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.
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.
@@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
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.
@@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.
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.
Remember watching that as a kid when it aired the first time, was interesting to see it after the last 3 seasons of the CIS being treated as mindless cannon fodder or comic-book villains like in that lurmen arc where the Nemodian CIS commander wants to burn down the natives for giggles.
ngl I genuinely hated this episode. Every single "point" they tried to make was immediately irrelevant just by the material we had seen in prior episodes. I agree, they should have made more if it, but from the get go. Not just retcon seasons worth of separatist evilness. Ahsoka's naivety in the arc is infuriating considering how much of that evilness she had witnessed first hand. So I think we are in agreeance that the separatists better characters and more nuanced ideals, but we disagree in that only having one short arc of this is better than nothing. I would have preferred it being consistently one-sided rather than the hypocrisy we saw.
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.
@@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.
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?
@@void_ling 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. :/
@@komicantcommunicatesuckslol 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.
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
@@arcanewarrior863 go cry about the mistreatment of toasters, robots are created to serve us, they lack soul, their sapience, not "sentience", is the result of error in programming.
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
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.
Sure, but a CIS victory would have been basically identical to the Russian Revolution. After victory, the actual people who wanted freedom and liberty would have been betrayed by the people just in it for their own wealth and power. It would have resulted in an empire, just not a Sith one.
@@thehigherman9918 He was holding the republic at bay as well, especially the Jedi. With Palpatine gone both would've been free to properly pursue paths to victory.
@@Joesolo13 He was sending the republic bankrupt with making more clones to fight the war. He was weakening the republic in a political/ecenomic sense so a transition to the empire could "save" it, but boosting it militarily as much as possible. Without the droid shutdown and separatist decapitation, there would not have been enough clones to stop the droid army.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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)
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.
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.
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**
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 ^^
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 TH-cam 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 TH-cam 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.
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.
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!
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.
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
@@DefaultProphetI'll give you the Bad Batch, but TCW was created before the Disney buyout changed the direction of the franchise, and the final season took a while to finally get made. Hell, they were going to cancel it initially
While Grievous would be too much as in real life, very few military generals or even colonels would be on the field doing such a thing. And in lore Grevious is a warrior, he'd rather be on a battlefield. As that's his purpose and role ever since his time before being a cyborg. I can very easily see the droid army bringing aid to seperatist worlds. Or perhaps the droids performing noble last stands to ensure that enough time is bought to evacuate civilian settlements. As while we have seen droids on the offensive, from the lore clones were not that much different and in real life even the United States, seen as a bastion of freedom and hope, the Armed Forces has it's fair share of atrocities towards civilians. Be kind of interesting to see droids as the "good guys" for once.
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.
... "what i assume to be"???? Mate, OBVIOUSLY that is intentional, they are not reminiscent of the Empire, they ARE the Empire, they turn into the Empire in Episode 3. Did you forget that?? The Venator was the predecessor Model to the Victory and that in turn to the ISD. The AT-TE to the AT-AT, the Clone Trooper to the Storm Trooper etc. Its not some subtle hint or whatever, its literally right there in your face and just causality and continuity.
Really none of the villains get to be interesting in TCW. People love to talk about the Umbara arc, but even in that, Krell is very intentionally giving bad orders to get the clones killed. It stops being a question of "should we follow orders that are morally questionable?" and becomes "why on earth did our commander literally try to kill us?" Like, yes, of course the clones should lock Krell up. There is no way of looking at that situation that puts the clones in morally dubious territory.
I don' t think that's quite fair. After all, it didn't seem like Krell was trying to sabotage them, it just seemed like he was a terrible tactician who also hated clones. They have to follow his orders, no matter what. That's how people are conditioned in the real world, and the clones were literally conditioned from birth with the value of following orders to be of the utmost importance. The only reason these clones questioning orders in the first place makes sense is because they were conditioned by Anakin to be more independent. While I do agree that it was stupid to make Krell a traitor, the clones disobeyed direct orders without knowing that. After this, Filoni and his team had written themselves into a corner. Realistically, if Krell hadn't been a traitor they would have been court marshalled by the republic and executed. They had to make Krell a traitor in order to not have all the characters die. It does somewhat undermine the themes, but in my opinion the fact that the clones refused orders they thought were wrong without knowing Krell was conspiring with the CIS still means something, and the arc is still quite good.
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's a great parallel to the American right-wing (which Lucas based them on). A lot of decent people with understandable concerns being led astray and guided to do and support evil things
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
@@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 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!"
