Hey everybody and welcome to Leia’s Lair.
In today’s episode, we will be going over how the Clone Wars explained the complex politics
seen in the prequel trilogy.
One of the many ways Star Wars: The Clone Wars improved on the Star Wars prequels was
by providing a greater level of clarity to the politics that drove critical events in
those films.
The prequel films were widely criticized for, among other factors, dedicating large amounts
of screentime to tedious political discussions.
Shortly after the prequels ended, The Clone Wars began airing on Cartoon Network in 2008.
In the Star Wars universe, the Clone Wars is a three-year-long battle that raged between
the Republic and its Jedi fighters and the Separatists, the latter side led by former
Jedi Count Dooku.
The Jedi, previously keepers of the peace, were now designated to lead an army of clone
warriors against Separatist forces in battles that took place on numerous different planets.
The war served as the core of the Clone Wars series, and allowed the show to take a more
in-depth look at the politics behind the war.
While the motivations for the overarching antagonist, Palpatine, putting the Clone Wars
into motion were always clear in the prequels, the politics that motivated other characters
in the films to engage in the Clone Wars remained a mystery until The Clone Wars animated series
came around.
So what exactly did the Clone Wars do?
The Clone Wars Explains What The War Is Actually About
While the Clone Wars themselves are mentioned by numerous characters throughout the films,
it was an event that was never explored deeply on-screen.The same can be said for the feelings
and perspectives of individual characters who helped to lead to the Clone Wars transpiring,
particularly in regards to how people perceived the Republic.
Specifically, there was a widespread perception that the Galactic Republic had become so corrupt
that it was ignoring the very citizens that it was supposed to protect.
As the Senate became more and more enamored with its self-centered tendencies, Count Dooku
and his Separatist movement sprung up as a form of potential salvation.
Many systems, now joined together into a new government called the Confederacy of Independent
Systems, held onto hopes that Dooku and company could install a new form of government that
would be conscious of their desires and needs.
This growing threat of a Separatist movement overpowering the Republic was the primary
justification for the use of the secretly created Clone Army.
This perspective of the Republic being disreputable was something only briefly glimpsed at in
The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones but got widely explored through a myriad of
characters through the run of The Clone Wars.
One of the most memorable examples of this was Barriss Offee, a Jedi apprentice to Luminara
Unduli, who was eventually revealed to be responsible for the bombing of the Jedi temple.
Her reasoning for this attack was that the Jedi have, much like the Republic Senate,
become corrupt and, in the process, developed into more of a threat to the galaxy than Separatist
forces.
Separatist Senator Mina Bonteri, for instance, is sympathetically shown to firmly believe
that Dooku and the Separatist forces can help her and her people far more efficiently than
the Republic.
For her, turning against the Republic is simply a matter of making sure that the planet she
loves is best taken care of.
The Clone Wars Explains the Influences Of The Different Trades & Guilds
Throughout the prequels, audiences were exposed to wholly new aspects of the Star Wars universe,
particularly in regards to the various unions and trade guilds that populated the Republic
Senate.
Such unions and trade guilds were, ideally, supposed to represent the interests and rights
of large groups of everyday people.
Most had loyalty to the Separatists and despite having noble aims, these groups typically
ended up having more corrupt means that would only benefit their wealthy leaders.
Many of these entities came across as merely a blur in their fleeting appearances in the
prequels, coming and going with very little explanation.
Just as they did with individual characters like Satine and people loyal to Dooku, The
Clone Wars managed to improve on the politics of the prequels by dedicating several episodes
to exploring these establishments and their motivations.
For example, in the season one arc on the planet Ryloth which depicted Techno Union
droids invading the planet and having no regard for its vulnerable citizens.
The Techno Union entered the Clone Wars under the guise of aiding everyday residents of
the galaxy, yet its brutal actions during the Ryloth conflict demonstrated the self-centered
hypocrisy driving the organization.
The Clone Wars Shows Heroes On Both Sides In the opening title crawl of Revenge of the
Sith, there's a brief mention that, in the Clone Wars conflict, "there are heroes on
both sides."
It's an intriguing idea that never gets explored in any of the prequel movies; the antagonists
on the opposing side of the conflict, like General Grevious, are drawn as such broad
villains that one can never see them as heroes.
Within The Clone Wars TV show, though, this idea of heroes in the Clone Wars not being
limited to the Republic is frequently explored.
An example of this is seen in the Season 3 episode “Heroes on Both Sides” This episode
sees Ahsoka Tano accompanying Padme Amidala on a trip to the Confederacy of Independent
Systems to meet Separatist Senator and friend, Mina Bonteri.
Ahsoka, at the start of this episode, mirrors many viewers in having a very black-and-white
perspective of the morality of those engaging in the Clone Wars.
However, traveling to Bonteri and her Separatist-controlled planet allows both Ahsoka and the audience
to get a more nuanced view of this conflict.
For the first time, both Ahsoka and viewers get to see the everyday lives of people who
live under Separatist control.
Another example is when one of Maul's most prominent soldiers, Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan
Kryze emerges as hero.
Though she had previously helped Maul ascend to extreme power, she eventually betrays him
and finds herself aiding Republic forces that she was previously hellbent on destroying.
Much like fellow Mandalorian inhabitant Satine, Bo-Katan Kryze helps to provide a more morally
complicated presence in the narrative of the Clone Wars.
And there you have it!
Thanks for watching everyone.
Can you think of other examples of how the Clone Wars explains the prequels?
Let me know down below in the comment section.
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I hope to see you all again in Leia’s Lair.