I finished the original six season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars just the other day. I’ve been watching along as I listen to A More Civilized Age and I finally hit the point where, for a few years, this show had come to an end. It would eventually get a seventh season to help wrap up a show that absolutely should not have been cut off at the knees like this one was (the last few arcs of the show were some of the best Star Wars I’d ever seen and might have held the top position if not for Andor), but no one knew that at the time. This was just where the show ended, somewhat abruptly and in a bit of a lackluster manner. Now, I’ve yet to listen to the AMCA episodes covering the end of season 6, so I might change my mind once I hear someone else’s opinion on it, but I wasn’t super interested in the final Yoda arc. I feel like that time could have been better spent on wrapping up some other unanswered questions beyond “why did Yoda turn into a little, isolated gremlin on Dagobah” and “how did Yoda learn to become a Force Ghost,” which didn’t really need answers. Or at least I feel like they didn’t need answers. That said, this sort of lack-luster end to the show feels very “Clone Wars” as a whole, given its rather inconsistent quality and the more extreme peaks and valleys it developed in its later seasons. I’ve gotta give it point for consistency in that regard. And, you know, acknowledge that I don’t regret spending all this time watching five and a half full seasons of an increasingly well-made cartoon.

Now, I might have enjoyed the show a bit more if it hadn’t been the in-progress research and development playground for the animation studio that was formed around this show, but I’ll admit that the episodes that really stick out for me shine not just because of the interesting writing but because I was able to see the show coming into its own. There’s something about watching a show turn from a bland, empty, roughly-rendered 3D computer animated knobby-limbed nightmare (I’ve seriously had at least two nightmares about beings with limbs that look like they came out of an early episode of this show) into the detailed, smooth, and rich experience we begin to see towards the end of season 3. It really feels like it has “grown up” more than any other show I’ve ever seen. Even the radical changes in Adventure Time from dumb gags in season 1 to the emotionally compelling narrative of the last five seasons don’t measure up to watching Clone Wars develop from something I had to force myself to watch so I could enjoy a podcast to something I genuinely enjoyed watching well ahead of where I was in the podcast feed.

Critically speaking, though, I’m on board with the response that AMCA gives most of the time: the show falls short of the criticism it could be levying against the world at large (and the US in particular) and it often feels trapped within the bounds created by the Star Wars movies Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. So many characters have to foolishly miss obvious deceptions, have to cling to ideals they should have abandoned as a result of what they’ve seen, and have to contort themselves enough to fit within the developing narrative of this show but still snap back into their original place so they can be the kind of character who would make the decisions they will in Episode III. It was infuriating watching the Jedi be fooled by obvious lies again and again as they, like the proverbial frog in a pot, let themselves be boiled alive because they didn’t realize they were in a pot at all, let alone that someone was trying to boil them. Plus, Palpatine doesn’t exactly move with the most subtlety most of the time. It should be pretty obvious that the man is up to some shit, but no one outside of his obviously clued-in inner circle seems to notice his erratic behavior. I mean, no one even moves to suggest that he might be a bad person. The “nice, conciliatory guy” persona should have been torn asunder several seasons ago during the Zillo Beast arc when he kept trying to get a horrible monster back to one of the most populated planets in the galaxy so it could rampage through the city enough that the Jedi and their Clone Troopers would be forced to kill it. All anyone literally had to do was listen to him twist the arm of the scientist studying the creature. That’s it! It’s so obvious!

Anyway. It was still a good show. It’s just annoying that they couldn’t have made it in an alternate universe or something like that. It would have been way more fun to see the characters actually change in response to the world around them and what they’ve witnessed over the six seasons I’ve watched so far. Unfortunately, that show doesn’t exist and likely never will since Disney owns it now and all they care about is establishing a single canonical plot so they can endless spin out a variety of Star Wars media. Honestly, if I’d watched this show and seen what Disney decided to do to this show just as it was really hitting its stride, I’d probably have given up on Star Wars entirely. Thank goodness I had Andor to watch before I reached that point. Nothing like an example of the best Star Wars could possibly be showing up while its trapped under the boot of Disney to get me to keep investing my time and energy in the franchise.

I’m not entirely sure I’d recommend watching the show. I’d definitely recommend listening to A More Civilized Age, though, and maybe watching the show as you listen it. Having visuals and your own opinions to compare to the hosts of this excellent podcast really heightens the experience. You probably won’t regret your experience. Maybe keep something passive at hand so you can mentally check out of the parts of the early seasons that a bit more rough than the later seasons. AMCA also has a pretty decent skip list (of The Clone Wars episodes, since you should absolutely not skip any AMCA episodes) if that’s more your jam. I think they could have cut more than they did, but I also tend to trim things like that pretty heavily (despite what you might think reading my sometimes meandering blog posts), so that’s just my opinion. It’s easily worth taking a look at it and judging for yourself.