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
To be fair, TCW did have a few arcs that showcased how the republic became more authoritarian over the course of the war. There's Palpatine nationalizing the banks, the senate neglecting the people to fund the military, etc. There's also Tarkin, who hints at the kind of people getting into positions of power thanks to Palpatine, and the Ashoka arc, which shows the new empire esc. police state. Honestly, there isn't as much as I would like, especially with the clones being portrayed as completely good with almost no exceptions, but it's unfair to say it's portrayed as an instant switch from Republic to Empire.
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.
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
@@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 want to thank you for your mention of the sequels not being nasty. It's genuinely so hard to find star wars fan content that doesn't mock them and as a sequel enjoyer it always takes me out of it
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 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
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
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.
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.
I am glad someone finally addressed this about the Separatists Alliance. They deserved at least a movie or a series that featuring them as the protagonists with some morals too.
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
Definitely agree, I’ve also always thought that we should’ve gotten an episode similar to clone cadets but instead with the separatist droids. Of course not the same plot but just show the day to day story of some separatist droids. Maybe they win a battle and it’s bittersweet, i don’t know
Indeed. Former enemies becoming allies is always a powerful story element. As it demonstrates maturity in the development of the characters, as well as the vastly different circumstances in the setting.
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.
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.
You get a few hazy plot lines that the Rebellion has origins with the Separatists and that some sections of the Rebellion resent being compared to them, but yeah, we don't tend to get much focus on the CIS while it existed and anything but evil or a military presence. Could be an interesting plotline
The problem is that Filoni conplelty butchered the character of Grievous and failed to understand the entire point behind, and history leading up to, the seperatist movement and the CIS. Basicly speaking, the republic were not the good guys here. They already were closer to an empire even before Episode 1. And yet Filoni somehow portraied the CIS (who are heavily underepresented and exploited) as the bad guys while the republic are the "rebels". The excuse that it is a "childfriendly" or "lighthearted" series, as some try to defend him, is also completly nullified because he has shown us that he can created deep and "brutal" moments. But sadly he has shown no deeper interest in Star Wars and it lore. Basivly he just wanted to smash his action figures together.
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
I've been writing stories about separatists for years; the possibilities are great. We could see how they worked in their prime through the eyes of Grievous, some commanders and select droid squads, perhaps a separatist civil war fighting for control of the Western and Unknown Regions as the Empire closed in on them, or have a separatist holdout evolve into a crime syndicate that opposes the Rebellion and the Empire during the time of A New Hope.
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.
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.
@@DefaultProphetWell, the difference is that the leadership did not know of Palpatine plans With the CSA, they literally declares the war was about slavery, often and with vigour But what was the secession that caused the Clone Wars, about? What grievances did Palpatine leverage? Would they have been enough to lead to war? We do not know
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!
The Separatists were the rebels the Emperor knew would rise against him, so he controlled both at the same time. So when the war was over not only did he triumph but the very people who would resist his rule most were destroyed in the war he previously created. Namely, several economic rivals. Had Palpatine merely seized power, he'd be fighting a rebel alliance comprised of everyone in the separatist army. It was a preemptive divide and conquer strategy.
My biggest problem with the Clone Wars is the fact that a vast majority of the battles we see are between Droids and Clones, both of which are an entirely artificial battle force. We never got to see battles between actual people from both sides. It always felt like mock battles that didn't really matter (which technically it was).
Indeed. It makes me miss things like the Battle of Jabiim in Legends that had not just clones versus droids but also local fighters on both sides given that the world was in Civil War. Loyalists versus Nationalists.
What about Geonosis and Umbara? Both of those campaigns had clones actively fighting against local forces of their respective planets, with Umbara not even having a single battle droid except for the ones in the cruisers in atmosphere.
Well, I believe it's canon that droids are sentient, and the clones were people; that's one of the main points of the show. Also, the fact that the soldiers were expendable proxies that no-one cared about was one of the things that made it so easy for Sidious to start and keep the clone wars going.
Count Dooku's vision after the war was the empire. He sought to make make Grievous and the rest of the Separatist "aliens" take the fall for the war crimes committed. Notice how you rarely see any other species besides Humans in the empire. The rest were enslaved or forgotten about in the outer rim. This was the future Dooku desired with Sidious.
I think he means within the Canon version of his character. Honestly, even in Legends, making Dooku a speciesist never made sense for his character considering both his background and the fact other EU sources showed Dooku holding a great deal of respect for beings regardless if they were alien or not.
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.
