Films and Fiction

The movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released fifteen years ago, and while it isn’t the best known or best loved of Star Wars movies, it is a unique piece that has its place in a galaxy far, far away and is an important contribution to the saga in many ways.

Starting not long after the events of Attack of the Clones, the movie plunges us into the galactic conflict known as The Clone Wars, keeping a lot of the prequels’ style and characters, and helping to expand on what would become one of Star Wars’ most popular eras.

The movie is unique in that it’s the first, and so far only, animated Star Wars movie to get a theatrical release. It was also responsible for opening up the world of animation to the franchise. There had been other series made, such as the 2003 Clone Wars and shows like Ewoks and Droids, but this was the first serious attempt, and also the first to make use of computer animation rather than the traditional 2D style.

In some ways it was a pilot to the series of the same name which would release a few months later and would become one of the most popular Star Wars series. In fact, the film feels a lot like a four episode arc of The Clone Wars, featuring a large battle between clones and droids, several lightsaber duels, and dogfights, all of which would be central to the series’ action, as well as setting up the character of Asajj Ventress, who first appeared in the 2003 version, as a key antagonist.

Perhaps the most important part of the movie is the introduction of Ahsoka Tano as Anakin Skywalker’s headstrong padawan. She would take a lead role in the series, becoming one of the franchise’s best-loved characters as viewers got to see her grow and mature throughout the show, leading to her having a key part in Star Wars Rebels, and now getting her own live-action show on Disney+, the only animated character to do so.

The movie’s storyline isn’t the strongest, and if it had been an arc in the show, it’s unlikely to have become one of the most memorable, but it does serve as a better entry into the series than the “Malevolence” arc, combining military campaigns, the criminal underworld, the Jedi, and the politics of Coruscant, all of which would be central themes in the animated series.

Despite its setbacks, the movie was still an important part of the Star Wars saga, and gave us our first look at a style of animation that would dominate the franchise for years to come, as well as setting the stage for other projects like Rebels and The Bad Batch, and cementing computer animation as a valid medium for portraying the Star Wars galaxy, and without it, we could have missed out on some of the best stories ever told about a galaxy far, far away.

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