The Clone Wars Era Has A Massive Flaw
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- Опубликовано: 24 авг 2024
- Though there's no questioning that the Separatists are being mislead by some truly evil figures, the vast majority of Star Wars media tends to disregard the original framing of the Clone Wars in favor of painting the Separatist cause in a bad light. The CIS was largely formed of mistreated outer rim worlds who suffered from the war just as much as anyone in the Republic, and the lack of Separatist stories leaves a critical theme of the war largely absent from canon.
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4:05 That is incorrect. The comic was released in 2015, 2 years before the Rebels episode which came out in 2017. So in reality it was the Rebels writers who were spiteful since they were the ones to say that this was the last queen egg on Geonosis, which wasn't really confirmed by the Vader comics.
Steal a dumb decision to kill off their species by making the queen unable to reproduce it was kind of lame.
Yeah this is my mistake. Either way it's an irritating direction to take the story but I'll pin this so people know I attributed blame to the wrong writer.
@@tlee3205 Kinda funny that there's a quote "There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere." but they make it mostly one sided
@@JrielCel in fairness its difficult to make heroes out of mindless droids and more or less pure evil organic commanders. itd be good to show more of separatist politics tho
@@rattlesnake551” mindless droids“. Don’t be a racist
Heard a fan theory that the Clone Wars TV show is republic propaganda which is why it is so one-sided. It is also why every episode starts like a WWII newsreel because IT IS a wartime newsreel.
That sadly does not work due to the revelations surrounding Darth Sidious would fall in the face of it being simple propaganda.
@@kingorange7739 then we can say that the intros are republic propaganda.
@@miniaturejayhawk8702 the intros themselves can but not the entire episode which leads to the core of this problem.
@@miniaturejayhawk8702 Most of the intros reveal details that no one would know. The theory just doesn't work, lol.
@@LordVader1094exactly and iirc the reason it was so one sided is because of Sidious extending the war, had Sidious not played both sides the separatists would have lost much sooner. Sidious was of course using information of both sides to aid the other but it was much more in favour of the separatists to keep them running
The episode of Clone Wars where we get to see the "Separatist"'s parliament and there perspective on the war was one of the most memorable episodes of Clone Wars. I'm glad it was made. And yes, it would have been great to see more of that.
And the republic dogs started the war again in the episode
Yes it started as an interesting concept but after 5 minutes devolved into "Seps Bad lol". Besides I doubt something like Peace would be attainable so shortly after the War began. This is just Key jangling really. One tiny snippet of something Fans may or may not wanted to see and just enough to satisfy the taste of the ever so inept TCW Fans.
Honestly, a story from the perspective of a separatist would fix a lot of these problems, since usually we tend to root for the main characters. If done right, the audience will become fond of the Separatist hero and by extension, gain a more nuanced view of their cause.
So basically, some of the good fanfics like Sublight Drive on SpaceBattles.
I would love to see Tony Gilroy doing an Anto Kreegyr spin off mostly about the separatist side of the clone wars?
@@evanboll4651 honestly that story is so good. Its really awesome to root for the seperatist.
Did we not see this in Bad Batch on Dessix?
@@irayankhan2658 True, but would it be cool if we get a live action clone wars era but mostly from POV of the separatist like Kreegyr plus it would have tony gilroy as the showrunner?
The problem is the boring cop out of "oh it's just made for kids" or "star wars is for 12 year olds" as if that is an excuse for lazy writing. Republic Commando did the separatist faction justice by making them terrifying from a soldier's perspective.
Indeed. I completely agree with this.
Children need to be learning nuance, we don’t need more black and white narratives to destroy cooperation between disagreeing groups. This may technically be for children, but those children grow up soon enough, and their beliefs will shape the world. Who would you rather see shape the world? Adults capable of nuance, diplomacy and compassion? Or adults who bear tribalism, violence and hatred?
@@venus-pq5gg What we currently have are adult children who are capable of compassion only for people who want to kill them, and hatred toward those who just want to live.
The old Expanded Universe did this wonderfully too before TCW fucked it all up. Comics like The Battle of Jabiim showed fully fleshed out Separatist groups that had genuine grievances with the Republic and recognized the utter facade it really was. Neither the Republic nor the CIS were the good guys, the intention from the get go was to have a morally grey conflict between two factions who were all pawns of Palpatine.
TCW rapidly forgot that though, and for some reason people consider it to be the best thing since sliced bread. :/
@@tythedrunkenthird-gendarkt3795 Yup, the clone wars ruined everything that I liked about the prequels. They ruined ARC troopers, clone commandos, and then have the audacity to create the "Bad Batch" which was a cheap knock off of the Null-Class ARCs.
I think they also give unfair treatment to the battle droids compared to the clones. They parallel each other, yet the sentience of the droids is kind of downplayed despite the fact that they are clearly shown to have it.
I agree. I always disliked how Rex is presented as being in the right when he says that clones are not like droids, even though they basically are. They are programmed and manufactured. And like droids, clones can only develop individuality through experience. Heck, we literally see Trade Federation and CIS droids with individuality, such as OOM-9 and Kalani.
Robots are robots, they're not living creatures, you shouldn't care about the toasters with no souls.
@@russianoverkill3715 Mf they straight up show B1s caring about having shit jobs, getting promotions and fearing death.
@@russianoverkill3715Spoekn truly like an anti-droid rights activist. The droids are evidently sentient
yeah having droids clearly show sentience but are never treated as sentients is a problem that shows up all over star wars- it would be one thing if it was an intentional point about the blindspots of organics, but it's kinda just having the convenience of comic relief, almost-slave-labour and cheap cannon fodder for stories without having to 'feel bad' about it
how do we have a star wars youtuber that sounds like george lucas and nobody talks about it
This is not the first voice comparison comment I've gotten, but it's certainly one of the more surprising ones.
@@tlee3205 a surprise to be sure but a welcome one
OMG I HEAR IT NOW
Wait a minute, have anyone ever seen Tlee and George Lucas in the same room at the same time?
I cant unhear it now 😭
The difference is Palpatine. Palpatine wanted to turn the Republic into the Empire, he wanted to set up the Separatists to fail. The majority of Separatists were fine, but manipulations ensured most of their leadership was evil to make them hateable and make the faction unstable. Even if Palpatine dropped dead of a heart attack half way through the war when the Separatists had the upper hand, the CIS was doomed to fail because all of it's leadership was deliberately picked to be shitty, selfish, and greedy.
We've gotten expanded material post-Clone Wars the show mainly, that has blurred those lines a lot. Bad Batch with them saving the one CIS leader, meeting a former Separatist on Dooku's throne world and seeing the pillaging he did to his own people, etc. Plus like you mentioned, seeing a lot of the Separatists turn into Rebels later. Once the CIS leadership was decapitated, the only people left were the actual idealists who had a point and wanted to do good. And they instantly started trying to worm out from under the Empire's boot and form the Rebellion.
I mean to a degree that is true. The sustainability of the CIS was always at best questionable. However I don't think that should get in the way of depicting the actual good Separatists during the Clone Wars. As much like the Revenge of the Sith crawl states, there are heroes on both sides.
Another think that annoys me quite alot as a Star Wars ship fan is that we barely get any cool CIS fan designs, there is the Allocator-class and Overseer-class which are both amazing but super underdeveloped, it seems like all the other faction particularily the Empire just gets 10 000 new ship designs that look exactly like another Star Destroyer but with some dumb feature. Amazing video bro!
It’s possible that it’s because ISDs are a blanket template just asking to have more features thrown on, whereas all CIS ships are perfect and no fan could hope to outdo what’s already there so few have tried (can you tell I’m biased)
@@skyeblu3178 True, still sad to see every other faction get so much love compared to the CIS.
Expanded Universe and some video game extensions like Fall of the Republic for Empire at War flesh out separatist fleets in kind of a brilliant way that shows how the ad-hoc nature of their fleets can actually be a really powerful asset. My only real gripe with depictions is that the lore of separatist ships would honestly make them too OP for the Republic to handle, so they're nerfed in nearly every depiction from the show to the games.
