Star Wars: 8 Reasons The Clone Wars Was Better Than The Prequels

8. Development Of The Jedi

We don€™t learn much about the Jedi Order in the original trilogy. The early EU had to start from scratch, and ended up creating characters who entered Jedi training in their thirties. There€™s a novel called €œChildren of the Jedi,€ whose plot is predicated on the children and families of the Jedi. Then the prequels came out, and we learned that Jedi have no families, are (apparently) sworn to celibacy, are integrated into a bureaucracy rather than being the warrior priests Yoda and Obi-Wan suggested, and are generally buzzkills. The result, partly due to this framework and partly because of bad writing, is that all Jedi seem (nonvisually) interchangeable and dull. Sure, in the EU each one has a complicated backstory and nuanced personality, but in the movies they don€™t even have names (yes, I can name most of the Jedi on screen at any point, but most people can€™t because they had lives in high school). Prequel Jedi are pretty dull, with the (arguable) exceptions of Qui Gon, Mace Windu, Obi Wan, and Yoda. But more importantly, we don€™t learn anything about their culture. We don€™t know what it€™s like to live in a universe of infinite variety and hold to a monk€™s path. We don€™t understand what the bond between master and padawan means. And we don€™t know much about the inner workings of the order itself. Clone Wars fixes all that. Many episodes focus on Jedi who weren€™t even named in the movies. These Jedi have personalities and relationships of their own, and they interact differently with the Jedi culture. There€™s a Jedi who treats the clones as disposable soldiers, in direct contrast to our heroes. There are dips into the inner workings of the order, like the formation of a lightsaber or the process by which a Jedi is expelled. And each Jedi has a different kind of relationship with Jedi culture, none without conflict. We discover that even Obi-Wan, the ultimate Jedi, almost left the order because he fell in love. We learn about what the bond between master and padawan means for different Jedi. We get to know these people.