Stupidly Entertaining
I’ve been watching a lot of the Clone Wars lately. I just finished the beginning of season 4 which include a three episode arc on Mon Calamari and a two episode arc involving R2-D2 and C-3PO on a wild adventure. What’s struck me about this show is how incredibly stupid some things are and yet how much better this is than the prequel movies.
In the Mon Calamari arc the Separatists and Republic aid the Quarren and Mon Calamari (respectively) in a fight for control of the planet. Overall, they are a pretty good episode arc but they’re founded on a silly notion; Mon Calamari being an inherited monarchy. I don’t understand why every world in the Star Wars universe needs to be a monarchy according to George Lucas. There’s one galaxy spanning democratic body but it seems every member is a monarchy.
Because of this monarchy bit, Ackbar comes off as a bit stupid. He keeps saying “we’ll do what the prince decides”. Ackbar in the movies and the EU was cool. A talented tactician. I mean, he ordered the Rebels to concentrate fire on the super star destroyer and two seconds later it blew up. That’s leadership.
Now, the silliness of the monarchy aside, its a pretty good arc and makes good use of the fact that its a CGI show. You could never really have an entire war underwater in a live action show. Sure, the physics are ridiculous and the concept is ludicrous if you think about it (did the entire 3 episodes take place over a few hours or did Padme, Anakin and Ahsoka just never need to eat?) but that’s true for most entertainment.
Contrasting these episodes are the two droid episodes that followed soon after. Those two were just kind of dumb. They were very clearly episodes for a kids show. Which is fine since that’s what the Clone War is supposed to be, but it stands out here in comparison to many of the other episodes.
Comparing the movies to the Clone Wars causes much the same result. I enjoy Star Wars and can look past a lot just because its a fun movie (why I was okay with JJ Abarms Star Trek, it wasn’t all that good Trek but it was a good movie). The Clone Wars has more than its share of stupid concepts and events. But it at least makes an effort to address some things.
The fact that the Jedi are using an army of sentient slaves to fight a war is mentioned a few times. Its never gone into much detail but the fact is at least acknowledged. For anyone to commit such a blatant (human?) rights violation is appalling, to have the supposed wise Jedi do it is just sad.
In one episode, Anakin, Obi-wan and Ahsoka end up in a mysterious planet where powerful Force being live. In the first episode its suggested that the prophecy of the One and Anakin’s destiny is to replace the Father on that world in order to keep his two children, embodiments of the Light and Dark side, in line. While that’s a little silly, I did like the concept of the prophecy being completely unrelated to the fall of the Jedi or the rise of the Sith.
Anakin walking away from his prophecy at the end of that first episode in the three arc was an interesting idea. That interesting idea became trapped under more nonsense with the second two episodes in the arc but its still better than the prophecy stuff we see in the movies.
Overall, the Clone Wars does stupid but entertaining better than the prequel movies. Its full of CGI because that’s what the entire world is. Its used to good effect to go places you can’t with live action. There are still lots of over the top silliness, such as Gozilla…err..I mean Zilo beast, but that’s part of its charm. It’s a sci-fi world so vast that you can conceivable do any movie or story trope.
It still suffers from the insanity that is some of George Lucas’ ideas but because its made by people who aren’t him, they can mitigate it. The shows producers got to be the filter Lucas needed. While it could be better without some of this ridiculousness, it wouldn’t be Star Wars.