Personally, if you held my feet to the fire and told me to pick a side, I would have to say that I'm pro-Separatist. All they wanted at the end of the day was independence from a corrupt system that had either ignored or exploited them for a thousand years.
Indeed.
Ironically, Republic was only corrupt due to centuries of subtle manipulation of former Sith Lords to advance the Grand Plan. Darth Plagueis and Palpatine finally set the final steps into motion with the invasion of Naboo, the creation of the clone army and manipulating Dooku into spearheading the Confederacy into creation. It also just happened that the Force had created Anakin Skywalker 10 years earlier as a consequence of Plagueis trying to manipulate midi-chlorians to extend his own life and create new beings out of nothing, which was pure luck for Palpatine, as without Anakin, Order 66 surely wouldn't have happened when it did and probably a whole lot of events would be different.
The Separatist motivations were good, but their methods were not.
@@clonecommandermike332 Indeed.
CIS be like, "The Republic is rotten to the core, and we will use force to break free from it if necessary."
And the Republic responds with: "I FUCKING LOVE CHILD SOLDIERS!!" **sends forth army of 10 year olds, some commanded by literal teenagers in the jedi order**
I always thought of a story where a once republic admiral turned to the separatists, and after the rise of the empire used their navy to be a bastion of rebellion.
You could even write in the return of the malevolence, explaining why the empire hasn't crushed them, or at least not yet. And this possible Admiral could harbour rebellious clones and what-not.
I need this to happen
I actually love this idea
There even is some existing Star Wars media linking the CIS to the early Galactic Rebellion, so that would work out in some way.
That would be a great way to link the two sagas, almost as though the clone wars never truly ended and the separatists simply evolved into the rebellion, something that parallels a lot of real world conflicts.
I'd love to see this. The especially cool part is that the Malevolence thing could work, it wasn't just a one-off ship. There was at least one more built, and the class is called the Subjugator Heavy Cruiser
To be fair hearing Count Dooku’s being said by someone after 30 years in the Star Wars universe really solidifies that all these shows and movies are connected as one thing and Count Dooku is like a historical figure for people to reference even long after his death
Honestly, I always found it weird and unfortunate that the CIS was almost universally the weakest part of the Clone Wars show and whenever I rewatched some episodes starring the Seperatists as the main antagonists, I was dissapointed with the one-note, one-dimensional portrail of the charakter associated with them.
Your video however is great in highlighting major problems with the faction. Love it a lot and definatly deserves a subscription ^^
That's because The Clone Wars 2008 is a watered down version of CWMMP.
@@russianoverkill3715 The CWMMP didn't do much better with the separatists
@@bacondorito it really did
@@bacondoritoyes it did
what are you waffling about?
It littarly did nothing to so any good from the separatist. All at showd was battles a nothing else @guy_with_no_name7317
I have to admit it hadn’t occurred to me that there has to be a wealth of story potential waiting on the Separatist side of the Clone Wars. Excellent video. Earned my sub.
The depiction of the CIS in Filioni's Clone Wars is the main reason why I personally don't like that show. I think Filoni totally squandered all potential at showing the moral nuances and shades of gray in the Separatist movement in favor of just portraying them as mustache twirling villains and I just can't get past that. Even the "Heroes On Both Sides" episode basically portrays even sympathetic Separatists as just manipulated NPCs with no bearing on the story. Hell, the Separatists in the movies alone came off way more humanized than they did in the Clone Wars show, like Dooku's tendency to mercy and Grievous' staunch loyalty and admiration for Dooku. Great video, you've earned a sub!
The Playable Characters in the CIS Side were Dooku, Grivous, Gunray, Wat Tambor, Poggle the Lesser...etc.
i'm the same as you. I think he destroyed Dooku and Greivious (and George allowed it or supported it). It became a childish cartoon with some grey or 'dark' themes occasionally that worked. My opinion of Filini is I hold him responsible for the failure of Star Wars as much as Kennedy.
@@ArgentWolf95 I think Lucas stopped caring about Star Wars after Revenge of the Sith and I don't blame him. The only Star Wars stuff I care about that was released after it are The Old Republic and The Acolyte.
@@ArgentWolf95Same here. What makes me so angry is how so many blind fans worship Dave Filoni when he's ruined the series so much.
@@TheFirstCurse1 glad others are starting to see it.
I couldn´t agree more. And it hurts more when you think the only time they tried to show separatists in a nuanced way, the "Heroes on both sides arc", it was wonderfull episode, which also was very important for Ashoka.
I don’t think it’s Disney to blame on “dropping the ball” when these Clone Wars episodes were produced under George Lucas.
Also, the Tales of the Jedi series was produced under Disney, and the only credible instances of Disney actually altering or shaping any Star Wars projects I know of are George's treatments getting thrown out and Episode VII being a soft-reboot-sequel being a Bob Iger mandate. Ok, probably pretty safe to Young Jedi Adventures exists so they can have something to put on Disney Junior, but it's not like that was different from like, the Ewoks cartoon.
You dont get a galaxy wide revolt unless the goverment has some... issues, I think saying that of the people who in part lead the galaxy into chaos are mostly good is a bit iffy. I hate to say it, the best starwars storys you will hear now will come from GMs running starwars games, myself I played an grumpy CIS officer during the time of the early empire and we had a great adventure. Remember all, Raxus will rise again!"
the rim shall rise again
So, I wouldn't say the American Civil War was because the union had real "issues," as much as it was because the Confederacy in that war just wanted to keep slaves. It wasn't all that nuanced. In Star Wars, it isn't so much like that, but most of the separatist council kind of is just opportunistic and greedy, and that's how they've always been, even if Sidious is manipulating them. Dooku actually was an idealist, and Grievous's original backstory had him liberating his people, the Kaleesh, from an invading colonizing power when the Republic did nothing to protect them, so their portrayal is very disappointing in the show. I think showing the separatists more generally as having legitimate grievances is good, too bad the show barely cared to include them. Meanwhile, it added the Zygerrians to the separatists and did many other things to just make them look even worse.
@@1000g2g3g4g800999 "Oh the Outer Rim is the land of Traitors, Separatists, and Hutts, and Slavers.."
@@1000g2g3g4g800999 The Union did have Issues, again, I know you can only think in black and white, but thank real hard, if Britain, and Europe could free their slaves without starting wars and killing half a million of their own people, why couldn't the US. If the war was about Slavery, why does just under half of the states who have that as one of many reason they left. I get you can only think in Black and White, but maybe, just maybe, real civil wars, US included, is more complex then hurr durr slavery and single fucking words.
@@aaronlaughter6471right, it was money. Money gotten from exploiting human labor in a system of slavery.
I heard originally we were going to revisit Raxus in the clone wars in the unfinished dark disciple arc we also would’ve seen count Dooku make a speech on the republic and Jedi’s hypocrisy that speech is on RUclips for you to find
Raxus is indeed in the Dark Disciple novel. After Ventress trains Quinlan Vos in the Dark Side arts on Dathomir, they head to Raxus to assassinate Dooku. They wait until Dooku is alone, but he just easily defeats them both and takes Quinlan prisoner. Ventress escapes and hires young Boba Fett and his crew from the Clone Wars episodes to rescue Quinlan, but Quinlan has fallen to the Dark Side and tries to attack Ventress. Ventress tries to get him to leave with her, but he refuses and Ventress has to escape empty handed. If I recall, she became heavily depressed and took to drinking after that.
About the Raxus part, Quinlan and Ventress arrive on there just when Dooku is making a speech together with General Grievous. Dooku talks about how they use in-organic droids to fight their battles while the Republic use actual living beings as fodder and Quinlan acknowledges that as a good point, which is ironic since Dooku and Sidious pretty much handed the Clone Army over to the Republic.
And yes, this was supposed to be one of the arcs that were left unfinished, not sure if it was season 6 or 7. You can find the unfinished story reel bit here on RUclips from the part of the book where Quinlan tracks down Ventress on Pantora hunting a bounty. The dialogue in the book is also the exact same as it is in the story reel.
I just love love love to see the droid army. It would be cool to get more plots of post-clone war surviving droids
Agreed.
