We all know that the Star Wars prequels were bad. All of them were absolutely terrible in every way, except as merchandising vehicles. If you have any doubts that the movies were bad, or that they were in any way redeemable, please go visit Mr. Plinkett, of whom I am a (rather terrified) fan at http://redlettermedia.com/category/plinkett-reviews/ He will set you straight, and hell send you free pizza rolls! Anyway, that being said, Im of the opinion that the only good piece of film-type-art to come out of Lucasfilm since Return of the Jedi is the Clone Wars cartoon. Yes, I am a grown-up. No, I mean it. Stop laughing, Im serious! *force choke*. Thats better. As I was saying, the Clone Wars cartoons are actually excellent. Theyre well-written, well-acted (do not laugh!), and all around better than the prequels. In fact, when you compare them to the prequels, they look like Emmy winners. I know you dont believe me, even though I convinced you to stop laughing. So without further ado, here are the nine reasons Clone Wars is better than the Star Wars prequels.
9. Development Of A Wider Universe
In some ways, this is one of the prequels few forgivable sins. When youre creating a civilizations worth of merchandise, you cant tell every story. Thats what the EU is for. But there are certain things that the prequels really needed to address, and then didnt. For example: the clone army that is the centerpiece of the Clone Wars. We know they were grown from a single template, they follow orders, they will kill whoever they are told to kill, and they are good in battle. Thats it. We dont know what they think of themselves, what they think of the life they were bred into. We dont know if they have individual personalities. We dont know how they see the Jedi around them. Or take the Jedi younglings. Their murder was a big deal in Revenge, but what do we know about them? Just that theyre Jedi in training. Theyve got no personalities, no history, no context. Now theyre dead, and we should care because they were kids. I used those two examples because theyre ones Clone Wars rectifies magnificently. The very first episode of Clone Wars focuses on the adventures of Yoda and three clones. Those clones individual personalities, and Yodas ability to perceive them, are the central emotional drama of the episode. Later episodes sometimes exclude Jedi characters entirely, focusing instead on drama among the clones, on their ideas about war, the Jedi, each other, and themselves. Theres even a clone who goes rogue, marries a local woman and has a child, because he questioned what he was bred for. These are important issues, and the show dealt with them while the movie brushed them aside. And the Jedi Younglings get an entire arc to themselves. They have personalities, histories, relationships. And depressing as it is to watch them and know theyll die, it certainly creates more emotional investment than that someone deleted it from the archive memory thing.