Alright guys, I've seen plenty of arguments disagreeing with my take on the chips, which is about what I expected, so I've done a stream where I addressed as many of them as I can. It can be found here: kzfaq.infoLJIKxkQAeuk?si=lGxsHtgafMHeb7FI If I didn't address your points for why the chips don't work, I do apologize, but this is as much as I'm willing to do about this subject. Following this, I will not be arguing about the chips any further; we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Jar Jar canonically laying pipe is peak Star Wars, you just don’t get it

Remember, kids. The planned story arcs about Ventress' sacrifice, Boba vs Cad Bane and Maul escaping Sidious couldn't get animated, but we instead got 4 episodes of the Martez sisters. Yikes

My boy Grievous has been done wrong for so long.

That Cartoon Network commercial teasing the Umbara arc brought back strong memories. After the arc concluded, I remember thinking, even as a kid, that Pong Krell might've been a little bit worse than "a substitute teacher who isn't as cool as your regular one."

Palpatine was using NordVPN for his holograms

"Theyre both madly in love with Obi Wan-" That abrupt cut off had me in stitches

Totally agree on the Umbara ark. It would have been much much better if Krell wasn't just some evil asshole.

One thing I always found ridiculous about the prequel timeline was the fact that the clone wars takes place over only three years. The idea that entire planets could be conquered in that time, never mind whole star systems, is completely absurd. I realize that galactic standard years might be longer than an earth year, but three is still far too short to resolve a conflict on a galactic scale.

I truly despise the "Kids Show" argument, as if children somehow can't appreciate world-building and character consistency. I remember, as a child, loving it when TV shows referenced older episodes and used them as a basis to tell a new story; even if I didn't know what continuity was, I could still appreciate it.

Palpatine uses a VPN to stop people decloaking his holograms.

It always annoyed me how cartoonishly evil the separartists and especially Dooku was in CW. It seemed like in AOTC they had legitimate reasons to leave the republic, like the senate being corrupt and the republic being too controlling of trade and how slow the senate must have been with thousands of systems needing to agree on laws. I assumed they had legitimate political disagreements with the republic just like Dooku had with the Jedi. It would've been interesting if the separatists had less democratic governments and maybe certain religions that were discriminated against in the republic, as well as officials fed up with the slow moving bureaucracy in the senate. They could've reflected real life with the whole idea of America "exporting democracy" by overthrowing Middle Eastern governments. To be clear I'm not saying what authoritarian governments do in our world is good or justifiable, but the idea of a massive democratic superpower intervening in authoritarian regimes that want no business with them could be the foundation of a real political struggle that would cause the separatist movement. Or you know, they could all just be greedy evil corrupt moustache twirling villains who enslave native populations, engage in casual genocide, and at one point try to release the black plague on the galaxy (seriously), having no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I guess that works too.

56:30 One detail I love, which is very subtle, is in Attack of the Clones, when Coleman Terbor tries to take Dooku by surprise. When Coleman is about to strike Dooku, he's killed by Jango. Dooku turns and grins to Jango, turns and looks towards where Coleman fell and grimaces, then looks back to the battle mournfully. This all happens over like 3 seconds.

Jango being on the side of the bad guys on Geonosis should have been the biggest red flag about the clones 😂

"They're both madly in love with Obi-Wan" perfect absolutely perfect.

Imagine if we had an episode where Dooku after finding out Maul lives went out of his way to try and kill or capture Maul and it was because Maul killed Qui-gon. Imagine if him being Qui-gon's master affected anything. Imagine he ever did anything. This baffles me. So we have Qui-gon's master and the guy who killed him in the same show and... nothing. That could have written itself but I guess giving Dooku any character or motivation beyond "mWahahaha, I'm evil!" was not allowed.

The hottest take from this video is implying Victor Freeze is poorly written in BTAS

To bring up a point about Gennedy Star Wars about Grievous, you did miss the part where while Grievous did ultimately capture Palpatine, Mace Windu crushed his respiratory organs which gave him his signature breathing in Episode 3. Why is that important? Because it heavily implies that's why Grievous wasn't the powerhouse he was in Episode 3(and the creators ensured that was the case with Lucas at the time even agreeing to it) and why Obi-Wan ultimately defeated him(Though it was still a hard won fight). It doesn't explain away all of Grievous' issues in Episode 3 but it explains why he constantly ran away or fought at an advantage until he was forced and still nearly had Obi-Wan dead to rights if it wasn't for a lucky blaster. It's a far and away better than what happened to him in TCW and it's honestly the reason I prefer Gennedy Clone Wars over TCW entirely.

Fun Grievous facts according to current canon: 1. He was once a Kaleesh warlord whose culture and planet were desecrated by a war that the Republic and Jedi are directly responsible for supporting the other invading side. If that wasnt reason enough to hate the Jedi, his partner was killed horrifically in front of him during this conflict; literally being ripped limb from limb. 2. His descent into being a cyborg started out being intentional: small modifications here and there to help him fight. However, an accident that Dooku secretly orchestrated called for the complete reconstruction. 3. Grievous was present in the Battle of Geonosis. Nobody reported seeing him because nobody lived to report seeing him. 4. The Battle of Hypori is still canon, and is the first time he became known to the Republic. The point of why I bring these up is to demonstrate how badly CG Clone Wars fumbled the ball in eatablishing this backstory, as this all comes from canon comics and visual dictionaries.

your criticism of characterization in this show (inconsistency, failure to develop, missed opertunity et al) are spot on. if you do a part 3 it would be nice to see you tackle the inconsistency of the shows message over all: is it about the important of individuality, the fight against tyranny, freedom versus dogma, the fall of darth vader etc. it all tends to come off as 'star wars does war film', 'star wars does detective story', 'star wars does overly simplistic morality tale' etc.