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.
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.
It's also a cop-out from showing how the clones were made to follow orders, as mentioned in episode 2. Before the tv show and tbe chips, the clones would literally think differently than natural humans would. Is it more humane? Less? I think it's a really interesting premise that was abandoned because it required more effort to write.
A+ Video. Not only do I agree, I think you helped me figure out why I always get annoyed seeing Separatists show up in stories set Post-Clone Wars... Because even during the Galactic Empire era it's rare that Star Wars will actually allow Separatists to evolve in a meaningful way. It really is a shame Clone Wars didn't take more care with the Separatists, especially since I feel the show did a lot of heavy lifting in fleshing out Anakin as a layered, complex character, which in turn helped us better understand his fall to the dark side.
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.
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."
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"
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
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
7:14 absolutely agree we need a grievous origin, and perhaps an animated adaptation of the Battle of Jabiim eary in the clone wars. Bringing back both those stories would excite people, and add some really cool stuff to current canon. Neither story deserves to be forgotten or ignored by current writers, especially since they don't contradict any new material
Compared to the Sith empire of Revans time, the separatists were EXTREMELY peaceful, they had the ability to completely take control of the entire outer rim, and STILL have plenty of extra forces. They only lost because Geonosis and other big factories were destroyed early in the war. But even then, if padme hadn’t discovered their secret factory of cortosis droids and gotten anakin and thrawn to destroy it, they would’ve demolished the Jedi order, who hadn’t fought against cortosis wielding enemies for almost 4000 years.
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.
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!
@@danielbob2628 Basicly Empire made an envoy with Separatist Holdout, the one that was just a farmer colony and their hold. The envoy consisted of Typical Arrogant Imperial Officer and a bunch of TK-Troopers, with the offer of "surrender and join us, also I'm an appointed governor here"(if I'm remembering it correctly), so basicly "join willingly, or we conquer you" deal. Naturally, the officer was a dick of highest sort, so he got captured for refusing to leave. Empire hears this and Rampart attaches Crosshair to a squad for the resque of that officer. *The squad has Cody.* They arrive, but got shot down by the Droids from the ground. Surviving members prepare for an assault, but an ATT is in their way. Crosshair's "shoot in the Tanks barrel when they aim *directly* at me" works, and so they continue. Losses surmounts and townfolk are scared of them, eventually leaving only Cody and Crosshair at the officer's holding place - da tower. After fighting through Commando Droids while scaling stairs to the top, Clones and Separatist leader come at a standstill, with the leader holding hostage at gunpoint (or Clones themselfs). Despite officer outright ordering to kill the leader, Cody talks her down with a peacfull resolution. To bad Crosshair is still serving Empire fervorously, shooting dead the leader and shocking/dissapointing Cody. We then see an aftermath of the battle - TK-Troopers arrive and started oqupying & exploiting the colony almost immediatly, giving Cody a realisation. When parting after returning to base, Cody has a talk with Crosshair, eventually leaving Cody dissapointed. In the final scenes, Crosshair was called by Rampart, to deliver news of Cody going MIA.
I always thought the CIS made a lot of political sense. The Republic was not doing what it used to do and so a group of a planets wanted to leave and wanted independence, as they felt like they were given more into the Republic than they were getting out. And following this, the loving Republic who wants democracy and equality for all reacts by sparking a war.
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.
Disney just kinda let JJ create a deadend that they’re backfilling into right now at the expense of stories like Bloodlines that they published while the first couple of sequel movies were getting made, but that novel did a good job of diving into the politics of the New Republic (before, once again, running into a deadend JJ Abrams decided to create for literally no reason). Claudia Gray really fleshed the factions, ideologies, and motivations of the characters for that brief window of time. Something like that would be really cool to see in the CIS.
I really wish for a star wars serie that would be called "squadrons", in wich we would follow during 4-ish episodes a squadron from a faction during a mission, then change faction.
I think the reason for this is, as you stated in the first minute, is that palpatine is controlling both sides, so learning more about the sepratists has no real purpose as they are ultimately just being manipulated and therefore need no focus in the eyes of the showrunners since it can't "lead" to anything else.
I mean the problem with that the Republic and Empire are also controlled by Palpatine, yet those factions get the necessary depth to have a great understanding of the factions as a whole. Plus Separatist characters can be important for establishing the early seeds of Rebellion after the Rise of the Empire.
