ugh i wanted to do a thread about the wars in Star Wars and…

my first argument is that the Clone Wars were a really complex morally gray moment in Star Wars canon in like, 5 different directions and I'd kind of like to know why Lucas did that.

especially with the direct line that's drawn in the OT with the allegory of WW2 and Vietnam with the rebels being the Vietnamese and the Empire being America. That...doesn't exist in the Clone Wars.

for starters: it's weird it's called the Clone Wars. I get why, because that's what Kenobi calls it in STAR WARS, but the clones are a small facet in the larger story of the war.

the clones basically only exist as a macguffin in AOTC that is...extremely confusing ultimately. Because if you accept that Sidious has this grand master plan to use this war to destabilize the Republic and form an Empire...it's way too complex.

Why *give* the Jedi/Republic an army? why doesn't the Republic have a significant military on its own? Why is the Republic SO reliant on the Jedi as a peace-keeping force and why do the Jedi allow this?

There's then the larger argument of clone personhood. To a certain extent they are basically slaves or child soldiers. So then...the Republic and the Jedi are very clearly bad. But the clones form the base the Empire's army is built off of. So the whole fucking thing is rotten!

also hearkening back to the Firefly discussion, in a very real sense the Clone Wars is just the Civil War but with the more powerful army (Union/Republic) having an army made entirely of slaves!

and even though the entire idea of the Separatists being patsies for Sidious and Dooku's long con (which is a whole other bag of worms)...there's no real reason the planets that want to leave the Republic are bad for wanting to leave?

none that I remember, the whole argument is really fucking confusing and I haven't seen AOTC in a long fucking time. But while the bulk of the Separatist army is droids, there had to have been people on the Separatist planets who agreed with the idea, otherwise there'd be no war!

So like...are those people bad for being duped by the bad guys? Keeping in mind that a lot of Outer Rim planets had significant problems, like rampant slavery (which was illegal) and organized crime, it wasn't a problem the Republic was interested in fixing, clearly.

I know ultimately that Sidious' plan is "get the Jedi to rely on the clones, have a long protracted war that destabilizes the Republic, do Order 66, become emperor" but it feels like there had to have been a way easier way to do this.

tying the Separatist movement to the Trade Federation kind of works because they're explicitly baddies for...reasons, but it's still wild to me that things had fallen so far in the Republic that a fucking TRADE GUILD was a significant threat w/a massive army.

if the Republic is already that fucked by Episode 1, all Sheev has to do is blow and the dominoes fall. Instead he basically builds the world's most complicated game of mouse trap ever and places all his hope in Anakin getting jaded by war.

and I guess he also has to hope that Anakin and Padme fuck. That's a big part of the plan too for some fucking reason. (I know the reason do NOT DM me)

this kind of highlights the biggest issue with the prequel movies (besides largely being boring and poorly written): there's a lot of story here, and a lot of stuff that's implied, to the point where you could do an entire prequel series setting up the prequels.

which....is probably going to happen soon. honestly.

anyway it's something that would have easily fixed if PHANTOM MENACE didn't take place when it did. Start the prequels off with a lot more pieces in place and the later movies will be better.

like Anakin not being a child and not revolving around an event that's at least 12 years before the bulk of the plot of the prequels happen. It would be like if you did A NEW HOPE and then did EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 12 years later w/no one remembering or caring about the death star.

you can still have Anakin be young but the movie and everything that happens after it makes way more sense if he's like...16 and not 9. Specifically the romance, but also the argument against him being a Jedi. And then set AOTC and ROTS closer to TPM, so Anakin is like 22 in ROTS

Yeah. Four years of Jedi training and he can't advance or get any respect but he CAN get laid, and then two years of being a fucking GENERAL in a WAR but still not getting any respect and still getting laid.

*that'd* be enough to drive a man into the arms of the dark side.

god how old is anakin in attack of the clones.

holy shit this is the 20th anniversary of the Phantom Menace trailer which means we're DANGEROUSLY close to the 20th anniversary of the prequels.

oh my god next year is the 20th anniversary of Phantom Menace. jesus fucking christ, everything happens all the time huh

ok there's ten years between TPM and AOTC, so Anakin was 19 in AOTC. and only THREE YEARS between AOTC and ROTS. Anakin was 22 when he became Vader. Jesus christ.

That means Darth Vader is like...40 years old.

cuz Luke is 19. There's only a NINETEEN year gap between the ending of REVENGE OF THE SITH and the beginning of A NEW HOPE. that's wild.

which is weird because...we see the Death Star p near completion at the end of ROTS (and we know it was being worked on during the Clone Wars) which means Mads Mikkelsen had to hold off the advances of Ben Mendelssohn for almost 20 years. Imagine the willpower.

Mads Mikkelsen's character from ROGUE ONE, a character who's name I 100% remember, is the strongest character in star wars

@threadreaderapp unroll this thread for me please.