I say the implant chips are there entirely to fix a problem that the show introduced itself. They "humanized" the clones a bit too much, forgetting that they've been genetically modified to make them more obedient.

Speaking on order sixty-six more specifically, while the EU went into more detail about it, I think the fact that it's the sixty-sixth order does enough by itself to establish that there was a huge list of emergency orders for all sorts of situations specifically to disguise the one that Palpatine was planning on using the whole time, which is why it didn't get caught out.

Speaking of Dooku's character, I loved his Legends origins. In the old continuity, Dooku was forever changed when as a child his best friend Lorian Nodd falsely accused him of stealing the Sith Holocron from his master. That caused Dooku to greatly distrust the Jedi Order, beginning to see them as a bunch of fakes and hypocrites, which ironically caused Dooku to end up immersed in the dark side. I wish TCW had given more depth to the character

I never noticed it as a kid but it is really funny to me now that Grievous, on screen, literally only wins 3 fights he's in, and 2 of them were against a little girl that he still failed to like actually win against. The only guy he actually manages to kill is the goofy fish man in that one episode.

32:24 My suspicion is that this is the result of a larger overarching issue with the show, its non-chronological anthology structure. The show is never clear about where in the timeline any individual arc takes place. There is some degree of chronology, but for all intents and purposes the story resets at the end of every arc and there is no clear info on how much time passes between them. This creates a lot of problems when it comes to overarching character plotlines, as they’re essentially in a perpetual limbo for most of the series. What I suspect happened here is that because everything exists in "non-specific limbo-time between AotC and RotS", the dialogue writers didn’t know the exact timeline. So they defaulted to "over 10 years" and no one caught the discrepancy.

I have been bringing up the point of Krells character falling flat for ages, I feel so validated

I refuse to believe that Maul could strong arm the Hutts when even the Empire couldn't get them to fall in line. And we all know how far the Empire (especially in Legends) is willing to go to make people fall in line and obey their laws

What this show did to Dooku is unforgivable.

I always found it annoying how fives wasn’t the the one with the FIVE FINGER HAND PRINT ON HIS CHEST. Genuinely swap their designs it becomes much better lol

I always hated the fact Anakin had a padawan in the war. The teenage brat who massacred an entire Tusken village officialy getting an apprentice was ridiculous af. It's pretty obvious that even Filoni knew how stupid that artistic decision was, since he characterized Anakin from the first episode with the mature and disciplined personality that he displays in Episode III after serving in the army for years, which makes no sense at all. The most logical choice here would have been to establish Ahsoka as Plo Koon's padawan and create her bond with Anakin through many shared missions

Order 66 is not "just another Order" or "Protocol" the Jedi shouldnt know about, its a Contingency Order! And the jedi were well aware of that! It doesnt open up a... can of worms or something. Because there were 150 similar Orders, even one for the clones to turn against the chancellor, which would require the approval of the Senate or the Republic Security Council. But Palpatine already had the entire senate under him, so he could execute those Contingency Orders. Furthermore, tose orders being a part of the entire republic military makes sure that everyone, even the non-cloned personnel like Fleet-Soldiers and Officers would be participating on Order 66!

I really like how people be like “you hate Star Wars” to Sheev when his channel name is literally a Star Wars character, and has multiple hour+ long videos on it 💀

I am pretty sure Order 66 was a contingency order planned by the Kaminoans prior to the war, the Senate probably had no knowledge of it. Besides, the explanation would be simple; order 66 was an emergency order in case of Jedi going rogue or something along those lines. Several Jedi had become corrupted before and during the war, and public opinion was not favourable towards the order during the war, so most people would take little issue with it.

I don't think the chips are necessary, and I think you pointed out why they became necessary: the expanded content outside of the films including the clones depicts them as beings that are NOT disposable non-humans. They're completely expendable in the films, because they're essentially organic versions of the droids the Republic is fighting. It's considered a waste of time when Anakin decides to help some of them at the start of the 3rd film.

On your point about "Dark Lord: rise of darth vader" The clones that disobey the orders are clone commandos; that may not sound like anything, but they're a specific type of clone trooper bred with less obedience that the rest of the clones. The rest of the clones (as mentioned in ep 2) were genetically engineered to be obedient to the republic. Clone commandos only make up a microfraction of the GATR and were usually alone in isolated reconnaissance missions (and not with jedi). In short, this is a non-issue already accounted for in EU lore. Edit: all your additional examples fall under this reasoning; just painful hearing you beat this (probably unintentional) strawman. Probably shouldn't have tried to"Uhm ackshully!" people who've actually read this stuff. No; the inhibitor chips and the brainwashing aren't the same. Its "I know I have to do this" vs turning the clones into droids; it turns it from a misinformed choice to them being robots with zero agency.

