Why The 2003 Clone Wars Hit Different

i don't like sand it's coarse rough and irritating and it gets everywhere star wars has kind of been a mess for a while george lucas is one of the best big picture storytellers on the planet i can't tell you how many of my clients have modeled their scripts and novels after his lore world building in sprawling intergalactic history but in that same respect george lucas has a gaping sarlaxized hole in his ability to write small-scale storytelling such as dialogue sound or creating names such as this shady drug dealer literally being named and i'm not making this up ellen sleaze bagano and honestly even past george lucas star wars as a whole has had considerable problems with the micro elements of storytelling the plots and events taking place within the movies are so grandiose and vastly nonsensical that i was able to make nearly an hour long video on the shortcomings of just episode 9. and honestly that video could have been 5 times as long and still not have gotten through everything a lot of people say star wars peaked at episode 5 which embarrassingly for the series came out four decades ago a general consensus within the community is that every film after the empire strikes back is either comparable or considerably worse and that creates an interesting question to entertain are big scale movies the best medium for star wars now i know this topic might seem strange on its face star wars started as movies and has been successful as movies earning an irresponsible 40 billion dollars at the box office but i'm not talking about movies being a poor medium for star wars as a business model i'm talking about how movies regularly [ __ ] star wars on a narrative level if you take a close look at the list of star wars fiction you'll start to notice that some of the most beloved and well executed entries are not movies some people consider the knights of the old republic games to be some of the best rpgs ever made people went bonkers for the mandalorian which is rightfully getting a second season and some people consider the 2008 tv series the clone wars to be the best star wars fiction period like of anything but the star wars fiction i would like to talk about in this video is actually the 2008 clone wars emmy-winning predecessor the 2003 clone wars in my assessment i believe this clone wars micro series accentuated all of the narrative strengths of the star wars franchise while simultaneously doing away with so much of what the core theatrical releases do wrong since this channel and all of my videos are based in being a helpful guide to writers both experienced and novice i think it is important for writers to understand how a fiction strengths and weaknesses are affected by how it is delivered to an audience in 2003's clone wars is therefore perfect to use as a case study because not only is it one of the most unique star wars fictions its release and distribution was unlike anything else in star wars history if you were to watch all two hours of the clone wars micro series in its entirety which by the way you totally should it's all free on youtube i'll put a link in the description you might come away from watching that series thinking it was all action all the time with the focus on nothing else and honestly it's pretty easy to understand why you might think that way i mean just within the first minute we are flung into a full-on frontal assault then we see count dooku then we cut to ilum then we cut to another battle then we cut to kit fisto underwater then we cut to mace doing window things and again this is in a minute the clone wars micro series is without a doubt the fastest paced and most action-oriented star wars fiction ever released but yet somehow nearly paradoxically that same action-oriented series won two emmys is venerated as one of the top animations cartoon network has ever put out and was so successful that it spawned its own spin-off series and for the average viewer or average writer watching the clone wars micro series they might attribute its massive success to the rule of cool now many of you might have heard of the rule of cool in relation to dungeons and dragons specifically from the ultra talented matt mercer of critical role but the rule of cool has existed long before any of us perhaps even since the advent of entertaining fiction tv tropes a website that i recommend you keep far away from because you'll never find your way out has one of my favorite definitions for the rule of cool in a nutshell it is the inclusion of something in a story fundamentally because it is either wicked sweet or awesome the rule of cool acts as a superseding guiding light for writers giving them carte blanche freedom to include even the most ridiculous nonsensical or over-the-top elements into their fiction the only requirement being that it makes the audience's jaw drop to the floor the rule of cool is why jurassic world had a velociraptor ride a t-rex or why transformers had optimus prime rider t-rex or why t-rexes are in fiction at all because they're freaking awesome heck the rule of cool is the sole reason the fast and furious franchise can even exist and to bring this crazy train back to star wars many people feel that the rule of cool defines the clone wars the micro series is undoubtedly cool and unabashedly caters towards action set pieces in dazzling animation but to say