really
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gave individual personalities of every clone with really doing the same voice for hundreds of

characters, but due to the small differences of tone or how they would individually speak you

can really get the personalities of them. Such as my favorite clone trooper “Captain Rex”, he

was 2nd in command of his regiment the 501st, only second to Anakin Skywalker. He starts off

as many of the other clone troopers by the book and only believed that his purpose in life was to

help fight and defend the republic with his clone brothers. As the show progresses however, he

has more interactions with other clones and his general Anakin Skywalker he slowly develops

into one of his own. Taking influence from his general he goes more off the book with his

plans/techniques in the battlefield. Also as the war continues and he sees more and more of his

brothers die for a war they don’t even know what they’re fighting for, he begins to wonder what

is even the point of the war and what will happen to himself and his brothers after the war is

over. Many clones saw the jedi in this show as there friends and you really do believe it, which

makes it even more tragic when you know what happens at the end of the war to the clones and

jedi, after being given the order “execute order 66 “ they have no second thoughts and will try to

execute their former jedi friends and generals with no remorse due to these chips in their heads,

which the jedi were not even aware of. Another thing in the movies that was not really shown or

talked about.This level of complexity whilst not applied to every single clone in the show, but it

can definitely show you that this show definitely has more character development of the clones

compared to the films.

This show, while being animated and put on a kids show network, was definitely not a

show only made for kids, clones and other established characters throughout the show do die,

and sometimes it can just be out of nowhere. This series also has many adult themes such as

losing yourself in hard times like war. For example the jedi council is an ancient group of

powerful jedi masters and the jedi were supposed to be these keepers of peace for the galaxy/

republic. As the war goes along however the jedi slowly are losing their ways and principles,
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some turning to the darkside as they see what will happen to the jedi order at the end of the

war, some even giving in to betraying their own codes to win battles. The show starts always

with a message or important bit of advice and wisdom that proteins to the episode, they can

range from deep to kinda basic and not really thought provocative and I’ll be honest I don’t really

remember really any of them but I feel like it did have some pretty good lessons from what I

remember from when I was younger. The show can be childish at times obviously it’s a kids

show at the end of the day, but these more childish moments are few and far between in the

later seasons but they are pretty prevalent in the first 2 seasons. Overall this story due to how it

is told throughout the 7 seasons is very adult for a kids show dealing with heavy amounts of

loss, important lessons and development of the characters.

Another thing the series got right was the character development of the main character

Anakin Skywalker. Previously during the original trilogy from the 80’s Anakin was only told what

he was like from his friend Obi-Wan Kenobi that “he was a good friend” and “the best star pilot

in the galaxy”. The prequels tried to build upon this but, to be honest they didn’t do the best job.

This show had really done something we didn’t really see in the prequels, we see the slow

descent of his journey into the dark side of the force where he will become Darth Vader in the

future. The story starts after “Episode II Attack of the Clone” where he is a jedi knight and had

just recently lost his mother and killed the sand people. So he already has a bit of the darkside

in him at this time but for the most part he is a good person with a few mild flaws. He is given a

padawan named Ashoka, he resents having but as the series goes on he grows to really like his

padawan which he really gets attached to. Another thing of his that is developed over the course

of the show is his relationship with his wife Padmae which in the movies there relationship is

honestly not that believable ,the clone wars really makes you kinda believe there hidden love

and you really feel anakin would at the end of the war throw away his old ways just to save his

wife. Throughout the course of the show many events happen to Anakin throughout the war that
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cause him to slowly turn to the dark side. Such as he gets manipulated by the senators and jedi

council to do things, and as he grows more attachments to his friends he is more scared to lose

any of them which is a way to the darkside of the force. Out of all the trials that Anakin faces

throughout the show's runtime, I personally think that the thing that definitely was the point of

no return for him was in season 5. Where in which after the jedi temple is bombed his padawan

Ashoka is accused of the crime she did not commit, the jedi council make it as if it’ll be a vote to

see if she is kicked out of the council before her trial but, it was predetermined that she would

be kicked out anyway. This enrages Anakin which leads him to seek the truth and he ends up

finding who actually committed the crime, but due to the jedi council not believing her in the first

place she decides to leave the order. Due to him becoming so attached to Ashoka after nearly 4

years worth of time in the show he tries to get her to stay but she still leaves anyway. This

causes Anakin to basically lowkey resent the council for the rest of the show causing him to be

turned to the darkside relatively easily. For this series to be able to take a character that not too

many cared for during the films and make him empathetic and likeable says a lot for the show,

and I personally think they did a good job tho I will say I do believe they could’ve changed a few

things here and there but overall I think they did really well.

After all this praise for the show I will say nothing is without its flaws and early on there

were quite a few of them but I will only focus on a few main ones. First major problem is

probably the first two seasons definitely were more childish in it’s themes and action with some

stories being little one off here and there. I do also believe that season one and two definitely

were still trying to find their footing with their art style/ animation. The animation at times in the

1st few seasons could be really choppy or blockey at times. Luckily as the show went on they

really perfected both but I could definitely see it turning some people away from the show.

Another minor problem at the beginning of the show is probably Ashoka, I love the character

now but at the time of the first two seasons she was purposely written to be annoying/
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incompitant to be written as a better character as the show went on, but I will say rewatching it

again I could definitely see why people would not like her or her actions as the show were to go

on. Another character that was unfortunately not developed really at all, was General Grievous.

He's almost the exact same character from “Revenge of the Sith”. He also was kinda a push

over and doesn’t really change character throughout the show. Which is a real shame that such

a cool character, design wise really doesn’t develop at all and also just really doesn’t have much

time dedicated to himself like other characters. Other than one episode called “ The Lair of

Grievous” which kinda shows what he was like before the cyborg parts were put on him / how

his cybernetics is repaired by a personal droid, other than that he really doesn’t develop at all.

Another kinda major flaw was probably season 6 because it was a season of just thrown away

content that was finished at the time due to them not being able to finish the show due to disney

buying the rights to Star Wars. Fortunately the show would be completed as a 7th season on

disney plus, but at the time it never had a true ending for nearly 6 years. During that 6th season

you can definitely tell that it was just some episodes thrown together which kinda sucks. Even

after all these flaws I still think the show is great but it is important to understand that the show

is not perfect.

There are many more things I could state why this show is awesome and really helped

improve the prequel stories of Star Wars. These are definitely the things I wanted to bring up the

most about the show and why I think it’s so good personally. As well as it’s flaws because you

can’t talk about the good without talking about the bad and this show definitely has flaws like I

said. Despite the amount of little flaws here and there I still very much believe that Star was the

clone wars is an amazing show that I highly recommend to Star Wars fans and nonfans alike to

at least give it a shot.