Yup. The series is often inconsistent, focuses on things that could be skipped and skips things that should be focused on further, often fails to characterize (or in grievous' case actively murders any characterization) characters that are not the main set of clones/jedi has more holes in its plot than the wall behind a stormtrooper's target and fluctuates the power of its force users (or magicians) randomly to each other. I still do not think this makes it a bad show but it is a flawed show. It is still fun as heck and as you say all this criticism comes from a place of love and care and not actively trying to slander it. We star wars fans not only feast on what we get, but also what the material we've got implies could happen or would have happened, making our personal headcanons much larger than the canon itself. I think your 5h long critique (from both parts) is more than fair and speaks volumes of how much you care about the show that we are actively hunting plot holes and misshaps and shedding light onto them. Well done.

The fact that the Jedi find out that the clone army was created by Dooku and don't put two and two together to realize that the entire war was just created by Dooku and his master as a scheme to weaken the republic and take over the galaxy is hilarious to me. Keeping in mind that Dooku flat out told Obi-Wan in Attack of the Clones, that Sidious was the man pulling the strings behind everything.

Dooku being a bond villain is ironic

It’s honestly annoying how Dooku, Obi-Wan and Anakin were all together for an episode and instead of being interesting in any way it just plays out like a sit-com.

The domino squad being treated as a tragic and well written story blows my mind. 2 of them barely are characters, with 3 out of 5 getting killed in their second episode. Then the two survivor get no development, one of them "dies" in a "tragic scene" to never be mentioned again until he gets revived to be in the bad batch, with Fives barely showing any reaction to all of his brothers dying other than his reactions to their deaths (he actually only cared about Echo) and his little philosophy about not following orders in order to save clones in the Umbara and clone plot arcs. I swear, they are a mountain of misses oportunities, and only Fives gets close to being a good character. But he doesn't really get to be one, since just like every character in the show, CAN NOT EXPRESS HIS EMOTIONS OR TRAUMA BECAUSE THE PLOT IS MORE IMPORTANT. The fact that TCW fans treats this story line as amazing is just mind blowing

The worst thing about Dave Filoni is that he never cared about respecting the continuity established by other authors. When TCW premiered, Legends had solved a large part of its lore contradictions through the holocron of continuity, but everything was ruined when Filoni imposed his own version of the Clone Wars, which had 1,000,000 massive contradictions with what was seen in the 2003 multimedia project (the existence of Rex and Ahsoka, the characterization of Anakin, the social structure of Mandalore, the inhibitor chip, the death of Even Piell, the Nightsisters, etc.) and tried to force it into the old continuity, no matter how totally impossible that would be. Because of that, sourcebook authors like Pablo Hidalgo and Jason Fry tried to justify all this nonsense with statements like "All of the missions Anakin participated in as a Padawan happened in the first few weeks of the war instead of over two years" or "Satine's Mandalorian government covered just a portion of the planet." You don't have to be a genius to see that these excuses to justify Filoni's massacre were absolute bs

You can't cut from Clones like Rex and Cody having strong friendships with their Jedi generals to "And then, they killed their masters with no issues!" The retcon of the chips was necessary _because_ of TCW. The narrative was leading to the Clones having _more_ loyalty towards their Jedi generals, not less. If Filoni was thinking ahead, he would've started at least as early as season 3 to start making this relationship break down, showing more and more Jedi who consider clones expendable. He should've shown even our main characters like Obi-Wan ordering hundreds of clones to their deaths, explaining why Cody would have no compunction ordering a walker to blast him out of existence. There are smart ways you can do this without depicting Obi-Wan or the other Jedi as straight-up evil, especially if you depict these moments as difficult decisions where the Jedi have to choose between saving civilians/targets and their own troops. You can even make this a point of contention between Anakin and the Jedi Council as well as developing Anakin's dislike of the Republic Admiralty and officers which we see boil over in Empire Strikes Back into actually strangling officers for being useless.

Regarding Cut Lequaine’s kids; What if they inherited the accelerated ageing of the clones?

Even if the Ashoka events happen in a different order… it would still be an example of her learning the same lesson twice in relatively quick succession…

This video really explains what is honestly my biggest problem with Star Wars as a franchise. Despite taking place in a galaxy far far away a long time ago, there’s a shocking deficiency of imagination and creativity. Most characters, storylines, and concepts are just the most simplistic, straightforward, and most predictable versions that they could possibly be. Very rarely, does the franchise explore itself for opportunities to flesh them out with actual nuance or depth. I understand Star Wars began as a simple hero’s tale adventure with the original trilogy, and if it stayed like that then I wouldn’t have this issue. However, Star Wars also wants to evolve beyond that initial intention to grow up and be taken seriously, but it mostly does that in theory or concept and very rarely in practice or execution.

That opening clip made me realise that despite watching this show multiple times, there are episodes that I have no memory of whatsoever.

I think we can all agree that the Clone Wars should’ve lasted more than 3 years.

Echo originally not joining the Bad Batch is not true. There have been unfinished TCW episodes featuring Bad Batch on Kashyyyk with Echo among them, albeit with a slightly different design.