@@kingorange7739 that’s because every single character important to the overarching story is connected to the republic, Anakin, obi wan, palpatine, padme, etc. The only characters who are a product of the clone wars show are the clones, so yes I agree a separatist focused show or movie would add to them but I think because they have almost no pre established characters besides Dooku and grievous they won’t
@@sar0jam I mean considering Dooku has only recently gotten fair coverage by the canon and characters like Grievous or Ventress still haven’t received much, stories covering their backstory and wider motives would go a long way. And that would add to relevance, also making original characters that stick is how they are relevant. For example turning a Separatist survivor into a member of the Rebel Alliance later on.
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.
@@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.
This is a phenomenal video and take. I could totally see Disney making a Separatist -> Rebel story arc in a TV series. Honestly baffles my mind why they haven't done that yet.
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.
We definitely need more content about the separatists and who they were beyond what figures like Dooku or Grievous would lead one to believe. I liked that one episode of the Bad Batch on Desix. We could definitely use an in-depth story of someone like Tawni Ames set during the clone wars or the lead-up to it.
I think one of the issues to me with the Republic vs the separatists is the dehumanization of "the bad guys". The separatist army consists of almost entirely droids. Even the political leaders are often depicted as aliens you could never truly see as humans so you won't sympathize with them. Honestly though, I think the separatists are fine as is. The whole Clone Wars era was quite literally a trap ensnared by the sith to play both parts to create the empire, this trying to give character to the separatists I think is kinda wasted effort.
Why would it be wasted effort? Just because something may be made more difficult does not make it impossible. Plenty of alien characters have been made relatable in Star Wars in such characters in the Rebellion is proof of that. Hell even robots across mediums are given excellent humanized qualities such as a Wal'e, Razz, and the Transformers.
I have mixed feelings about your position. Yes, the separatists are not depicted very often, but u should not count Raxus appearances, u should count Serennos, because Dooku is the "enemy", not the Separatist Senate. Other than that i would say that: 1. Clone Wars (as well as the 2003 series) is the best part of Star Wars 2. EVERYTHING Disney did was (and is) blasphemy and should be irradicated by the flames of a cleansing fire (plagueis quote here :D) 3. Star Wars is Jedi vs. Sith. Everything else is secondary. Although the "secondary" stories can be cool, like the freeing of Zero when Cad Bane took the Senate hostage)
I think it’s fair that ppl think the separatists were done dirty by the writers, but honestly I think there’s a whole lot of unnecessary contrarianism at play and it’s getting annoying. Yes the republic is corrupt, we all know that it’s deeply flawed and the show makes this clear, but I think ppl are confusing the hero’s of the republic, (which tend to be the most benevolent of that society) with representing it as a whole because we see them the most. Need I remind everyone the separatists were made by Dooku, and sidious by proxy to cause war and chaos in the galaxy in the first place? It’s safe to say the confederacy probably wouldn’t have existed without dooku and palps spear heading its creation and development. Also the republic’s military is run by the Jedi, and the clones were heavily influenced by said Jedi, is it really a stretch to think the republic’s military would be shown as mostly good? That’s because they were by a considerable margin. The droids however are run by programming, (even though they seem to have some rudimentary sentience) they are still just dumb b1s with hardly any justification for their own lives, unlike the clones who are humans with moral compass. The droids literally have no morals, they are made to fight and die at the whim of the separatist war generals who more often than not could give a flying fuck about what the average person on Raxus wants. Grevious even stated as much, “I have no interest in dooku’s politics”. Again this was the faction created by the bloody Sith, it’s a Sith proxy faction made to create a galaxy that turns in palpatines favor. Now I do think the show should have made more time with the average separatist civilian and ppls, to give perspective, but the show is not black and white, don’t ruin a good show simply because they want to show the hero’s more which happen to be fighting for a corrupt government. That’s how it usually goes in most situations, even in real life.
It really only did that with their military officials and people like King Rash. Senators and representatives like Bonteri where actually portrayed as noble.
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.
I know I’m sitting alone on this but I hate the “personality” given to the droids in TCW. I hate the stupid high-pitched voice they gave them, I hate the slap stick, I hate their illogical incompetence. They’re cold killer war robots, why do they act like goons. It shouldn’t matter it’s “made for children”, it just dumbs down the stakes and infantilizes the story. The 2-D CW show didn’t do that. It’s also yet another TCW-only decision that’s inconsistent with the movies.
@ If they actually have the same voice then I 100% couldn’t tell. TCW absolutely flanderized the droids, way too silly and idiotic. They really weren’t that goofy in the film, just a couple of moments. They weren’t used for constant slap stick.