I think this perspective is only true if you ignore the EU tbh. Whilst yes the Empire is still more fleshed out than the CIS, in Canon at least, the Empire is portrayed as almost comically evil, and Thrawn is not portrayed positively by Filoni in Rebels. The main issue with how the antagonists in both the Empire and the CIS stems from Dave Filoni. Prior to them, the CIS, and to a lesser extent, the Empire, were generally portrayed in more nuanced ways, or at least, the Republic wasn't clearly good.
The Rebels however have always been portrayed as the 'good' side of the war, and any lore mentioning terrorists like the Partisans either tries to deliberately distance those groups from the main Rebellion or they just ignore them later on, like with Berch Teller's group in the Tarkin novel, which reveals that the early Rebels were actually shielding themselves from the Empire by deliberately hiding behind civilian populations, usually pretending to be CIS holdouts whilst actually being old Republic Loyalists, and then striking out in blatant terror attacks (since Teller's group was blowing up unarmed repair facilities and civilian contractors, not just military targets)
Watch Andor, its the first time ive ever been able to view the Rebels vs Empire outside of a cartoonish view, its the first time ive actually felt a connection and strong reasoning for the Rebels
@@perseus3115 I have watched Andor. But the actions of the Empire in the show isn't enough to justify the terrorists.
@@tk-6967 its absolutely is enough to justify the rebellion, or at least fighting against the Empire, no matter what society you are in, you dont just imprison innocent people for life for nothing and to build a slave labor force
@@perseus3115 But that didn't happen until after rebel attacks were mounting up. That gave the ISB an excuse to grab more power, and since Palpatine was an extremely hands off ruler, he just allowed it.
Besides, you are suggesting that slave labour in of itself was not ubiquitous in the Star Wars galaxy. I agree that the new Imperial policy of inflating prison sentences and imprisoning people way too harshly was bad, but the act of using prisoners as a labour force in of itself isn't an issue.
@@tk-6967 it absolutely is a problem when you imprison innocents purposely to create said slave labor, the empire was self sabotaging anyways with its encroaching on neutral planets, galactic trade, and the rights of planets within the Empire.
you did bring something up that i thought was good- (on the context of the writer who made the geonosian queen sterile) i think a lot of these older writers and fans who grew up with empire strikes back don’t like to accept that the prequel/clone wars era is awesome and that’s what most of the young fans are into now. I feel like they try everything in their power to make the galactic empire era appeal to us but it just will never be the clone wars no matter what they do. trying to kill off the clone wars is a terrible idea
Yes this is why there are 16 series of television related directly to clone wars and its immediate aftermath lol.
Hey buddy if you are curious i reccomend you check out the old clone wars multi media project.
Before clone wars 2008, there was an entire multi media project consisting of comics, novels and video games that portrayed the clone wars, starting after episode 2 to after episode 3 as the republic got turned into the empire. The CIS is massively expanded upon there.
But when tcw came out, it basically retconned all of the prior content even before a lot of the expanded universe was shelved into legends, because dave filoni didnt like continuity and so greenlit dozens of contradictory episodes and concepts, which is something thats become far more apparent these days.
I loved the Multimedia project, and it's been years since I've read it, but while I remember there being a focus on Dooku, some various Separatist units (like the whole Jabiim arc), but they didn't exactly had shown a proper CIS parliment IIRC. There had been much bigger divide between different CIS organisations like the Banking Clan etc, but feel free to correct me.
Very true. That's why I've never liked The Clone Wars CGI series.
I cared much more about post-RotJ EU than stories centered around the prequels, so it took me a while to notice, but Filoni's TCW did royally mess up the continuity. It's like the Disney Star Wars before Disney had Star Wars. I was aware of the multimedia project and how it did approach the "heroes on both sides" better.
@@Kissamiesstechnically speaking those books were never cannon. Lucas working on Clone wars solidifies what he wanted the clone wars to be
@@creed8712 Not this canon nonsense again! Lucas was pretty wishy-washy about the issue. I don't think he cared. He also was less involved in TCW than people think. Tossed a story idea to them every once in a while and left them to figure out what to make of it. Filoni was the king of TCW and he doesn't care about continuity. It would have been better for the universe if his CGI series was considered non-canon. In-universe propaganda broadcasts, for example. Unfortunately it was considered more canon because of Lucas involvement and the whole continuity started to unravel.
The only problem I have with the Separatist POV is that they either fell for a line or knew it was a line and bought in just to achieve what the Republic would never give, often while aligning themselves with the very corporate powers that made the Outer Rim and non-Core worlds such a struggle to survive. OTOH, if they wanted to say that many local leaders knew who they were in with but went along just to finally get what the Republic would never grant them, that would be understandable. An approach of 'what are we in with?' could make their story very interesting indeed.
I mean in many ways yes, but also no. Though TCW wouldn't show it, the relationship with the corporations was always complicated since while they were responsible for much of the corruption in the Galactic Senate, they also stepped up to protect the Outer Rim against groups such as raiders, pirates, and crime cartels. Now yes, this was mostly done in the name of protecting their financial interests in these worlds, but it built a bridge of trust between the Outer Rim and the Mega Corporations even when they technically disliked each other. Essentially from a certain POV, the corporations proved that they were better at protecting the interests of the Outer Rim than the Republic ever could. This made it where once the secession crisis did start, most Outer Rim worlds were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either they could side with the Republic who's corruption, excessive taxes, and negligence created the conditions for them to be exploited, or they could side with the Mega Corporations themselves in order for them to back a new government.
I've the feeling that Politics bore the casual star wars Fan... It's still regarded as one of the prequels major flaw... Sadly it's underrepresented in Films and Shows... Especially taking into account the fact that shallow shows like The mandalorian are loved by so many Casuals... They don't care bout politics and stuff just wanna see some Action...
Not gatekeeping here, just wanna point out why I think it's not such a big part...
I like the politics of star wars but agree a lot of the political scenes are boring, like you said in prequels. They need to introduce it in more interesting ways. Don't make a long scene of people slowly walking talking politics. I'm not a writer but the scene of Palpatine telling the story of Darth plagueis is great imo. If they wanted to touch on separatist politics they should show more of the separatist leaders and their scheming from their pov
@@kolbasa4368palpatine telling the story isn’t walking-talking, but is sitting-talking that much different?
@@roku144 yea I mentioned that because I don't mean everything has to be action scenes either. Sorry I'm bad at explaining. The Darth plagueis scene is much more interesting to me then Anakin and Padme discussing surface level politics while nothing else is going on. Idk how but there's gotta be a better way to show Anakin's views and also the separatist pov
The problem is Star Wars is super political, even The Mandalorian, and always had been. It’s about finding the right balance to keep audience attention and also balancing intrigue with message that is told in a way that is palatable and digestible by an audience. I actually think the Phantom Menace does that pretty well actually and that movies failings lie elsewhere and balance between the intrigue of the Sith with the message of the film as well as how they interrelate is good but… Phantom Menace is at the upper limit of how that works and by the time you reach Attack of the Clones it all becomes unclear and muddled. By no means is this a perfect formula and the amount of politics and the focus directly or indirectly on it depends on the story being told. Andor is very political despite having very little space cspan and a lot of action while Attack of the Clones has a lot of space cspan but fails to cut to the heart of the message and very little of it actually contributes to the main story being told, making it very boring and hard to watch.
I disagree.
Coming from someone who likes The Clone Wars, even as far as accepting the way Battle Droids are depicted, I have to agree that they did mess up with making the CIS look like they’re not just morally wrong to the Republic. At best I could see that it tipped around that the way the Republic making multiple decisions to ignore the help of certain factions, such as not fully aiding Onderon and downright ignoring the Mandalore Conflict, but they still threw Separatist shade with the Banking Clan takeover and the Algorithm on Sako Minor.
Even when we did get Separatist supporters with focus onto them, they either turned to the Republic side from cartoonish villainy (Such as Onderon again), or had next to no focus on their people as anything but enemies (The Umbarans, an good arc but still with an example of the fault). I'd say aside from introduction to the Commando Droids, which gave us an unofficial adaptation of the B1s from Republic Commando, the entire CIS got a general downgrade in quality to their depiction of their faction.
I'm still for the goofier B1 Battle Droids though, even if the world doesn’t support that.