36:45 holy fucking shit no way that was real, it seems like a mad skit or something, one of the most 2008 to 2010 thing ever

Clone Wars 2003 multimedia project: Perfectly chronicles the entire clone wars through books, video games, comics and an acclaimed animated series, masterfully uniting the prequel era with the rest of the Star Wars continuity Dave Filoni: "I am gonna pretend I didn't see that" 🤠

The writing in this show is so negligent that I feel it has become impossible for my opinion on it to improve in any considerable way. Any time I try to think critically or infer some kind of clever storytelling I just think “there’s no way these people actually had the presence of mind to write that, it must be a coincidence”. It’s a waste of time even think about this show or attribute anything to it beyond surface level.

I have to disagree with your opinion on Order 66: In Legends, Order 66 is part of a list of publicly visible emergency protocols approved by the Senate, which included, among other things, Order 66, which states that if treason is proven, the Jedi concerned will be punished with force or death Violence must be neutralized on the orders of the Republican high command. There was also a comparable protocol (Order 67), which said the same thing for the Supreme Chancellor and could come into force through the Senate. The fact that such emergency protocols are being issued is by no means absurd; comparable things exist in reality, certainly in your home country too. And it's hard to argue that such a thing makes sense, given the fact that Dooku was once a Jedi and other Jedi changed sides over the course of the Clone Wars. There is therefore also a public interest in the Galactic Republic to take precautions against such cases of high treason on the part of the Jedi. In addition, Order 66 is legally legitimized in this way, which means that it was at least formally a legally correct process to eliminate the Jedi. Therefore I am against the inhibitor chips and for this version. And the clones become more interesting because they make the decision themselves whether they believe their general is a traitor or not. In the end they received an order from the high command that was certainly correct ;)

Just to ask, if im remembering this correctly, that in _The Rise of Darth Vader_ weren't those clones clone commandos? Because if they were, that would explain the seeming contradiction since clone commandos were bred to be much more independent than your average clone.

Kind of sad seeing how many content creators nowadays have to dedicate the start of videos such as these to explaining that critiquing something that you find enjoyable does not mean an attack on your person or a push to stop making you enjoy the subject of the video.

The fact that you still like star wars helps me appreciate your perspective more readily. I listened really hard to your previous video and walked away accepting your input but also really disappointed to do so. The fact that you like star wars, including clone wars, helps me accept your input. You also defended the inhibitor chips and focused on the political consequences, which helped me feel really validated lol

I wonder how Sir Christopher Lee would've reacted to seeing the fucking horseheaded Count Dooku, in TCW.

I'd honestly be fine with a longer video. If anyone says it's too long, to quote the man Sheev himself. "If you don't find long-form videos palatable *breathe in* you don't have to keep watching." - Source: The Kenobi Series Harvested my Kidneys and Sold Them on eBay (PART ONE) Timestamp: 3:22

As for the inhibitor chips I always thought it was more tragic that the clones would choose loyalty to the Republic over any personal feelings and in their moment of ultimate dedication doomed the very thing they thought they were saving. Making the clones unable to choose that outcome, be forced into it always seemed like a lazy way to deal with the moral culpability of the clones. Instead of good men making a tough choice you have biological robots. On the other hand stripping away the freedom and individuality of an entire army as the first step in founding an autocratic empire is kinda deliciously evil.

The biggest issue with the inhibitor chips is that it takes away agency and character development of the clones themself. Them having a choice to follow the order or not is so much more compelling from a story perspective rather than having a plot device forcing them to. It makes each betrayal (or not) its own story and internal conflict for the clones. It serves as a kind of "awakening" and questioning of their very own identity. They were created and taught their entire life to fight, follow orders and obey. Them choosing to disobey is not just them rejecting the very purpose they were made for, but actively choosing a new identity for themselves separate from it. It shows how much they've grown, changed and experienced in the war. It allows them to re-define who they are.

1:04:34 @SheevTalks There's something really major here that you didn't talk about - Namely, the relationship between Palpatine and Dooku, and Palpatine's given reasoning for wanting Ventress gone. See, Palpatine says that he believes Ventress has grown too powerful, and he wants Dooku to get rid of her because he believes that Dooku could be training her to be his own Sith apprentice against Palpatine. The issue here, is that Palpatine has been openly grooming Anakin to be his future Sith apprentice. Dooku knows this. So if Dooku knows that Sidious is planning to ignore the Rule of Two and take on Anakin, how can he possibly accept getting rid of Ventress on the logic that she's too powerful and violates the Rule of Two? Because then, Anakin being made an apprentice can only possibly mean that Sidious is planning to betray Dooku and get rid of him. At that point, the only sensible thing to do would have been for Dooku to recognize that he's being played, and do exactly as Palpatine says he suspected he was doing anyway, and betray Palpatine while taking Asajj as his own true Sith apprentice. And in fact Dooku has every advantage there, since he can out Palpatine as a Sith and already has a galactic military poised to take over the Republic in the resulting chaos. Hell, half the Jedi Order would probably defect and join him if they'd found out that they were working for a Sith Lord and Dooku was right about the Republic's corruption all along. And of course, this is all kind of exactly what Dooku is supposed to do according to the Sith code, betray his master the moment that he's no longer absolutely necessary. I really hope you touch on this next video.