Yeah, I remember that Episode with the Separatist Capital and Padme’s friend. The fact that they introduced those characters and then immediately killed them off royally pissed me off. It’s something that show did a lot actually from my recollection, which is one of the reasons I hate it so much. 😢
Although the high command of the separatists (Dooku and the military) were inherently bad, the other part werent bad, they only wanted to depart from the republics corruption and false democracy. Although they did show the corruption of the republic, they barely touch on the separatist's side of the argument, as Dooku and Sidious use this sentiments to wage war, similar feelings have been used in our own world (ww2). Star Wars has had very good ideas but they don't explore them, like a grevious horror show
I wish that dooku was portrayed like snape was. He could've been a double agent against palpatine and a sort of secret pact between him and obi wan would've been really cool.
While I would not go that far, I do believe they could had made his intentions even more sympathetic. Like imagine Dooku wanting to eventually betray Sidious and pave the way for the Jedi to take control of the galaxy instead of corrupt politicians.
I Love the Legends Canon version of General Grievous. His hatred for the Jedi is entirely warranted because in his experience as a leader from an independent planet the Jedi are not keepers of peace but just the Republic's attack dogs who massacred his people when they were defending themselves from being invaded by a Republic faction.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
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.
I was just gonna say, this episode exists.
Remember watching that as a kid when it aired the first time, was interesting to see it after the last 3 seasons of the CIS being treated as mindless cannon fodder or comic-book villains like in that lurmen arc where the Nemodian CIS commander wants to burn down the natives for giggles.
ngl I genuinely hated this episode. Every single "point" they tried to make was immediately irrelevant just by the material we had seen in prior episodes. I agree, they should have made more if it, but from the get go. Not just retcon seasons worth of separatist evilness. Ahsoka's naivety in the arc is infuriating considering how much of that evilness she had witnessed first hand. So I think we are in agreeance that the separatists better characters and more nuanced ideals, but we disagree in that only having one short arc of this is better than nothing. I would have preferred it being consistently one-sided rather than the hypocrisy we saw.
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?
@@void_ling 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. :/
@@komicantcommunicatesuckslol 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.
@@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
@@arcanewarrior863 go cry about the mistreatment of toasters, robots are created to serve us, they lack soul, their sapience, not "sentience", is the result of error in programming.
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
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.
I disagree, if Palpatine dropped dead, the CIS would have won. They were being kept at bay and even sabotaged by Palpatine to keep them from winning.
Sure, but a CIS victory would have been basically identical to the Russian Revolution. After victory, the actual people who wanted freedom and liberty would have been betrayed by the people just in it for their own wealth and power. It would have resulted in an empire, just not a Sith one.
@@thehigherman9918 He was holding the republic at bay as well, especially the Jedi. With Palpatine gone both would've been free to properly pursue paths to victory.
@@Joesolo13 He was sending the republic bankrupt with making more clones to fight the war. He was weakening the republic in a political/ecenomic sense so a transition to the empire could "save" it, but boosting it militarily as much as possible. Without the droid shutdown and separatist decapitation, there would not have been enough clones to stop the droid army.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
@@minuda bulwarks.
You just gotta dig further than mainstream show to find something you desire smh
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**
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 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 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 TH-cam 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 TH-cam 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.
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 😭
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.
Indeed! The problem was Filoni.
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.
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.
@@DefaultProphetI'll give you the Bad Batch, but TCW was created before the Disney buyout changed the direction of the franchise, and the final season took a while to finally get made. Hell, they were going to cancel it initially
Imagine a separatist episode where Grevious saves a planet from a natural disaster with droids handing out aid packages
That would be pretty interesting. I doubt Grievous would be the one to go do it, but still interesting none the less.
While Grievous would be too much as in real life, very few military generals or even colonels would be on the field doing such a thing. And in lore Grevious is a warrior, he'd rather be on a battlefield. As that's his purpose and role ever since his time before being a cyborg.
I can very easily see the droid army bringing aid to seperatist worlds. Or perhaps the droids performing noble last stands to ensure that enough time is bought to evacuate civilian settlements. As while we have seen droids on the offensive, from the lore clones were not that much different and in real life even the United States, seen as a bastion of freedom and hope, the Armed Forces has it's fair share of atrocities towards civilians.
Be kind of interesting to see droids as the "good guys" for once.
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.