For me, the low point was when they completely took away the duality of Dooku's character. It was supposed to be that, yes, he's a bad guy, he's a Sith and he wants to rule the world, but at the same time, you had some faith that he actually wanted Obi-Wan and many of his fellow Order members on his side, that he actually thought about making the CIS a less corrupt and less humanocentric organization than the Old Republic.
And then you realize that it was all a lie. Dooku had no plans or ambitions - he just wanted to rule with Palpaine. The Legends series really pushed the point that Dooku was a xenophobe and a humanocentric in general, and both canons make it clear that he was a deceiver of Obi-Wan (and Anakin) and would have killed him at the first opportunity.
It's amazing how they made such an interesting, charismatic and controversial character, and then turned him into a demo version of Palpatine. I'm not saying that Dooku should be a "white knight", but he is presented to us as an idealist, as a person with a certain moral core. And then they erase it 100% and make him a stepping stone for Anakin.
It's just stupid and bad.
The sad thing is, this nuance used to exist in the Clone Wars Era before the 2012 animated series was made. The original Clone Wars multimedia project, while not perfect, had some great stories that portrayed both sides as both heroes and villains. One of my favorite Star Wars comics comes from this era of Star Wars. A comic called Jedi: Yoda followed a pair of padwans leading their clone forces in a campaign on a planet called Thustra after their masters are killed in a surprise suicide attack by the local Separatist forces. Those Separatists are entirely the local Thustran army with not a battle droid to be found. Yoda is sent in to help resolve the conflict because he is good friends with King Alaric the ruler of Thustra. King Alaric was not disloyal to the Republic but he was tired of it's corruption and so sided with the Separatists with plans to rejoin the Republic after. The story of the comic is one of failure, as two good friends are unable to stop a conflict fueled by greed and corruption on both sides. In the end, the flames of war consume Thustra. There is death on both sides of those both young and old. And the most heroic figures are Yoda and the King who both simply just want to find a peaceful outcome. It's a tragic story and one that reminds of the real world attempts by the various kings of the nations in WW1 to stop the war. Kings who reached out to cousins not as rulers but as family in a vain attempt to stop the war.
The Clone Wars Multi Media Project really did a good job in portraying the points the Separatists had and why they were fighting against the Republic. What is funny is the only thing the CWMMP didn't do for the Separatists was get into their government structure that much, something TCW actually did. Yet TCW also just wants to portray any Separatist part of the military as cartoonishly evil without any nuance.
Have you read Dark Horse Clone wars era comics? They did a better job of showing grey of the clone wars era with the republic and separatist.
Very true.
They didn’t do that so much with making the CIS better but because the old clones were not…human? They weren’t as emotional as the new clones and acted much more like the droids
@@creed8712 That was certainly part of it but not all. In one comic (No End in Sight) for example, the focus is on the Mon Calamari (Admiral Ackbar's race) who are fighting for the CIS and they're portrayed as very noble. Their leader, Merai, even laid down his life so that his troops could get away.
I kind of agree, when i was i kid, i thought, seperatists meant bad and evil, but years later i wondered what could have been so bad about just wanting to be seperat, especially from a republic that they voluntarily joined.
Indeed.
This pov has big “the civil war was about states rights and the right to secede” energy when we know in both instances the actual reason for the secession(slavery and Palpatine needing a militarized republic)
@@DefaultProphet The CIS as depicted in Star Wars is in no way comparable to the american confederacy. It's literally a mulitcultural state trying to secede from an imperialistic power. Also the republic literally has a slave army.
When you consider the prequel movies ultimately depict a Weimar esque rise to power it does make sense. The seperatists are seemingly evil but actually just used to justify space Hitlers takeover through fearmongering.
I wish the prequel lore would get more into the "maybe we are fighting for the wrong side" bit. Because at the end of the day the Republic turned into the Empire quite happily.
We need more stories about the NEUTRAL SYSTEMS.
I do like a little thing the clone wars made
There are basically 4 factions that divide the Republic and the CIS: the Jedi Order, the Republic Senate, the Separatist Parliament and the Executive Council
The Jedi Order and the Executive Council carry out the war effort with the first having more noble goals than the second; the Republic Senate and the Separatist Parliament deal with the politics behind the war and in this case the CIS is far more clean than the corrupt Republic
Honestly I think Sidius made sure to hire selfish monsters like Riff Tamson to become Separatist officials to further demonize his opposition, let these alien criminals be as unnecessarily cruel as possible so that the citizens of the Republic learn to fear the non humans and find safety in Palpatine's rule
Growing up with the stuff before TCW, it always bugged me how the separatists were portrayed from then on.
They weren't characters, they were either evil madmen or incompetent dumbasses. Or evil dumbasses.
Don't even get me started on how they made the droids insufferably incompetent, to the point I wonder how they make it out of the factory without killing themselves.
But god forbid you criticize the clone wars, rabid fans will come crawling out of the cracks and attack you.
great vid. it wasn’t until i binged all of UC gundam that i realised just how one-sided the prequel era is - and if i’m being honest, i barely even understand what the goals of the CIS are. star wars desperately needs a show or movie along the lines of hathaway’s flash or war in the pocket set in the prequel era because, as is, there is little nuance in the portrayal of this literal multi-year, galaxy-wide conflict
They are, just based off of the thumbnail. I don’t blame George, the film characters did have a bit of nuance and their novelization Explores that further. TCW did such a large amount of damage that people ONLY see them that way. It wasn’t even the bad guys, the main characters are woefully mischaracterized, and most of it pokes huge holes in the storyline of the films. It’s why I constantly say that as fans we should put TCW and anything related in the Disney canon and the rest should stay in legends which afaik is how it is to Disney anyways. The way you know TCW shouldn’t be canon is that Georges T canon only existed because he’d planned on making shows of his own and he threw TCW in to allow his own freedom for the few episodes he was involved with meaning TCW damaged not only the films but the EU overall in a lot of big ways. The separatists mustached twirling were a symptom of Filonis shitty show that occasionally had good writing and action. Blame tcw people, stop worshipping that asshat
Personally I find what they did to the geonosian queen as infuriating as how marvel writers treat spiderman
Is outrageous, is unfair, but great for storytelling, the Empire killed them all treating them no better than Alderan, maybe worse, at least Alderaan was gone quickly, at least there are still some alderaanians around, but geonosians? Not anymore and never more will be, it makes me go from “burn the bugs” to “maybe the Ithorians have it right”
As many others pointed out, this one-dimensional portrayal of the Separatist can be blamed on Filoni and Disney. Look at the old Clone Wars Multimedia Project, Grievous was once a war hero smeared by the Republic before becoming a Jedi killing cyborg. The Battle of Jabiim portrays the Separatists as having legit reasons to mistrust the Republic, just like the Loyalists have a strained relationship do.
I remember the comic when Yoda came to a planet to visit his old friend who was a governor and advisor to the Confederacy. He tried to convince his friend to stay on his side and not interfere, but implied that the Republic was only interested in the planet being re-incorporated into the Republic. Eventually a fight breaks out and Yoda just goes and kills his friend before hypocritically asking for his forgiveness, even though Yoda is the one sacrificing the war on that planet and he knows full well that the planet was the reason for the Confederacy's article. I hated Yoda after that comic, lol.
@@user-pb7ch5kl8x I remember that ! Plus that Padawan who chastizes Yoda for being cowardly right before he died.
I would love a story of one of the first Clones to be let go from the Clone armies who teams up with a B1.
After being let go, the Clone finds out he’s not really loved or welcomed much. He’s an ex soldier and he can’t find a suitable job other than handling weapons in security or other jobs.
Angry at being thrown to the wayside like so much garbage and with no social skills beyond the brotherhood he shared with his Clones he just can’t make jobs stick. So he goes for bounty hunting.
As he travels he comes across a separatist planet, and finds to his surprise a lot of B1’s were never fully recovered and enough were stationed away from the front where their maintenance was lacking so they didn’t shut down with the rest.
Seeing these droids as discarded and without purpose as him, he decides to bring one and use the money they earn together to upgrade the B1 with one goal: to try and bring a little Order 66 to the people who made them.
7:17 There is a phenomenal Grevious origin story, in Legends.
