The Original Clone Wars Were Way Different

by this point in the 2020s the Clone Wars are arguably the most extensively explored period in Star Wars thanks to the prequels the Clone Wars multi media project the Clone Wars cartoon other books shows in just about every other possible type of media but for a long time their exact nature wasn't really solidly known and the publish material of the expanded universe gave some widely different ideas for what they would be than what we ultimately got the storytellers of that expanded universe material weren't actually allowed to expl exp the Clone Wars period directly in their stories instead leaving that open for George to explore himself if he so chose but references to the Clone Wars period and the rise of the empire directly or indirectly were very common in books Source Books and Comics today we're going to focus on two of the bigger elements of these differences the timing of the Clone Wars and who exactly was fighting whom because it's not really who you'd expect first up the timing as we now know the Clone Wars began with attack of the Clone set in 22 BBY or years before the Battle of Yavin and we also know the war ended 3 years later alongside the Declaration of the Empire and the beginning of the Jedi Purge but every element of this had received a different depiction earlier on novels published by Del re in their first run with the license from 1976 to 883 and then Bantam Spectra who had it from 91 to 99 when Del re regained the license in the Phantom menis released all tended to follow a similar timeline where theone Wars took place about 10 years earlier than they actually ended up being set which throws off the age of some Legends characters and also involved the Declaration of the Empire and the fall of the Jedi taking place over a few years in its aftermath as opposed to being immediately at the end of the Clone Wars the X-Wing books have a museum visited by wedge Antilles on corusant hitting at the lad bits of that according to the museum exhibit after the resolution of the Clone Wars the Jedi began to move towards an open grab for power Senator Palpatine circumvented them andos their puppet the events that goes on to describe relating to the Jedi aren't hugely inconsistent with what happens in the prequels but the intention in the book's description seems to be trying to get across points to a longer and more protracted power struggle before the actual Purge rather than the purge being something immediately after the war or even as part of the resolution of the Clone Wars especially like Order 66 was on the other hand the references to the removal of a puppet leader after the Clone Wars and before Palpatine's rise to power or being part of Palpatine's rise to power support this interpretation of a longer period even further I think and it does present a bigger contradiction than the statement about what happened to the Jedi even worse the exhibit says that Palpatine also never liked or subscribed for more videos which is something you can do right now one of the clearest ways to track the period of the Clone Wars as the expanded universe authors believed they look is the age of Corin horn and his father halh horn as stated in the X-Wing books and also the Standalone novel retelling the Jedi Academy trilogy From corin's perspective I Jedi halh Horn's father a Jedi named niia halian was said to actually have died shortly after the Clone Wars when Hal was 10 Corin himself is about 24 or 25 in Rogue Squadron which means he would have been born in 18 BBY the year after the Clone Wars ended according to the final timeline of the prequels how therefore would have been about 11 when he had Corin 11-year-olds with kids is not exactly standard practice but it does line up perfectly with the author Michael stackpole thinking the clone wars were about 10 to 20 years earlier you'd then have the more reasonable situation where Hal has Corin when he's between 21 and 31 there's another reference by stackpole later on in the X-Wing books where Corin is within another part of the museum relating to the Jedi saying quote a Jedi Museum everything pertained in one way or another to Jedi Knights and masters with the vast majority of them having served in the Clone Wars just over 40 years ago all of these people were alive obviously this isn't a clear direct statement that the clone wars were 40 years before which would put them at least at 37 BBY since it's saying those people were just alive at that point but that's incredibly pedantic and the number does come up elsewhere which we'll get to next first I do want to clarify that a lot of this was of course based on expectations set up by George in the original trilogy or other plans he may have had influencing what would or wouldn't get approved for publishing which ultimately changed as he decided more solidly what he wanted to do the period something that was well within his rights to do the authors weren't exactly given a lot to base their work off of so they kind of just had to make whatever inferences they were allowed to and a lot of times they were building off each other at a time where franchise storytelling with one continuity between different media types like this wasn't really common and where it wasn't really a concern for George personally compared to telling the stories he wanted to tell it's not surprising that you'd end up with these kinds of discrepancies or changes as time goes on any solid details you try to give about a story which has hasn't been told are going to be at risk of being overwritten I'm just focusing on the examples I am because they're the ones that gave the most solid numbers for us to look at compared to what we got later on you should still of course go and read the X-Wing books they're very good another place the 35 to 40ish BBY Clone Wars ending timeline is supported is the thron trilogy where in dark force Rising Leia is trying to find out when the nogrey world honger became polluted originally thinking it had been a recent change quote Leia put her hand against the smooth wood of the genealogy chart her knee suddenly feeling weak with shock 44 years not the five or eight or even 10 that she'd assumed 44 it didn't happen during the Rebellion she heard herself say it happened during the Clone Wars considering dark force Rising takes place in 9ab this puts the clone wars in the thrawn trilogy's depiction at least having started in 35 BBY as opposed to 22 BBY meaning the Clone Wars here took place at least 3 years before even The Phantom Menace took place and yes this means we basically just use carbon dating