... "what i assume to be"???? Mate, OBVIOUSLY that is intentional, they are not reminiscent of the Empire, they ARE the Empire, they turn into the Empire in Episode 3. Did you forget that?? The Venator was the predecessor Model to the Victory and that in turn to the ISD. The AT-TE to the AT-AT, the Clone Trooper to the Storm Trooper etc. Its not some subtle hint or whatever, its literally right there in your face and just causality and continuity.
@@datzfatz2368 ...you just went full retard
Really none of the villains get to be interesting in TCW. People love to talk about the Umbara arc, but even in that, Krell is very intentionally giving bad orders to get the clones killed. It stops being a question of "should we follow orders that are morally questionable?" and becomes "why on earth did our commander literally try to kill us?" Like, yes, of course the clones should lock Krell up. There is no way of looking at that situation that puts the clones in morally dubious territory.
Very true.
I don' t think that's quite fair. After all, it didn't seem like Krell was trying to sabotage them, it just seemed like he was a terrible tactician who also hated clones. They have to follow his orders, no matter what. That's how people are conditioned in the real world, and the clones were literally conditioned from birth with the value of following orders to be of the utmost importance. The only reason these clones questioning orders in the first place makes sense is because they were conditioned by Anakin to be more independent.
While I do agree that it was stupid to make Krell a traitor, the clones disobeyed direct orders without knowing that. After this, Filoni and his team had written themselves into a corner. Realistically, if Krell hadn't been a traitor they would have been court marshalled by the republic and executed. They had to make Krell a traitor in order to not have all the characters die. It does somewhat undermine the themes, but in my opinion the fact that the clones refused orders they thought were wrong without knowing Krell was conspiring with the CIS still means something, and the arc is still quite good.
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.
It's a great parallel to the American right-wing (which Lucas based them on). A lot of decent people with understandable concerns being led astray and guided to do and support evil things
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 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.
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.
@@Крэйден_х I remember that ! Plus that Padawan who chastizes Yoda for being cowardly right before he died.
How can it be blamed on Disney when TCW was almost entirely produced under Lucas before the Disney acquisition?
@@CloneCommanderCrater1102 Because Disney continued the flanderization by Filoni, that's why.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To be fair, TCW did have a few arcs that showcased how the republic became more authoritarian over the course of the war. There's Palpatine nationalizing the banks, the senate neglecting the people to fund the military, etc. There's also Tarkin, who hints at the kind of people getting into positions of power thanks to Palpatine, and the Ashoka arc, which shows the new empire esc. police state. Honestly, there isn't as much as I would like, especially with the clones being portrayed as completely good with almost no exceptions, but it's unfair to say it's portrayed as an instant switch from Republic to Empire.
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.
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.
I want to thank you for your mention of the sequels not being nasty. It's genuinely so hard to find star wars fan content that doesn't mock them and as a sequel enjoyer it always takes me out of it
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 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
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.
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.
I am glad someone finally addressed this about the Separatists Alliance. They deserved at least a movie or a series that featuring them as the protagonists with some morals too.
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
Definitely agree, I’ve also always thought that we should’ve gotten an episode similar to clone cadets but instead with the separatist droids. Of course not the same plot but just show the day to day story of some separatist droids. Maybe they win a battle and it’s bittersweet, i don’t know
"Moving from villain to hero without ever changing their methods or their cause" has got to be one of my favorite things to happen in stories.
Indeed. Former enemies becoming allies is always a powerful story element. As it demonstrates maturity in the development of the characters, as well as the vastly different circumstances in the setting.
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.
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.
You get a few hazy plot lines that the Rebellion has origins with the Separatists and that some sections of the Rebellion resent being compared to them, but yeah, we don't tend to get much focus on the CIS while it existed and anything but evil or a military presence. Could be an interesting plotline
The problem is that Filoni conplelty butchered the character of Grievous and failed to understand the entire point behind, and history leading up to, the seperatist movement and the CIS.
Basicly speaking, the republic were not the good guys here. They already were closer to an empire even before Episode 1.
And yet Filoni somehow portraied the CIS (who are heavily underepresented and exploited) as the bad guys while the republic are the "rebels".
The excuse that it is a "childfriendly" or "lighthearted" series, as some try to defend him, is also completly nullified because he has shown us that he can created deep and "brutal" moments.
But sadly he has shown no deeper interest in Star Wars and it lore. Basivly he just wanted to smash his action figures together.
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
I've been writing stories about separatists for years; the possibilities are great. We could see how they worked in their prime through the eyes of Grievous, some commanders and select droid squads, perhaps a separatist civil war fighting for control of the Western and Unknown Regions as the Empire closed in on them, or have a separatist holdout evolve into a crime syndicate that opposes the Rebellion and the Empire during the time of A New Hope.