The current writers would give us a horrific origin for him if they wrote it now. 🤣
The droids and clones are the same.
Mass produced beings programmed for war and forced into battle. Both have sentience, that’s mostly overwhelmed and suppressed by their roles as mindless soldiers. Then both are pitted against one another, fighting for populations who mostly dislike them and for a future that doesn’t include them. The clones didn’t have a veteran plan, and the droids would likely be recycled. Both were designed for the single purpose of fighting, but ultimately were capable of much more but ultimately were doomed to not have bright futures ahead.
I have one little issue with this video: When you mentioned Bad Batch, *you didn't include a mention of a Separatist holdout, that appeared in Season 2 Episode 2 of the show.*
Othetwise, your video made apparent what I subconciencly noted a long time ago... *The absolute lack of meaningfull Separarist content AND stories in Star Wars!* So thanks for making this great video, it really help me realize the major problem of Clone Wars Era!
I agree, there's a lot of unexplored worlds and stories in this era and faction. We don't need to focus on leaders but the people under them or who support them and go into the hows and whys of it.
"Across George Lucas and Disney, star wars in general is a well written story" that's like saying "in general, the years between 1920 and 1939 were pretty good". Some of it was really good, some of it was REALLY BAD.
I think some of that is because the Separatists as the planets and the Separatist's military fielded and led by a couple of galactic corporations, are basically separate entities in themselves. For that reason the military of the Separatists would rather fight for corporate interests and such and not so much for the interests of the people in the Confederacy of independent systems. Those people were basically only a workforce and legitimation to fuel the corporate war machine, in the pursuit of higher profits.
In many ways that is true. That is where a proper depiction of the CIS would depict both sides of the government and showcase how in spite of it being one faction, they were divided between many different interests.
@@kingorange7739 it sure would be nice to see more of that. Though it's not like there is nothing there. Basically any time we see about any member of the Separatist council (the one with the corpo bosses), we can see they mostly follow their own interests. Or in that one Clone Wars Episode with the Separatist Senate, none of the corpo bosses are there. Seemingly Count Dooku is the main and pretty much only link. It's even said there that the corporate alliance wouldn't allow peace talks, implying even though they aren't part of that senate, they have quite the influence.
@@ikrIkarusThe separatist senate is very close in function and influence as the Galactic Senate post empire takeover.
@@ikrIkarusoh don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the show does no coverage at all. It’s just very limited and surface level. Like it doesn’t really say much about what the Separatists were fighting for.
When I watched Attack of the Clones for the first time in theaters, I was quite surprised how non-threatening Count Dooku sounded when he captured Obi Wan and was genuinely looking forward to a reveal of Dooku being right when Obi Wan discovered Palpatine’s true nature.
I could see a different path taking place in that holding cell where a jumped-up battle-hungry Jedi fresh off of his first Sith kill believes only in absolutes and hates all non-Jedi. Then, he’s captured by an ex-Jedi, master of his former master, and has to witness as his own side comes down to massacre the entire planet of Geonosis with clone troops and everything, while Separatists flee in terror. Anakin rescues Obi Wan, but not before he’s forced to watch as his own side does war crimes and he is radicalized like his own master, and his master before him.
That’s the hidden truth of Jedi teachings, is they pass from generation to generation. Yoda to Dooku, Dooku to Qui Gon, Qui Gon to Obi Wan, Obi Wan to Luke. That rebel spirit was missing in Obi Wan, and it needed to be the real breaking point between him and Anakin, where Anakin became a slave to the state like he was a slave to his masters before. Begging for approval, not willing to leave and forge his own path.
In the end, Clone wars was also ment for children too and having a complex ethical and plitical dilemma, where neither of the sides are good or bad, makes it harder to focus or relate to a hero, kind of delegitemates the numerous long fights, which the *clone wars* needed to be, and just isn't that good vs bad thing, star wars always was.
Agreed. Its not even that the show could not had still been in favor of the Republic, it is just that the Separatists needed to have writing that showcased that they weren't just cartoonishly evil for the sake of being evil. Like have a few stories dedicated into showcasing more honorable Separatist commanders having to answer to bad political leadership. Like what Thrawn is in the Empire.
It's honestly crazy that the prequel trilogy gives the separatists and Dooku the most nuance. The prequels never treated that faction as inherently evil. They even made (what I assume to be) a deliberate decision to make the Republic ships and troops reminiscent of the Empire that we see in the OT.
If you want to get this sorta story I can recommend the fanfic "Sublight Drives". The protagonist is a CIS admiral.
Imagine if we had a show focused on the CIS, it'd be amazing to see them be actual protagonists, and heroes.
Better yet: first season is during the war, THEN season 2 is post war, during the empire, where the CIS is technically the first rebels
Considering each episode begins with Admiral Yularen seemingly narrating, one could view the Clone wars merely as vestiges of republic propaganda, and thats what we're constantly fed. Of course this logic does not hold up for some of the anti-jedi order stuff (like Fugitive arc) but one can always assume.
It sounded like Yularen was the Narrator of the Show, & it's Written in his Diary
I think this was all intentional. You have to remember that the vast majority of people watching Star Wars is still adamant on there being a good vs evil struggle. I am still amazed at the amount of people having watched all content centered around the Prequel Era and still believing the Jedi Order to be this high and mighty battle horse.
Personally while I loved how Andor took a deep dive into both POVs: the Rebellion and the Empire, gifting us new insights into both factions, I wouldn't change how the Prequel era was laid out. The reason is that I got into Star Wars less than a year ago and quickly consumed pretty much all media on it, before getting into it I knew barely anything. I knew the Jedi were supposed to be white knights, protectors of the weak, that there was a green Jedi called Yoda and that the main villain was the dude in a black mask Darth Vader.
But watching the prequels and the clone wars it quickly became clear to me that so many things had been misrepresented. The Council seemed arrogant, inflexible and not as cool as I thought they would be. The Republic was full of flaws and corruption. And I did love how they let us think of the Separatists being horrible people except for couple of episodes where we are shown that the majority of the Separatists were just regular people tired of the Republic and they got drawn into a war they had no chance of winning. Because the prequels and the clone wars are written from the Republic's point of view, so of course their view isn't impartial, but I love that. Because any careful watcher will start seeing hints of things not being the way they are depicted.
I don't really stand with either Jedi nor Sith, Republic nor Empire. Both were extremes, both were wrong, both needed to change. Yes, the Sith/Empire were definitely worse but that doesn't mean we should just accept the Republic/Jedi as being the only choice or the best choice.
I also love how the Mandalorian started hinting that even after everything the Republic went through they learnt nothing. When rumors start to spread of the Empire still being alive they just dismiss it casually, showing us that it would be easy for the Empire to rise again. Isn't that how it all started in the Prequels? With an inflexible authority being too arrogant for its own good? "I don't believe the Sith could have returned without us knowing", well... that aged like milk.
Tales of the Jedi definitely made me see Dooku in a different light, before I thought he was just evil but then I understood he left the Order for similar reasons why the Separatists left the Republic. Unfortunately he got lost along the way, which tends to happen to many people who leave the Order. Many of them had valid reason not to like the Order anymore: Ahsoka, Anakin, Ventress, Dooku, Barriss, the Inquisitor, most of them just end up going from one extreme to the other, which is a shame.
Problem is TCW does not do a very good job at highlighting the cracks of a propagandized perception of the Republic.
The only thing that’s misrepresented is Count Dooku’s face. In live action, it is round like the sweetest of watermelons, and his beard isn’t much but a beautiful little patch of grass, freshly cut by a 30 inch Toro Turfmaster. In the Animated series, Dooku’s face is sharper than a stalagmite, making him appear cold and angry. 4/10 Clone Wars Count Dooku face design
Indeed.
This is the source of the problem
They tried to copy the multimedia project's Dooku design, but instead just made a charicature of it that looks almost inhuman, instead of a stylized version of Christopher Lee's face.
I honestly wonder if a lot of separatists joined the rebel alliance during the galactic civil war
I think what's interesting is that the message ends up being "inability to see and address the issues faced by the fringes of society will result in needless conflict and inevitable opportunities for power grabs in which we surrender even that ability to handle said grievances"
3:02
But I'm not sure many would be interested in that era at this point anymore.