the clone wars succeeds because of the rule of cool is to sell it short sure it's empowered by the rule of cool it maybe even looks like it prioritizes style over substance but the rule of cool by itself does not win you emmys or oscars many films have relied solely on just being visual spectacle and subsequently failed to garner any real praise or attention and the oscar goes to for suicide squad alessandra bertallozzi giorgio gregorini and christopher nelson okay that is not fair and we are not talking about that the thing we should focus on is that something was going on behind the scenes with the writing of the clone wars micro series that caused its surface to look simple and shallow but led to its actual makeup being deeply engaging and complex and probably the best place to start would be by talking about this man gendi tarakovsky if you watched the cartoon network when you were younger this man is probably the architect of your animated childhood in the early 2000s star wars was knee-deep in its prequel trilogy and that meant merchandising companies like hasbro were knee-deep in cash from all the sales they were generating hasbro like any good money-grubbing capitalistic megacorp wanted to make sure that there was continued hype between the time of release for star wars episode 2 and episode 3. lucasarts promptly contacted cartoon network who had done great work for hasbro with transformers leading to lucasarts proposing an idea to create a star wars micro series the notion was to air 60 second star war shorts before and after prime time cartoons in order to whet the appetites of kids for revenge of the sith cartoon network liking money eagerly accepted lucasarts offer and threw their best man at the project gendy tartakovsky who had recently wrapped up his all-time great show samurai jack now for you writers if you're thinking that a multi-billion dollar company asking a man to create a competent coherent entertaining miniseries comprised of one-minute episodes for the most beloved sci-fi ip on the planet would be difficult and a lot of pressure you would be right which is why gendi negotiated the much more liberating wiggle room of having three whole minutes per episode and genie tarakovsky being the expert storyteller he was and is didn't just want to put out any old micro series he wanted to develop a series that had quote a band of brothers feel to it where its episodes had different battles and strategies during the clone wars and if you don't know let me have the pleasure of telling you this was insane band of brothers is considered to be one of the greatest television shows of all time and followed the harrowing truly horrifyingly realistic exploits of the united states army in world war ii across 60-minute episodes and gendi wanted to translate that into three minute episodes of a cartoon where space wizards with glow sticks waved their hands to knock over kitchen appliances holding m4s and he did it gandhi's goal of showcasing the clone wars as real war acts as a decoder ring for why the series exists and succeeds as it does gendi understood the limitations of what a micro series like this could be and instead of trying to cram a star wars story into three-minute episodes he told war war stories that just happened to be inside the star wars universe the man had 180 seconds to grab the attention of kids and adults alike in order to make them invested enough to purchase a 12 movie ticket down the line and in my assessment these limitations imposed on the clone wars micro series narrative unlocked the best parts of what star wars could be where the core prequel trilogy is bogged down by hemorrhage inducing dialogue and it gets everywhere the micro series avoids that by literally just not having dialogue half the time several episodes are purely focused on relaying important information through visual storytelling and character action much of the dialogue that does appear is in relation to the events of the war and conflict itself where the core series might spend time bringing the narrative to a crawl to explain world building i've been wondering what are midichlorians or worse commercial trading alliances the micro series doesn't bother because it doesn't have time for that and even when it does it doesn't matter because the focus of the story requires no exposition because the focus of the story is not really the machinations of the sith or the all-powerful presence of the force or the prophecy of the chosen one the focus is war and how violent unpredictable all-consuming and widespread it is all of which need no exposition save for what can be shown visually where the core series always keeps us centered on a few key characters as they accomplish their specific goals the clone wars micro series allows us to simultaneously touch all parts of the galaxy the clone wars at the time gave audiences the widest scope of any star wars story we got to individually follow obi-wan stormtroopers anakin yoda padme mace windu kiari mundi asajj ventress and many others much of the micro series felt like there was no main character which worked well in achieving the narrative's goal of making us feel like this was an intergalactic war that affected all people equally where the core series was limited by the reality of what human actors could do coupled with cgi the clone wars micro series used animation to show us jedi in