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.
@@DefaultProphetWell, the difference is that the leadership did not know of Palpatine plans
With the CSA, they literally declares the war was about slavery, often and with vigour
But what was the secession that caused the Clone Wars, about? What grievances did Palpatine leverage? Would they have been enough to lead to war?
We do not know
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!
The Separatists were the rebels the Emperor knew would rise against him, so he controlled both at the same time. So when the war was over not only did he triumph but the very people who would resist his rule most were destroyed in the war he previously created. Namely, several economic rivals. Had Palpatine merely seized power, he'd be fighting a rebel alliance comprised of everyone in the separatist army. It was a preemptive divide and conquer strategy.
My biggest problem with the Clone Wars is the fact that a vast majority of the battles we see are between Droids and Clones, both of which are an entirely artificial battle force. We never got to see battles between actual people from both sides. It always felt like mock battles that didn't really matter (which technically it was).
Indeed. It makes me miss things like the Battle of Jabiim in Legends that had not just clones versus droids but also local fighters on both sides given that the world was in Civil War. Loyalists versus Nationalists.
What about Geonosis and Umbara? Both of those campaigns had clones actively fighting against local forces of their respective planets, with Umbara not even having a single battle droid except for the ones in the cruisers in atmosphere.
Well, I believe it's canon that droids are sentient, and the clones were people; that's one of the main points of the show. Also, the fact that the soldiers were expendable proxies that no-one cared about was one of the things that made it so easy for Sidious to start and keep the clone wars going.
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. 🤣
Count Dooku's vision after the war was the empire. He sought to make make Grievous and the rest of the Separatist "aliens" take the fall for the war crimes committed. Notice how you rarely see any other species besides Humans in the empire. The rest were enslaved or forgotten about in the outer rim. This was the future Dooku desired with Sidious.
I think he means within the Canon version of his character. Honestly, even in Legends, making Dooku a speciesist never made sense for his character considering both his background and the fact other EU sources showed Dooku holding a great deal of respect for beings regardless if they were alien or not.
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.
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.
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.
It's also a cop-out from showing how the clones were made to follow orders, as mentioned in episode 2. Before the tv show and tbe chips, the clones would literally think differently than natural humans would. Is it more humane? Less? I think it's a really interesting premise that was abandoned because it required more effort to write.
A+ Video. Not only do I agree, I think you helped me figure out why I always get annoyed seeing Separatists show up in stories set Post-Clone Wars... Because even during the Galactic Empire era it's rare that Star Wars will actually allow Separatists to evolve in a meaningful way.
It really is a shame Clone Wars didn't take more care with the Separatists, especially since I feel the show did a lot of heavy lifting in fleshing out Anakin as a layered, complex character, which in turn helped us better understand his fall to the dark side.
We need more stories about the NEUTRAL SYSTEMS.
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.
I like the episode in The Bad Batch where the squad takes a contract to rescue a separatist senator in Raxus. Shows a bit more of separatist politics
True, one of the few times the faction is given a little nuanced.
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."
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"
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
Sometimes I imagine how good Star Wars would have been if someone like Grrm got a shot at it. How deep those characters would be.
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
7:14 absolutely agree we need a grievous origin, and perhaps an animated adaptation of the Battle of Jabiim eary in the clone wars. Bringing back both those stories would excite people, and add some really cool stuff to current canon. Neither story deserves to be forgotten or ignored by current writers, especially since they don't contradict any new material
Thank you for making this video.
Compared to the Sith empire of Revans time, the separatists were EXTREMELY peaceful, they had the ability to completely take control of the entire outer rim, and STILL have plenty of extra forces. They only lost because Geonosis and other big factories were destroyed early in the war. But even then, if padme hadn’t discovered their secret factory of cortosis droids and gotten anakin and thrawn to destroy it, they would’ve demolished the Jedi order, who hadn’t fought against cortosis wielding enemies for almost 4000 years.
The Clone Wars regularly shows the flawed side of the Republic, yet almost never shows the good/justified side of the Separatists
Precisely. It makes it a larking issue
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.
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!
What happened in that episode?
@@danielbob2628 Basicly Empire made an envoy with Separatist Holdout, the one that was just a farmer colony and their hold. The envoy consisted of Typical Arrogant Imperial Officer and a bunch of TK-Troopers, with the offer of "surrender and join us, also I'm an appointed governor here"(if I'm remembering it correctly), so basicly "join willingly, or we conquer you" deal. Naturally, the officer was a dick of highest sort, so he got captured for refusing to leave.