I find it weird that we're never really told what the war is about, like sure there's some vague implications that the outer systems were being neglected and that's fine, and we also know there were some economic interests at play, but like what do the Seperatists actually believe they're fighting for? What was written in their declaration of independence that they thought was so important it was worth fighting a galactic war over? They seem to be mostly sympathetic and using droids in battles is obviously morally superior to the clone army so I'd be way more interested in hearing what they cared about than most factions in Star Wars. Maybe it's just because we haven't been told anything but the CIS seems like one of the most nuanced and interesting factions in all of Star Wars.
Oddly, TCW had an inverse effect on me with time in terms of which faction I found myself subconsciously rooting for. By around season 3 or so, I was starting to hope to see the droid army actually get a few big wins here and there, if only to really show the stakes the "good guys" were up against. Instead, almost every time the droid army takes one step forward, they're pushed 2 steps back, really undermining the overwhelming terrifying threat they're supposed to be, and making Sidious' grand plan seem less workable. Likewise, almost every named separatist character was a cruel villain, so it didn't do a good job of driving home the whole point of the faction; the faction really did need some more sympathetic characters. Near the end of TCW, aside from a few named characters, I really didn't care much for the republic faction because the separatists were clearly the underdogs in the story, and ended the series feeling somewhat disappointed.
What I also would've liked to see is more diving into the odd similarities between droids and clones, and how there are arguments for both. Both clones and droids were manufactured for the sole purpose of fighting, and there is a moral precedent against using living, sentient beings solely to be a meat shield. Likewise, however, there is a precedent against using droids that are clearly sentient themselves, which branches into a whole other realm of droid oppression in the SW setting as a whole.
I think a SW series, even a mini-series, focused around a separatist perspective would be great. Would be even better if we got some named droid characters, with the droid army actually shown in a competent light. It'd really tickle me if they somehow brought back OOM-9 into the fold and canonized the events of Galactic Battlegrounds, being basically the only B1 that was really good at commanding troops. Or something similar to bad batch focused around a post-clone war period with separatists characters trying to survive: a story of Kalani and his company after Agamar wouldn't be a bad place to start, especially if it got more former separatists involved.
4:04 the comic predates the Rebels arc by multiple years, it was also what established the Geonosian genocide. The Darth Vader comics tend to be bleaker and highlight just how far Anakin had fallen, so if anything Rebels is cruel for focusing on Klik-Klak's desperate attempt to save the queen egg when they knew the outcome.
Crazy that in the single moment of Order 66, all the true Separatists were instantly vindicated.
There's a great AU Fan-fic set during the clone wars called "Sublight Drive" that focuses on the Seperatist POV and the moral greyness of the Clone Wars exactly as you suggested in this video. Would highly recommend it!
I also wish that the separatist senate couldve gotten more attention in the clone wars tv show, but the reason that it didnt is glaringly obvious. And that reason is that they didnt matter. The separatist senate was a dummy governement that was nothing more than a strawman for the republic to defeat to make room for the empire. The members of thjis senate were completely unaware of the atrocities committed by their armies and had no control or knowledge of the larger activities of Count dooku and droid armies. The ones really in control were the separatist council that we see in attack of the clones and revenge of the sith (with noot gunray and wat tambor) they were the ones actually in control along with count dooku.
Problem is that is reversing the cause and effect. While it is true the Separatists were ultimately finite on time, the potential of depth they had was extremely present and everything that you state as a reason why they weren't given depth was caused by the show itself. The show did not have to portray the Separatist Parliament is useless, they did not have reduce all Separatist activity in the war towards Dooku. They had room to portray the war from another angle, much like how Star Wars Legends did. However they didn't and the conflict has been made more stale because of it tragically.
Yup. Seperatist Senate had the same influence as the senate post empire takeover.
@@kingorange7739 i believe you are misinterpreting the story as a whole. The clone wars show certainly could have given the the separatist senate more to do, but your assessment that im reversing the cause and effect is wrong, let me elaborate. I say that the sep senate didnt get screen time because they didnt matter and youre saying that they didnt matter because they didnt get screen time. But giving them screen time would make absolutely so sense in the story. If the sep senate actually has real power then they would have know about the atrocities committed by greivous and the sep army and they would have objected to it. The speratists were nothing more than a straw man government for palpatine to setup to loose to the republic in order to bring in the empire, it is quite literally by design that they dont have any effect on the story, because the republic wasnt really at war with them, they were at war with sidious and dooku. Dooku used their desire for independence in order to gain their trust and resources to fund the army that sidious would use to propagate the clone wars. not a single decision that the sep senate made was real and any decision the show couldve have them make wouldve been just as useless.
@@houston3103 Problem is, it would have made sense. The fact of the matter is, the secession of worlds from the Galactic Republic happened for a reason, and that reason goes beyond just Sith manipulation. Also there was potential for stories to cover some senators in the CIS discovering the military atrocities which could have led to internal divides and factors within the regime. Most notably weighing the prospect of whether turning on the CIS would be worth it if it meant certain defeat. Some would also likely try to justify some of the atrocities of the war. While you are correct that its grand purpose was to be a sacrificial lamb to bring about the Empire. However, that is a grand scope of the regime, something the Republic suffers a similar problem from considering that it was not part of the Sith's designs for the Republic to survive as is either. As a final note, I don't agree with the assertion that the Republic was not truly at war with them. They were as the Republic ideals was not too keen on simply allowing worlds to secede, and that would have generated conflict regardless of Sith tampering. That is the point, you are acting as if the Sith just made the grievances, sentiments, and willingness that the Separatists had appear out of magic. They didn't. The Republic was suffering problems that were pissing off many worlds in the Outer Rim, that incentivized their secession anyways.
@@houston3103 This is a notion you are missing, their decisions were real. These decisions are the only reason the Sith could weaponize the Separatists to the degree that they did. This argument is operating under a hindsight fallacy. Just because things turned out the way they did, does not mean that was the only way it could have gone. At the end of the day, the decisions of the Separatists were no less consequential than the decisions of the Republic. Both sides were pawns. Yet as pointed out in the video, one is treated like a golden child while the other is treated as cartoonishly evil merely for the sake of it.
5:47 I still think the chips were a cop-out so the audience wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable liking the clones and they could just say “oh they were mind-controlled”. They didn’t want to deal with the grey morality of “Clone trooper or commander so and so was a nice guy and I liked him yet when order 66 came down he still shot his Jedi in the back.”
The clones being friends with the Jedi is a small sample size of the few Jedi who were competent and likeable also being the main characters or major side characters. Most clones were not close with their Jedi and secretly did not like them.
The clones were bred and trained for ten years to revere orders, the republic, and Palpatine over all else. 3 years of the clone wars wouldn’t be enough for most of them to break that mentality.
I could see particular clones like Rex or Wolfe deserting but that’s because it’s built up that both had incredibly unique experiences. Since Rex went on some of the craziest missions of the war, and Wolfe had one of the most remarkable and beloved Jedi Plo Koon as his general. It’s understandable why they’d desert but most clones did not have that relationship with their jedi. They just weren’t that close and most of the Jedi were very incompetent officers. Magic wizard powers doesn’t qualify you as a strategist or tactician.
I agree that while there are moments that depict individuals within the Separatist cause as good, or at least having a point, I would have liked to see more of that. I think the Mon Cala arc is really important for this. The local Quarren were mistreated by the Mon Calamari and the Republic, so they joined up with Dooku to defend themselves. However, its only afterwards that they realized what they've signed on with. That's what I think is typical of the systems who joined the cause: legitimate grievances that they want no more of, but Dooku and his council of mega corporations make most of the real decisions. That's where the mustache twirling comes in, with people like Wat Tambor and Poggle the Lesser
My personal opinon as a millennial that grew up with the prequels and the clone wars tv show as young adult is that it's Gen X producers, writers, and directors doing stuff like this. They HATED the prequels with capital H and didn't let up from 1999 to the mid 2010s end look endlessly pouring hate onto Lucas for not making prequels EXACTLY like the OG
trilogy. So much so that Lucas got fed up and sold the IP. Think like legions of people like Seth MacFarlane who never once made a homage to the prequels in any of his works. Kathleen Kennedy, JJ Abrams, Dave Filoni (by far the least worst) and others who handle the new Disney Era Star Wars are all Gen X. The CIS are the poster boys for the prequels and of course they got tar and feathering treatment as if they were Jar Jar himself. All due to the fact that it's not the OG trilogy and anything that's not OG is the horse arse as far as Gen X is concerned.