I'm personally not a huge fan of the chips. Not because I think they're that _bad,_ but because I think not having them would've been more interesting. This is informed largely by my reading of canon outside of TCW: I like the idea that the Jedi weren't prepared to lead a clone army. Hell, they weren't prepared to wage war _at all._ The point of Sheev's plan was that he handed the Jedi a noose to hang themselves by pushing them into a situation that would cause them to betray their ideals. The Jedi were meant to be _atrocious_ generals, at least for the most part. They wouldn't connect with clones as individuals, and get a lot of them killed unnecessarily. The idea that clones bonded closely with their clone commanders is a TCW addition, as is the idea that the Jedi were particularly good at leading the war. Not all clones _hated_ their generals. In fact, Aayla Secura was massively respected. That's why they overkill her in the Order 66 scene. It looks brutal, but they're trying to kill her as quickly as possible so she won't suffer for long. If the chip turns the clones into mindless drones, we lose that. With how TCW handled it, the chips were necessary because the Jedi were too heroic, and bonded too much with the clones. But personally I wish we'd gotten to see the failure of the Jedi, and the growing resentment by most of the clones.

I had the same issues with Krell. He would've been a much better character if they made him a more extreme version of Nadar Veb from season 1. Nadar's issue was that he only had one episode to set up his downfall. Krell had four episodes and they could've set up that at one point he was a respected Jedi but over the war he lost sight of that and became a man obsessed with victory no matter the cost. In the show it's so obvious that he's evil with him sending his men into death traps for 4 episodes straight

I cannot believe we were robbed of seeing that season 7 model of Grievous do anything.

The Nightsisters from pre-TCW material are cool because they represent a Force user tradition that developed more or less independently of the usual Jedi/Sith conflict that Star Wars focuses on. They're a great way to explore how Jedi (or Sith) characters relate to the Force by introducing a third, alien perspective to compare and contrast with. Filoni retooled them into actual potions-and-sorcery witches, by extension introducing magical supernatural elements to the Star Wars universe other than the Force (or arguably hyperspace if you want to call that sci-fi conceit a form of magic), which really dilutes the focus on the Force and has catastrophic implications for the rest of the worldbuilding. Filoni's interpretation of the witches (and things like the world between worlds) are fundamentally not Star Wars because they mean altering the most basic rules of the setting in a way that makes all the drama over midichlorians look inconsequential. This isn't to say that there's no merit to exploring ideas that add additional fantastical elements to Star Wars - but they don't fit with the way the universe is presented in the OT or PT, and so their place is on the sidelines as spinoff what-if stories.

I dont think the chips ruin anything, I just hate seeing Filoni refuse to tarnish his favourite characters. I also think that the clones obeying orders adds to the tragic weight of episode 3. If you make perfectly conditioned genetic soldiers, it makes sense to have contingency plans. If we saw other orders being executed in the series it would add precedent. The Krell arc is a good place for this. They also could've revealed historic mistrust between the kaminoans and the jedi. Maybe a clone with vital information is captured, and a contingency protocol to self-destruct is activated, causing the clone to kill himself immediately in a horrible fashion.

Can i complain about Maul's legs for a sec? Cuz it's been driving me crazy since i first saw it. Talzin uses broken droids to give Maul these monster legs which are so good in terms of design, they're a visual representantion of Mauls inhumanity, making him look more monster like. He also uses them to do that move were he grabs his oponent in the face with and chucks them around, a move that makes him look more intimidating and further cements what i just said. They're also a constant visual reminder that he lost his legs... to Obi Wan, which is what he's all about (they're also just cool). Anyway his legs get almost immediately replaced with robot legs so uninteresting you legitimately forget they're prosthetics... why? why did this happen? how did this happen? it's so endlessly frustrating.

Concerning the Chip and especially the Dark Lord Argument here: The Clones disobeying Order 66 here werent regular Troopers, they were RCs. And RCs just as ARCs were always more free-thinkers than the others! Furthermore, they have big loyalty to their own Squad of Four, meanf if they had to disobey Order 66 they just needed all four of them to agree, instead of an entire Platoon or even a Company. Regular Troopers operate in much larger numbers, meaning even if SOME of them were ethically against Order 66 they would still rather execute it instead of turning against like 15 to 30 of their brothers. Honestly, you still didnt convince me that the Chip is a better solution. I am actually confused that THIS out of everything is the one thing you are fine with. It feels like a supervillain-plot by Dr. Drakken or something and doesnt work beyond the execution of Order 66! The clones should know what they've done afterwards and somehow justify it with themselves! Otherwise they would know they were controlled, and THAT might cause an even bigger clone-revolt! Another big reason against the chip is, that the GAR not only consisted of clones! There were plenty of Non-Cloned officers. What the hell would they be thinking if the clones suddenly turned on the Jedi?! The entire Officer Corps might fall apart then because they'd feel like they were left in the dark about the order. And last but not least: Order 66 only works if the entire republic would somehow agree with that! The reputation of the Jedi must have been mostly negative at this point already, and this goes for the civilians just as for the army. TCW just did a shit job at setting this breaking point up! otherwise, the chip wouldnt have been nessecary.