their purest form in my incredibles video i talked about director brad bird's view on animation being caricature and that's not the reason to do animation anyway the reason to do it is is uh caricature it means um reducing um something to its essence so it becomes this it's almost like boiled down to its essence well animators do that not only with the style of how something looks but how it moves that outlook on animation's capabilities relates very well to the clone wars micro series the caricature that distilled essence is on full display in the clone wars samuel jackson as cool as he is could never get away with doing this because it would look silly and impossible but animated mace windu no problem yoda in episode 5 wowed us by slowly lifting an x-wing with the force but clone wars yoda can flash his fingers in banish entire tanks in drop ships to the shadow realm one of the biggest reasons the clone wars miniseries is so beloved by star wars fans is because it shows the jedi as cool as they have ever it maybe will ever be the animation of the series allows the jedi to be the truly awe-inspiring galactic warriors that star wars has always built them up to be the micro series treats them as equivalent to whole armies and i'm not being hyperbolic i mean that literally i have a visual should i i think so how many a thousand now 80 now sir what 50 yes 40 come on how many and that establishment of the jedi's overwhelming power directly contributes to the most threatening antagonist in star wars history animated grievous so much time had been spent building up the unmatched power of the jedi that grievous introduction of taking down a whole squadron of them is about as intimidating as any viewer could imagine the micro series created a grievous unlike any antagonist we had seen before in star wars he is handled more like a horror movie monster than a typical villain in all that works on a narrative level to establish his character and the menace behind it the clone wars grievous is a bone-white dead-eyed behemoth that will hunt you no matter where you are and mercilessly kill you in ways you didn't think possible and even grievous was used as a tool for visual storytelling his training against dooku cements just how powerful the sith are grievous was a character that could take down whole groups of jedi yet he seemed almost powerless next to the fully-fledged sith lords all these pieces that i mentioned worked together to create a finished product that star wars fans had never seen before and gandhi tartakovsky and the rest of the creative team achieved this by understanding just how their fiction would be delivered to their audience when their time frame was three minutes per episode they recognized how tight and to the point each had to be and in the third season where each episode became 12 minutes they adapted in kind to create a larger underlying narrative that explored anakin's struggle with self-control and corruption to bring this video back full circle i am still not trying to say that star wars doesn't work as films but what we as fans have seen and what writers should pay attention to is the difference in what the films accentuate versus what the other mediums accentuate the mandalorian was such a huge success because it focused on an investigative tale about a hardened warrior taking care of a small ultra important child this narrative isn't new by any stretch of the imagination but what made the mandalorian so interesting was using the star wars setting in concert with that concept to show us a side of the fiction we hadn't seen before the core movies of star wars tread these deep big picture waters of entire galaxies in peril of inarguable good vs objective evil and revisit such topics continuously across three separate trilogies the setting itself becomes the focus of the conflict because the conflict puts the setting at stake therefore oftentimes robbing many of the individual characters room to breathe properly develop or be appreciated by the audience but like the mandalorian the clone wars micro series succeeds because the setting is merely there to give interesting context to the focal point of the fiction in this case war we spend time with individual characters and see them each in true unique conflict and even though i might have spent only a collective eight minutes with shakti i felt more for her in that time than i did across all three movies with general hux the clone wars micro series is emmy award winning because at the end of the day gindy tartakovsky more or less succeeded in following the mold of band of brothers a narrative about characters struggling through war but just inside of star wars anyway thanks for watching all the way to the end if you enjoyed what you heard make sure to like comment and subscribe if you want to check out some of my more casual content make sure to look at the second channel i'll put a link in the description as always it was a pleasure and i'll talk to you all again soon [Music] it

Channel: Savage Books

Views: 264,130

Rating: 4.954246 out of 5

Keywords: savage books, clone wars, star wars, ahsoka tano, episode 9, writing tips, clone wars review, rise of skywalker, genndy tartakovsky clone wars, general grievous, obi-wan kenobi, darth maul, darth vader, luke skywalker, star wars theory

Id: iFVOt0Ex9vQ

Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020