My Star Wars Day Contribution

Holy heckin’ wow!

One of my earliest pieces on The Whitly-Verse was a collaboration with a friend on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, its brilliance and why it deserved to be watched. That was despite missing its conclusion and the events leading up to Star Wars Ep. III: Revenge of the Sith. For the longest time, I thought there’d be no conclusion at all! After all, the franchise had moved on with Star Wars Rebels, so why hold any hope?

Cue this teaser:

Yeah baby! (Courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes TV.)

It’s rare when a cancelled TV series gets rescued and revived, but it looks like we got that! And hey, the aesthetic received an upgrade to coincide with Disney money backing it! The only downside was that we’d have to wait until 2020. That, and it’d be available on Disney+, which kinda sucked. Even with its weekly syndication giving me time to catch up, I was still hesitant to actually get a subscription. But my lack of better judgement finally got a hold of me long enough to cave and watch the show.

And give it credit: it’s still great! I couldn’t have asked for a better finale, even if it takes 2/3 of its runtime to get there. Because even with the first eight episodes being self-contained, and the second-arc going back in time to right after Season 5 ended, it was clear that what made this work was still there. It was still obvious that the show-runners cared. And that’s what matters most.

As for the season itself? Without going into too much detail, the first four episodes adapt an abandoned story from 2013: The Bad Batch. Focusing on a team of controversial clones, this arc has the beating heart that made the show: high stakes, plenty of action, lots of carnage and destruction, the likes. It also ends on a note befitting of the show, which was nice.

The second four episodes, as I said before, go back in time to Season 5’s finale and show what happened after its heartbreaking conclusion. It’s a good arc, containing plenty of stealth and banter, but it feels like filler. My big complaint is how detached it is from the rest of the season, falling into the category of “lesser-quality”. Still, it ends on a tie-in to the season finale, albeit loosely, so I can’t fault it for that. This arc gets a pass.

The final arc, which feels like a movie divided into four episodes, is where everything coalesces. The Mandalore subplot, which the show dove into a few times, finally gets its conclusion, and the fights are some of the best I’ve seen. I also like how it combines details from the last film in The Prequel Trilogy, even going forward with Order 66. It’s tense and intense, helped by a dramatic improvement in the animation’s quality. And it’s emotional. If anything, this is the best arc in the season, and I appreciate the show-runners saving it for last. It makes the journey more worth it.

But that’s the show for you: a rollercoaster of highs and lows, and never simultaneously. But there also isn’t a Rush Clovis or Jar-Jar Binks episode, making the season a complete upgrade from ones past. It’s refreshing. It actually makes me wish the season was longer, showing more of the conflict, but I guess Disney wanted to get this out of the way. Especially when, factoring in the pilot movie, this whole show is roughly 47 hours long. That’s almost 2 days’ worth of binging. Think about that for a minute.

Nevertheless, if you had to waste 47 hours of your life on a show, then you could definitely do much worse. Especially with the two, “unofficial” endings being as compelling as the “official” one. Because you’re still getting Star Wars. And Star Wars is always a treat.

It’s all-the-more fitting that I caved and binged this season on May 4th, the unofficial day of Star Wars in general. Because while much of the fanbase was arguing over which Star Wars is “good Star Wars”, or expressing how toxic the fans are, I was catching up on a favourite series of mine that I only really started about 5 years ago. That might make me a “late fan of the show”, but better now than never! I mean, what else was I going to watch?

Anyway, this is a fitting resolution to this 133 episode series + a movie. It’s one I whole-heartedly recommend to fans, and it’s available to watch on Disney+. It may not be “the best Star Wars content out there”, even, but it’s worth it. I mean that sincerely.

I guess this is why Star Wars has endured: it has different connections to different people. For some, The Original Trilogy is Star Wars, nothing more. For others, The Prequels get factored into that. Still others get a rush out of The Sequels. And then there are fans of the ancillary material, of which this qualifies. Me, personally? I get a kick out of all of it, especially when you have a show that’s as good as many of the films that’ve inspired it. It’s to be expected when you have talented individuals on an ambitious and long-running series like Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

So yes, watch Season 7. Now, should I stream Season 1 of The Mandalorian before my trial of Disney+ expires too, or should I hold off until I can afford a subscription? Decisions, decisions!