Looking back on it I think your points against the Umbara ark are pretty strong. Krell just being evil diminishes the previous plot points of the entire ark. Thinking on it now, wouldn’t it have been much more interesting if Krell was a diehard loyal general of the Republic, and when the clones come to mutiny against him he escapes and tries to radio for help from the Republic? Imagine that as a final bit to the story: The clones who rebelled against Krell need to get him captured or killed before he can call in the rest of the army to slaughter them all, while simultaneously there is infighting among the clones over what to do. Some want to beg forgiveness and give up with the mutiny, others want Krell dead for his actions, and some want to tread a middle ground where they do not want Krell dead but also do not want him sending them to their deaths. Just my thoughts on the matter, thanks for the video!

8:55 Sheev you made a massive mistake regarding that sub-plot where clones disobeyed Order 66 in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader. The clones who disobeyed weren't the standard clone troopers that the Kaminoan Prime Minister was showing and describing to Obi-Wan, they were *Clone Commandos* which were genetically different from standard CTs because they retained more independence than the regular clones (but not as much as the Null Clones and Arc Troopers) because they were independent special forces units meant to do toygh jobs behind enemy lines that normal clones weren't made to handle. Not to mention that you were a bit hypocritical saying that you're going to disregard all EU stuff regarding clone obedience but immediately use a piece of EU material that I hopefully believe you misremembered or misunderstood and not trying to make a bad faith argument along the lines of those that used Luuuke and Skippy the Jedi Droid as examples of how bad the entire EU was to justify Disney decanonizing it.

They could have given Maul's entire storyline in Clone Wars to Savage Opress.

Ok let’s talk about the microchips and break this down piece by piece: First of all, it’s weirdly confusing to establish we’re not using the EU, and then immediately defer to the books. The way this segment was worded, I’m genuinely confused. So since you default to using the books, I’m also going to default to using the books. There’s something very, very important you forgot to mention about the incident in Dark Lord: those were Clone Commandos. Clone Commandos and ARCs (so this includes Jangotat as well by the way) were specifically bred with an increased capacity for independent thinking in order to operate behind enemy lines. As in, different from the regular clones. Using this as an example for why the Clone Army was unreliable is disingenuous at best, as the commandos were fundamentally different on a genetic level. The rest of the Clones on Murkhana went along with the order, it was just that one team of clones specifically bred to think independently that took things into their own hands. As for the point about Order 66 somehow being less suspicious. Clone Protocol 66, in the EU, was part of a set of 150 contingency orders that the Jedi did know about. However, here’s the exact wording of the order: "In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established." So like, the Clones have an order to get rid of rogue commanders. Please tell me why the Jedi would be suspicious of an order to get rid of them in the event they go rogue. Also, suppose Palpatine does propose this, he would’ve proposed it along with the other 150. You know what Order 65 was? Let me show you: "In the event of either (i) a majority in the Senate declaring the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) to be unfit to issue orders, or (ii) the Security Council declaring him or her to be unfit to issue orders, and an authenticated order being received by the GAR, commanders shall be authorized to detain the Supreme Commander, with lethal force if necessary, and command of the GAR shall fall to the acting Chancellor until a successor is appointed or alternative authority identified as outlined in Section 6 (iv)." So not only did he word the order in a way that looks like a last resort failsafe that would never possibly be . He also put it right under an order to depose him. In other words, he did the same thing he always did with the Jedi, hid it right in plain sight. Please tell me why this is riskier than the chips, which you yourself admit almost led to his plan being uncovered.

whenever maul is mentioned I cant stop thinking about him in Solo when he was threating/trying to impress Hans Love interest over a hologram by turning on his light saber in dark and presumably empty room. aswell as the unfortunate implications it has a y'know revealing his sword to her.

The whole chip argument COMPLETLY misses the whole fan critique of the chips. The Chip makes the clone conditionoing into a on/off switch that the writers use as a get-out-of-jail-free card when ever the choose to 'redeem' a clone. It's bad because it cheapens what should be an act of character development into a plot Mcguffin, it's litteral deus-ex-machina for character development.

I always felt that Pong Krell being a secret sith made the umbara arc falter at the end. Thanks for pointing that out.

Part 1 was your first video i watched, and going in I was a die hard clone wars fan , but i was curious what you had to say. And i loved it, rewatched it 3 times already with this video being anticipated. You're really good at identifying "plot holes" but dont focus too much on them. And what i really like about your channel is how you also bring up theme and make suggestions on how they could be better.