to figure out the Clone Wars timeline giving us a pretty precise number for a date which Leia is explicitly saying was within the Clone Wars something that's very handy for us but like I said a risk that went along with trans media storytelling in the 9s that General period comes up once again in yet another of Timothy zon's books vision of the future which takes place 10 years after the throne Trilogy tellen card says at one point in the book The Story of George Kardash goes back about 60 years to the Clone Wars era and the chaos that it brought on the Galaxy of course he says about so he's not being exact but exactly 60 years before would have been 41 BBY a whole two decades before the established Clone Wars you can also use his use of the word era as a way to make this statement work a bit better with the timeline we ended up getting but again this isn't about pointing out discrepancies for their own sake it's just about trying to get a sense for what the authors thought the period was like at the time and it's something that isn't necessarily consistent between all books and all mediums for example the early Marvel Comics take yet another approach to the timeline of the Clone Wars Marvel Star Wars issue 68 was actually released half a year before even Return of the Jedi so some details from the original trilogy weren't even established yet in this issue a Mandalorian named Fen shisa references being sent into the Clone Wars by Mandalore on the side of the EMP Emperor who was setting up his Empire concurrently with the Clone Wars and that he first became familiar with Leia during briefings on the Empire's enemies after that he references the war finally ending since Leia is not just alive but an active participant in the Galaxy's activities this means the Clone Wars have to take place much much later than both the event of the novels and the event of the prequels it also gives a different interpretation of Mandalorian involvement with both the Clone Wars and Empire than we later got in basically any portrayal but a lot of that got handled through direct recc later and the Marvel Comics were always kind of seen as a lower tier of Canon than pretty much anything else the issues with the timeline there were never really attempted to be addressed and I think it would be pretty difficult to address that this also does give us a pretty good jumping off point to get to the other topic of today's video though exactly who was fighting who in the Clone Wars well we know the clone wars were between the Republic and the CIS now with clones on the Republic side and Droids on the CIS side along with a vast array of local forces you would see in any given theater of the war the early depiction of the Clone Wars tend to reference it as though the Clones were a menace to the Galaxy Unleashed by their clone Masters and used to Assault The Republic while also regularly going mad in driving up the destruction of the war through that Madness one of the earliest bits of expanded universe media albeit one which was never really treated as Canon went this direction and introduced AA Prime as part of the kener toy line about a year after Return of the Jedi he was one one of those aforementioned clone Masters a term which did get thrown around a lot in different sources and he was said to have been banished by Palpatine for his role in starting the Clone Wars with thon's attempts to create his own Clone Army being a big focus of the thron trilogy these kinds of references to the Clone Wars and their clone Masters and some kind of Star Wars Attack of the Clones against the Republic come up quite a lot this version of the Clone Wars is even used as a reason that mer Jade future wife of Luke Skywalker would want to help the new Republic against the empire when she says quote the only reason I'm here is because I know a little about the Clone Wars era and don't want to see a bunch of cold-faced duplicates trying to overrun the Galaxy again end quote this idea was also used as the cause behind a stigma against clones in the Galaxy with cloning being kind of a taboo technology and clones being at best second class citizens a decade after the Thon Trilogy during the hand of thron duology also by Timon Leia and Han come across several clones of an imperial Ace pilot named sunir Fel who'd been made by by thrawn and who were concerned about their place in the Galaxy if they revealed themselves because of that stigma surrounding clones quote carab shook his head we have no friends he said and if we're a long way past the Clone Wars we're not nearly so far past Grand Admiral thon's use of soldiers Like Us in his bid for power realistically this was probably a fairly accurate portrayal of clones and how they were seen in the Galaxy even with what ended up happening in the prequels where the Clones were the army of the Republic because they were still used by Palpatine in his own bid for power not just in thrawn's later one notably this fear for Droid armies rampaging across the Galaxy isn't really present even Pelion who wouldn't have had a problem with Palpatine's rise to power did have strong feelings against clones as well he' served in the Republic Fleet during the Clone Wars and he reacts explosively to the fact that joris Sabio a Jedi master who Thon had brought aboard had actually been a clone Pan's comments explicitly reference a fight against a bunch of clones that were going mad by the Republic Fleet and it even show some of the Prejudice that carob devest and his brothers were afraid of Thon also makes note of the additional vowels being put in joru sabo's name compared to the name of the original joris Sabio being a way to tell he was a clone which implies that this was a kind of common practice if that's how Thon was able to notice and also that the Clone armies weren't necessarily clones of the same guy instead it was a situation where clones of a bunch of people were probably running around and everyone had to fight themselves like in Pokemon the first movie with Mewtwo all in all these are some pretty different ideas of the Clone Wars and I think the topic as a whole gives some insight into just how differently trans media storytelling and the need for continuity or the lack thereof was seen over the course of Star Wars development thank you for watching Remember to 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Channel: Corey's Datapad

Views: 488,657

Keywords: Star Wars, Empire, History of star Wars, animated documentary, animated campaign map

Id: dthd8XWz_NA

Length: 12min 14sec (734 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024