Alex Love

I think after three entries, it is safe to abandon the lockdown diary facade. I meant to write something in June, but that didn’t happen.

One of the main reasons I’ve not done much writing of late is that I have been binge-watching the Star Wars animated series Clone Wars and Rebels. I’d heard they were good and had wanted to watch them previously, but the lack of a TV or subscription to call my own in the last decade created something of a hindrance.

Despite not being a massive fan of the prequels, I’m surprised by quite how much I enjoyed Clone Wars. They managed to achieve something the prequels were unable to and make Anakin actually likeable, with his inner darkness more nuanced instead of just flicking a switch and turning to the darkside as he had to for plot purposes.

Another impressive feat was that even though you knew the fates of most of the characters, it was still compelling and interesting to watch. And that’s all thanks to the writing. In the episode where the clone trooper called Fives uncovers the truth about the inhibitor chip inside the head of each clone, the story is written in such a way that you at least have a glimmer of hope that he’s going to succeed in revealing the truth – even if you know deep down that he’s ultimately doomed. In places, the series is also very funny when it intends to be in a way that the prequel and sequel trilogies often weren’t.

It doesn’t fix my main gripe with the Clone Wars depicted in the prequels, which is that it never really made sense for the Jedi to be fighting droids when the enemy forces should have been a relentless onslaught of clones. The clue is in the name. But the animated series could only work within the parameters of what had already been established, which Dave Filoni took and improved dramatically.

After Clone Wars, I moved onto Rebels. The first thing that’s immediately noticeable is that the animation is a poorer quality than the Clone Wars, with Ezra looking like someone from a PlayMobil set.

It took at least a season or so to get going and the characters took some time to get used to. As the seasons progressed, I enjoyed it more. But Clone Wars is definitely the stronger series.

I have far more to say on these series and may include it in that longer article I’ve been writing about Star Wars that I may end up pitching to somewhere.

I will just finish by saying that both series delved far deeper into the Star Wars mythos than we’ve seen in any of the films, and proved an important reminder that it is still possible to tell plenty of new and exciting stories in that galaxy far, far away.