I finished a rewatch of the entire show about a month ago so I could show my fiancée for the first time. I couldn’t really believe just how much was broken about the show, endless plot lines that are never resolved, flat characters and a severe lack of character development in the one show that should have progressed our characters more than any movie could have, and the world building and nuance was just lost and broken throughout. And yet, I still enjoyed the watch. I enjoyed following my favorite clones one more time and I enjoyed being able to show my fiancée a time capsule of a time where Star Wars was bringing in all new audiences and managed to succeed in doing so. I enjoyed being able to reminisce on the first time I watched, back when it was releasing weekly on TV. I’m glad I’ve watched it again for the sake of my memory and my fiancée and I’m glad I’ve watched these videos now, it’s helped me put words to the many thoughts I had swirling through my head upon rewatching and has now lead to very interesting discussions between me and my fiancée about where this show actually went wrong but also where it got it right. And after everything I think the experience of having seen it is better than never having seen it and I feel more intelligent about something I did used to cherish heavily from my youth now more than ever. Which I appreciate and value greatly, so thanks ole Sheevy

Dude the problem with your argument for the chip is ignoring the fact order 66 is just execute superior officer nothin more your kind of overcomplicating stuff and it doesn't help the independent clones you mentioned were trained independent plus thr clones were openly betrayed by the jedi when they heard the order in the eu

If I had a nickel for every show that Sheev has talked about that had body changing technology that is introduced once and never talked about or used again, I'd have two nickels. Which is not a lot, but it is weird it happened twice.

"peak Star Wars" includes a jailbait teenage girlboss apprentice that was never once mentioned in the live action movies and the resurrection of a character that got cut in half and knocked into a deep pit among many other blunders. It was cancelled for declining viewership and never had significant viewership to start with. Clone Wars characters got folded into a new show called Rebels that was never very popular and got cancelled because of declining viewership. Fast forward to Ahsoka, a live action show based on Clone Wars and Rebels characters. It debuts to poor viewership and is currently the least watched Star Wars show on Disney +. Guess what's going to happen to Ahsoka in the very near future.

10:20 Commando clones are different from the regular clone troopers in that the Kaminoans didn't apply the standard behavior correction to them due to Jango Fett and his Mandalorian military advisors advocating for soldiers that could handle more difficult missions.

I’m so glad you talked so much about the nightsisters and their magic shit. I’ve always hated them, what they can do and the implications on the world. And I never hear anyone bringing this up. Everyone else just seemed to be cool with it and it’s so maddening

I absolutely love the Clone Wars. This video, and its preceding one, caught my eye because I love hearing different perspectives. You've opened my eyes to a lot of the flaws I've been previously blind towards and it shed a lot of light on things is never really thought about critically due to my nostalgia. As a writer, you've helped me understand how to improve stories with minor changes. The rant about Umbara especially is what did it for me. Crazy how making him just a resentful Jedi instead of a Sith wannabe changes the entirety of the nuance and gives those episodes so much more depth. Bravo! Excellent videos! You've most definitely earned my subscription! I can't wait for your next critique!

14:00 not really. The supreme chancellor had direct control of the military, therefore can change orders without senate approval.

6:40 heart of ice absolutely still holds up

Cut (the deserter) his kids were adopted. His wife was a single mom, her original husband died when they were young. Although, it should be noted, in lore, humans, togruta, and twielek are able to interbreed since we all share a common ancestor. Togrutas and twieleks were originally humans modified by the Rakatta as a slave race for harsher planets then what humans could inhabit comfortably

Wasn’t really on board until you mentioned that Maul and Ventress are both madly in love with Obi-wan and now I’m laughing my ass off

Great analysis! It's thanks to this video that I found your channel Sheev. The Video Essay Format reminds me of similar analysis's from the EFAP crew I watch regularly, and your consistent and logical points really captivated my interest, was a joy to watch! I shall be watching ye career with great interest! Even though Star Wars is personally dead to me now and I've moved onto other franchises, I always love a good discussion and analysis! May the force serve you well.

Honestly, I think the problem with those accusations you mentioned at the end aren't really bad faith or an indicator of cognitive bias per se; rather, they're an indicator of the way that Faloni's writing encourages its audience to think. He alludes vaguely to deeper explanations, to get the fans thinking about what those explanations might be; and in so doing, encourages his audience to accept their headcanon as the intended explanation of events.

Gotta be honest bro. I’m not sure what idiots you are talking to, but I have never heard even one single person in real life or online say that Darth mauls return is justification for every other characters survival. It was cool just this once. But now it’s used for every discount lightsaber injury there is.

Time for Part 3

Talking about magic ball and necklace that can find everyone everywhere and not mentioning that beeping device from Mandalorian that can do that as well seems like a missed point. Filoni and his staff literally have five plot ideas they repeat contantly in each show they make.

Andor needs more love. I'm glad to discover a channel that talks about star wars from a place of love but also objectivity. Subbed

As someone who really enjoyed the Clone Wars growing up, it's kind of depressing to see how the show does hold up in hindsight. I was hesitant to agree, but a lot of the talking points that I didn't consider were explained very well, and I think the inclusion of quotes from the show (like the characters referencing the events of Mortis) were clear and deliberate enough to support the points. I was in the same boat with watching the show; the first few seasons I saw every episode for during the Cartoon Network run, but after a while I couldn't keep up with it and didn't have streaming to watch it all. I still have not seen most of the Savage Opress episodes, so to hear about all the potential ideas of where his character could have gone but didn't is...frankly disappointing. Whole-heartedly agree on the villains being weak. 2003 Grievous was awesome to see, emphasizing the CIS' focus on attrition and disposable droids to reduce morale and overwhelm the Jedi. Dooku's "Fear, Surprise, and Intimidation" quote was one of my favorite lines, and seeing how Grievous executed that mantra was always great to see...but the new Clone Wars never really showed that focus of the CIS. Also believed Dooku was too mustache-twirling in new Clone Wars; he egged Anakin on and mocked him in the Prequels, but it always seemed more deliberate and sophisticated than the remarks of the show. And the technology/Nightsisters stuff...most of those episodes were ones that I missed, and seeing that rundown had me literally twitching. The writers literally put in basically everything possible to end the Clone Wars prematurely and never cared to proofread. That seems like an obscene way to break the Rule of Two if any Sith figured out how to do that...heck, imagine if Dooku teamed up with Talzin and Ventress to kill Palpatine with voodoo magic and run the Republic themselves in the power vacuum.