In the big picture The separatists are deliberately misrepresented because it ties in with the anti-droid hatred in the original trilogy and that explains the context why C-3PO and R2-D2 are not allowed in the bar
6:55 poor dooku, he was just a kid
It was actually this issue which caused me to abandon Star Wars. Honestly the moment it became Clone vs Droids, and how they handled the lead up to the Clone Wars in Attack of the Clones, and later Revenge of the Sith, the damage had already been done. The Clone Wars TV show didn't salvage it tragically either. Sorry to say, Star Wars doesn't take war seriously, it's hard to do so with a conflict between Clones and Droids. Doesn't matter how many times they throw "Brothers" in your face. Clones do not have a past, nor a future, they're clones. They're not innocent children who later as young adults found themselves fighting in a war. They're glorified lab rats which The Clone Wars TV series tried to imbed some humanity into because the whole series would have lacked it if it was a War between Clones and Droids, something George had already set in stone, and tragically hurt the whole franchise. There wasn't much The Clone Wars series could do to repair the narrative that the films actually lazily set together.
I know some people like the writing in the prequel films. But I'm not a fan of grand conspiracies. The whole plot of Palpatine rising to power is so unrealistic that it's almost childish. How he controlled both sides of the war was an absolute and utter insult to anyone who enjoys political and military history as well. The whole franchise could have been fixed if Count Dooku wasn't a Sith being manipulated by Palpatine, and the Confederation of Planets was a genuine civil war against his regime, and Dooku meant everything he said in Attack of the Clones when he admitted the truth to Obi-wan about who controlled the republic. Sadly George was either too stupid, or too scared to make a genuine and believable war.
I know some might say "But Palpatine's order 66 was meant to represent the Night of the Long Knives." Which is BS and only stupid people should believe that, because the Night of the Long Knives wasn't planned, nor a conspiracy as it was a spurt of the momentary political knee jerking by a man who was at the time a new dictator who already had elements within his own party wanting a second revolution which would have removed him from power, and had recently gotten an ultimatum from the Army that they'd swear him Loyalty if he purged that element. Basically people see conspiracies when there are none.
The whole Palpatine conspiracy nonsense ruined the humanity of the prequel films. People were not allowed to be wrong, people were not allowed to side with the bad guy, everyone had to be tricked into fighting his fake war. It's utter stupidity. The fact we didn't get to see anyone in the films willingly fighting for Palpatine, who were not lied to or tricked, having no real internal conflict outside of Anakin utterly infuriating. Even major figures like Grand Moft Tarkin didn't even appear as a character in those films outside of an easter egg, a perfect.. absolute perfect candidate for such a character role. Clone Wars series kind of fixed that but a TV series shouldn't be needed to repair films.
The clone wars is a republic propaganda show.it’s a theory
That theory does not hold up given the things portrayed in it that would never make it through as Republic propaganda, as well as how it present story elements the Republic could know about.
Honestly I feel that a good Separatist story had to be one that shows the dark side of revolutions. After all, the CIS is seen by fans as being an evil version of the Rebel Alliance. We can’t even say the Separatist Cause was corrupted because from its birth, it was always meant to be the force that pushed the Republic to become the Empire. Dooku was always dedicated to the plan.
A Separatist story would have to show how the Shadowfeed which was claimed to be an alternative to the Republic Holonet just became Separatist State Media to keep citizens from knowing about Separatist war crimes. We see the tensions between the Separatist Senate and Council given they have every reason to dislike each other even in war. We see how Dooku gets a cult of supporters who refuse to believe he can do everything wrong, like what Palpatine built during the Clone Wars so he could lead the Empire without opposition.
I mean, you have to admit that the Separatist Alliance can come off as a cruel scam to the people who got tired of Republic corruption and ineffectiveness. These guys are supposed to be the rebels of their era, but they are actually the ones who cause the most pain and suffering in their time.
I mean, I’m writing a Fanfiction of a Clone Wars battle in the Rishi Maze and some of the Separatist characters are going to be these real patriots who you would probably find in the Rebel Alliance. They’re going to spend the story learning the horrible truth about their military and Dooku and want to tell everyone back home. However even if I decide that some of them make it back home, I probably won’t have them be believed. Look at how Separatist politicians react when Lux Bonteri claims Dooku murdered his mother. One of those guys goes on to be shocked when Dooku takes over the Banking Clan against the wishes of the Senate. There are even Separatists after the war who act like Dooku was right about the Republic. Yes, it was corrupt and yes it turned into the Galactic Empire, but Dooku helped a lot with the Separatists. One of these Separatists was even friends with Mina and probably doesn’t believe Dooku is her killer. Though to be fair, how can they ever learn the truth now that the Empire is in charge?
Hollywood has been doing this since the dawn of time! The villain is ALWAYS an unredeemable throw away character that has to be stopped no matter the struggles he or she has had! Or their humanity! Palpatine was right of course, Good IS a point of view!
The whole show is written from the perspective of the Republic. That's why every episode starts with Yularin giving an old-time campy narration of the episode's background.
Not every episode is from a Republic POV. Also that does not change what is seen on screen. Even if they don't want to focus on the Separatists, they can have the decency to portray more honorable and redeemable leaders in their organization just as much as the more ruthless ones.
I have been arguing about this for years, and over those years, I have gotten nothing but pushback from Star Wars fans.
Especially the time when it seemed like everyone groveled at Dave Filoni's feet and practically worshipped the ground he walked on back in 2014. To many a Star Wars fan, it seemed like that man could do no wrong.
Why the sudden change among fans now?
I think many are starting to wake up for the fact that Dave (In spite of many of his merits) is not that good of a writer.
To be honest, Im torn between you point that besides their armed forces, the Seperatists were simply left out while having something similar to the Galactic Republic. On the other hand I really loved how Clone Wars gave a lot of insights on the oncoming events, like the character development of Anakin. Without it, I would go as far as saying that he was a bad written character in the movies because of his changing of his personality that felt very abrupt between II and III, that never had a chance of bringing the balance to the galactic.
And as an addition, Bad Batch really did a great job filling the hole of telling how the things changed in the first days of the Galactic Empire, while following very interesting characters and meeting some old ones like Rex and Asokha. For me, its like the perfect finishing of Clone wars with some fine additions like some civilian insights, but from clones that find their way. And rebels really just felt like a series made out of a bunch of episodes that had the same characters by coincidence while having no storytelling and just some little interesting infos spread over the whole series (no hate if u like it I would understand why but I dont)
~ Just some random fan from that grew up with EP 1-6 and Clone Wars (ccurrently rewatching the 12th or so time xD)
TCW really is a weird mix of good and bad. It is incredible on one hand for how it expands things and really makes the PT experience feel better. On the other hand, it is riddled with major contrivances with characters and world breaking plot holes. I think one of my friends kinda best described TCW is "hybridized fan fiction." However I sum it up with a quote from Doc Ock, "Brilliant but lazy."
It’s because the separatists are unfairly represented by the war profiteering Council instead of the independent autonomous parliament
Kinda makes me think that maybe the writers wanted to write the story that way to basically "simulate" that history is always wrotten by the winners
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Andor was a separatist before the empire. Still barely see what he did during the time of the clone wars though
One of my biggest problems with the need Star Wars writers feel to make the Republic "good" so long as it goes by that name is it creates this nonsensical situation where Palpatine altering the name of the state and abolishing term limits suddenly, inexplicably, turns the whole society authoritarian. The prequels heavily imply that simply by fighting the war at all, the Republic had already become the Empire in all but name; the Jedi were complicit in this, and Order 66 was simply the last domino. Now, not only is Order 66 *the* moment everything changes, an event of such singularly mythic importance that Darth Maul has nightmares about it, but it's also the moment the clones turn from heroic to villainous. Why are they not demanding ID from random people during the war, when they'd have a better justification to do so? Why aren't Wookiees being pressed into slave labor until the minute the CIS droid armies shut down? Well, because the government calls itself the Bad Name now, that's why!
