i like world war two movies like the Dirty Dozen, Saving Private Ryan, The longest Day, etc. So i liked the bad batch and some of the other clone battles probably because some had that kind of feel to it (to me anyway). I would LOVE a live action straight up war movie along the lines of of D-Day with clones.
There's definitely a place for that, and there's nothing quite like the visual and aural terror and confusion of the Normandy landing in
Saving Private Ryan.
For cartoons long battle or action sequences seem catered towards young audiences. They often just hold up the plot. I find myself more interested in the dialogue, and character progression and interaction, or the stories that involve exploration and expanding the visual lore.
For me the key and most interesting character was Ahsoka.
Essentially this whole period, however, is less interesting than that approaching the OT. When Leia and Obi-Wan mentioned 'The Clone Wars' in ANH it was a thing of mystery, you could let your imagination run wild as to what they involved. It was a past event that had lead to the current state of the galaxy, but it was really only the current state of the galaxy that mattered.
I read Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy long ago, so my concept of the Star Wars universe comprised a few years prior to ANH. L. Neil Smith's Lando trilogy then built upon that era. The
Solo film takes us another ten years back from that. Any further back feels very peripheral, like the thousands of pages Tolkien wrote of the time before Bilbo became a burglar. They're stories for another time, as Maz would say, but never actually need to be told in blow by blow detail. I never wanted to see Baby Vader, because it undermines the mystery of the masked man.
Prequels are always fraught with pitfalls, because creators like Lucas don't know when to stop themselves. They have the urge to connect everything, and in turn make their universe smaller, as with making Darth Vader the maker of C-3PO. What are the odds? (Don't tell me the odds). And that's on top of making Leia Luke's sister, which is the pitfall of making sequels. lol (Going forwards in time though is usually a different matter, as there were some great expanded universe stories involving Luke, Leia, Han et al).
The Clone Wars themselves are always going to be compromised, as with the Prequel Trilogy, by the very fact that the prime enemy, the battle droids, were used so heavily for comical effect.
When Leia made her plea, "General Kenobi. Years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire."
It seems such a different universe to...
The last four episodes of
The Clone Wars were something special. There was a power in the final episode that matched the feeling reading the
Revenge of the Sith novelisation. The book was far better than the film. This is where the story of
Star Wars feels like it's beginning, and starting to take on meaning.
The dawn of the Empire is where things start to get really compelling.