The discussion of inhibitor chips and how they fit in to Order 66 got me thinking... Since I haven't watched the show and probably never will, I have to go off of what I see in the movies. When Cody and the other clones get the hologram figure giving telling them to execute Order 66, it isn't Palpatine; it's Sidious. They all call him "My Lord", same as the Neimoidians in Phantom Menace; not "your excellancy" or "chancellor" like people do with Palpatine. So the idea that Order 66 had to be signed off on by the Senate falls under question, since it seems the clones were interfacing directly with Sidious, which removes the Senate from the equation; it seems that the clones were aware of their fealty to Sidious well before the Jedi tried to capture him. If that's the case, inhibitor chips could just as easily be written out. One could easily explain it as the clones having their morality genetically written out, that they follow orders regardless of how a normal person would react. This theory holds up when you watch only the movies, as the clones don't get put in a moral dilemma that they have to solve themselves. Everything they do can be chalked up to following orders from higher-ups. Removing the chips then removes defective clones, which removes the (seemingly) increasing numbers of Jedi who survived and were operating through the final years of the Empire (Obi-Wan and Yoda seem in agreement that there are only two possible people who can destroy Vader in ESB, Luke and Leia). For those who liked the show, that's fine. I'm only pointing out something that stuck out to me as I was listening to this video. In my opinion, inhibitor chips were an unnecessary addition that needlessly added a lot of complications, which in turn generated a lot of contradictions, which could have been avoided by sticking to what the Kaminoans said in AOTC...genetically modified to follow orders explicitly. Doesn't take much of a jump to read behavioral engineering. The clones could act like the robots in 'I, Robot', where any life they save is strictly a calculation. And that 'calculation' is only done if it falls within their mission parameters.

Sheev, gotta level with you; you're forgetting *WHY* the chips are needed. From your perspective, yes, they were needed. But that perspective is with TCW's writing already in mind, with the Jedi and Clones being buddy pals already established. The original lore was specifically that many of the Clones were like Slick, who resented the Jedi for exactly the same nuanced reasons you usually keep mentioning, such as their disjointed emotional deadness, their hypocrisy, and their arrogance. Their lack of care, while claiming to be caregivers. The Clones and the Jedi were not friends. That was a Filoni retcon. So I am honestly unsure as to why you'd make the claim that the chips were necessary based off his writing. Yes, within HIS narrative they were needed, but that's because the fool retconned it to be necessary in the first place. It used to be a nuanced topic. Did the indentured servants/slave soldiers not have a right to gun down the Jedi, who claimed to be against slavery and pro peace but decided to fashion a human army that wasn't allowed to desert without punishment to fight their war for them, in order to be free? That was the original question. Now the narrative is: ''Poor Jedi. Poor Clones. They are objectively the good guys, and those poor Clones wouldn't never done this evil deed if the objective bad guys hadn't put objectively evil microchips of objective evilness in their heads because they're the objectively bad guys and therefore objectively evil which is why they committed such an objectively evil act.'' Personally, I, like yourself, prefer nuance over that. In summary, I view the microchip retcon of the Clones the same way I view the retcon of turning Dooku into a moustache twirling villain. It's the erasure of nuance and depth. The replacement of it with toned down, easy-to-digest side picking. There's no question about Dooku in TCW the way there was in AOTC and ROTS. He's the bad guy. And just the same way, there's no question involved with the Clones. They are the good guys who did a bad thing because bad people put a bad thing in their heads that takes their control away. Because this show panders to kids, and apparently to fans who don't have any more emotional maturity or worldliness than kids, which are the demographic that defend the microchips.

Finally! Heard the first part randomly a while ago and have been looking forward to this. Thanks!

Your section on the Night Sister magic just made me have a random realization about Sabine. What if the explanation that they go with for why Sabine can use the Force in Ahsoka is that she was possessed by a Night Sister spirit in Rebels and she's on a Night Sister planet?

Really? I enjoyed the first video but I flatly disagree with your stance on the chips, I hate them. I always found it more compelling that despite fighting alongside the jedi they'd murder them in cold blood because palpy declared them trators. And yes, I know, I didnt put much effort into explaining my dislike of the chips as the others, partly because I'm bad at writing, partly because others already did, partly because I never actually engaged with the now legends material, I just didnt like the chips.

I hate the entire nighsisters arc and existence. Feels NOTHING like Star Wars!

I’m not 100% convinced the Jedi would be able to reach the conclusion that the Clones are specifically designed to kill Jedi with just the information they got in Season 6, but I would expect them to look into the circumstances a little more than not at all. Those chairs must be pretty comfy, since all they seem to do is sit on their asses and agree the wisest course of action is inaction.