Yeah, it really is unrealistic within the new canon. Legends in my opinion did a much better job in bridging the transition between Republic and Empire and really made clear how the Republic became more and more of a police state. It also created stories centered around more sympathetic and more justified Separatists to make clear that not all causes within fighting the Separatists were just. It may had still made the CIS evil, but it was evil with more nuance and demonstrated the Republic as evil as well.
@@kingorange7739 I wouldn't call this a Legends/canon issue. Most Clone Wars content, for understandable reasons, makes the war an adventure, but you're right that there's more sympathy for the Separatists and moral problems with the Republic overall. That said, I personally consider it Filoni's influence on the show that led to this overall tone and approach. It's also not a wholly bad influence, considering this show is the only source that gives the Seperatists a cosmopolitan capital world and people with normal political goals instead of letting the audience assume the government is openly run by a Sith Lord and a dozen space-billionaires.
@@ultratankie That much is very true. However it is just a shame that the show seems allergic to nuance. Even showcasing the Confederacy's capital, Raxus and showing the ordinary Separatists was mandated by George and not done out of Filoni's own volition which is kinda easy to tell given it is probably the only full episode that doesn't portray the Separatists as cartoonishly evil.
The Tarkin novel had a decent bit of its time from the perspective of some holdouts iirc.
Oh it’s almost like the writers of The Clone Wars did a hack job depicting the Separatists, or literally anything in the damn show. 😑
1:45, If the intent was to start with the war being appearing relatively black and white in its morality, with the more villainous elements of the Separatists being more visible than the more benign elements, then I would say it was a success.
Unfortunately, this structure comes at the cost of potentially more interesting stories from the perspective of the Separatists.
I feel star wars suffered greatly writing wise by having such a big part of it being relegated to a kids show. Thrawn got a similar treatment as he's supposed to be qn accomplished commander but always lost in his time on Rebels.
It probably exists somewhere in a comic book that is Canon which truly gives the separatists justice (not including the war profiteer Representative Council)
I agree. The average Separatist was just a normal person who was understandably felt frustrated with the Republic's treatment of them and wanted to break off and form their own government. It's a shame they got screwed over by the Sith and the galaxy's mega corporations.
It is indeed a big shame.
Culture and media often affects public perception and it's a known fact that the US government has its hands all over the entertainment industry. Having a storyline with more nuance makes people wonder who the real good guys and bad guys are in fiction which sometimes translates into the viewer asking who the good guys and bad guys are in real life. Anyways, I'm sounding like a separatist so it's probably nothing to focus on.
I want a show where its like the opposite of the bad batch and its a group of dumb separatist droids bumbling their way around the galaxy
History is written by victors. We barely knew about the empire
History isn't written by the victors, they are written by historians. Also we know a great deal about the Empire as a whole.
Some of my favorite episodes in star wars the clone wars, is the political ones. I really want to see the stories of the separatist, because as you said, they have viable reasons, and shouldn't be played off as completely evil characters. I want a book, or something like tales of the Jedi (Tales of the Separatist?) which really gets into the topics that your presented. Overall great video.
The Clone Wars will always be my favorite era of Star Wars, cuz unlike the other 2 that I’m sorry are strictly good vs evil (sorry guys no matter how much you spin it, the empire are space naz1s) the Republic & the Separatists truly have both good and evil people in it. Dooku, Grevious, Ventress (for at least a while) and the Separatist leaders were obviously evil, and the Clones & the Jedi were obviously good. But what’s funny is when you looks at the senators you can kinda see that a lot of the separatists senators were good guys wanting to be free & a lot of the republic senators just wanted to stay in power. I could go on and on but man this era is so fascinating
“Why are the Separatists always written as mustache-twirling villains?” Because Star Wars is a franchise for children, and the Clone Wars era was *especially* written for children, literally to air on Cartoon fucking Network, and children’s TV is where nuance goes to die.
Even though other villains on Cartoon Network have been given nuance. More importantly, the Clone Wars era was written with a large degree of political complexity.
CN had nuanced shows that didnt treat children like idiots though. Adventure Time instantly comes to mind.
Content for children can be nuanced. Just look at Avatar the last Airbender. This is absolutely no excuse in any way whatsoever.
I would go so far as to say just including characters from separatist species like the neimoidians or geonosians and presenting their culture, what it means to them and just fleshing them out as more then faceless mustache twirling villains would go a long way. You don’t even need to mention separatism if you don’t want to. Look at what Star Trek did to the Klingons and Ferengi, just by fleshing out their culture, those characters became much more sympathetic as well as their race as a whole. They didn’t need to retcon anything and if they needed a villain from one of those races it still was easy to do, doing the same thing with separatists could work just as easily.
Indeed.
If making the queen sterile is boneheaded then I guess infertility in real life is evolution being boneheaded.
You can just say you wished for a different approach without attacking the quality of the writers' approach.
I find it very cautionary to say with your story: "Extinction is an irreversible tragedy. The last hope is infertile and it's the war's fault that that's a problem."
Its represented perfectly from the point of Lucas story. You have the repuplic that is underminded by corruption and you have you have people who are against this falling constitution for diffrent reasons(representation, lack of results(the courts will take years Ep1)or hatered for various reasons) and similar to reality they support a cause that in the end is even worse for them. Additionaly it is just a proxy war to cover up the real war, the fight against seperation of power in a democracy.
I personaly felt that this was all established in ep1with the senat scene(+ the last scene after "they won" where George refrences "the fall of the roman empire", which is a quiet but clear implication that the republic already lost at the point ) and later with the emergency power bill but politic education is something rare I guess...
If the separatists are to be made sympathetic, the focus has to be on the whole separatist part. For example, what forces led to individuals wanting independence from the republic? How bad was life for some and why would they blame the Republic for their hardships? Stuff like that. Life before the war should be a focus, not just the war itself if the separatists are to be made sympathetic.
I agree.
I completely agree with everything you've said in this video about the Pre-Disney Star Wars films. I always love the Star Wars prequel trilogy films no matter what (even with their flaws), but there was one flaw in particular in the Star Wars prequel trilogy films that I didn't like and that's how the Separatists were mostly portrayed as cartoonishly evil moustache-twirling villains instead of the morally ambiguous faction that it really was. Both the Separatists AND the Republic were controlled by Palpatine. Palpatine controlled the Republic as its Chancellor, while Palpatine controlled the Separatists as the Sith lord Darth Sidious. But from what I understand, the Separatists were originally a genuinely righteous group of beings throughout the Star Wars galaxy that wanted to secede from the increasingly corrupt Republic until the Separatists were co-opted by Palpatine. No matter which side won the Clone Wars, Palpatine would still win either way because he was controlling both sides of the Clone Wars. That was the whole point. In any case, the Separatists are my most favourite faction in the entire Star Wars franchise because the Separatists have endless storytelling potential.
Exactly
@@kingorange7739 Glad you agree.
A thing ive always wanted is a clone wars or bad batch like show but for the seperatist side
This might be a hot take, but I HATE the whole "brain chip" bullshit they added to Clones...
I completely agree.
me too. The Clones were genetically easier to control save for specialist ones.
Thank you for making this video.
In Legends,
The separatist cause is far more fleshed out as well as the corruption of the Republic in the Republic Comics that cover the time is Phantom Menace up to early into the Empire.
The Jedi who saught to learn and represent the separatists points were drowned out in the Senate and killed by Assajj Ventriss while visiting Sora Bulq.
7:42 We know what Tyrannus' vision of the Galaxy is post war, but not Dooku, since Dooku was already gone and corrupted by the Dark Side. By the time Dooku actually proposed the Separatist movement, he had already become Tyrannus, and the CIS, which had been a genuinely good idea from Dooku prior to becoming Sith, was always destined to be a Sith pawn. Thus, Tyrannus' vision for the future was an old school Sith Empire with Skywalker as the head of the military, rabid humanocentrism and open Sith governance.