Empire hears this and Rampart attaches Crosshair to a squad for the resque of that officer.
*The squad has Cody.*
They arrive, but got shot down by the Droids from the ground.
Surviving members prepare for an assault, but an ATT is in their way.
Crosshair's "shoot in the Tanks barrel when they aim *directly* at me" works, and so they continue.
Losses surmounts and townfolk are scared of them, eventually leaving only Cody and Crosshair at the officer's holding place - da tower.
After fighting through Commando Droids while scaling stairs to the top, Clones and Separatist leader come at a standstill, with the leader holding hostage at gunpoint (or Clones themselfs).
Despite officer outright ordering to kill the leader, Cody talks her down with a peacfull resolution.
To bad Crosshair is still serving Empire fervorously, shooting dead the leader and shocking/dissapointing Cody.
We then see an aftermath of the battle - TK-Troopers arrive and started oqupying & exploiting the colony almost immediatly, giving Cody a realisation.
When parting after returning to base, Cody has a talk with Crosshair, eventually leaving Cody dissapointed.
In the final scenes, Crosshair was called by Rampart, to deliver news of Cody going MIA.
@@Taron_HaiTar Thanks.
@@danielbob2628 No problem, just make sure to watch Star Wars shows in order when able
I always thought the CIS made a lot of political sense. The Republic was not doing what it used to do and so a group of a planets wanted to leave and wanted independence, as they felt like they were given more into the Republic than they were getting out. And following this, the loving Republic who wants democracy and equality for all reacts by sparking a war.
Indeed.
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
Disney just kinda let JJ create a deadend that they’re backfilling into right now at the expense of stories like Bloodlines that they published while the first couple of sequel movies were getting made, but that novel did a good job of diving into the politics of the New Republic (before, once again, running into a deadend JJ Abrams decided to create for literally no reason). Claudia Gray really fleshed the factions, ideologies, and motivations of the characters for that brief window of time. Something like that would be really cool to see in the CIS.
I really wish for a star wars serie that would be called "squadrons", in wich we would follow during 4-ish episodes a squadron from a faction during a mission, then change faction.
I think the reason for this is, as you stated in the first minute, is that palpatine is controlling both sides, so learning more about the sepratists has no real purpose as they are ultimately just being manipulated and therefore need no focus in the eyes of the showrunners since it can't "lead" to anything else.
I mean the problem with that the Republic and Empire are also controlled by Palpatine, yet those factions get the necessary depth to have a great understanding of the factions as a whole. Plus Separatist characters can be important for establishing the early seeds of Rebellion after the Rise of the Empire.
@@kingorange7739 that’s because every single character important to the overarching story is connected to the republic, Anakin, obi wan, palpatine, padme, etc. The only characters who are a product of the clone wars show are the clones, so yes I agree a separatist focused show or movie would add to them but I think because they have almost no pre established characters besides Dooku and grievous they won’t
@@sar0jam I mean considering Dooku has only recently gotten fair coverage by the canon and characters like Grievous or Ventress still haven’t received much, stories covering their backstory and wider motives would go a long way. And that would add to relevance, also making original characters that stick is how they are relevant. For example turning a Separatist survivor into a member of the Rebel Alliance later on.
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.
This is a phenomenal video and take. I could totally see Disney making a Separatist -> Rebel story arc in a TV series. Honestly baffles my mind why they haven't done that yet.
They did its in Andor
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.
3:02
But I'm not sure many would be interested in that era at this point anymore.
We definitely need more content about the separatists and who they were beyond what figures like Dooku or Grievous would lead one to believe. I liked that one episode of the Bad Batch on Desix. We could definitely use an in-depth story of someone like Tawni Ames set during the clone wars or the lead-up to it.
I think one of the issues to me with the Republic vs the separatists is the dehumanization of "the bad guys". The separatist army consists of almost entirely droids. Even the political leaders are often depicted as aliens you could never truly see as humans so you won't sympathize with them. Honestly though, I think the separatists are fine as is. The whole Clone Wars era was quite literally a trap ensnared by the sith to play both parts to create the empire, this trying to give character to the separatists I think is kinda wasted effort.
Why would it be wasted effort? Just because something may be made more difficult does not make it impossible. Plenty of alien characters have been made relatable in Star Wars in such characters in the Rebellion is proof of that. Hell even robots across mediums are given excellent humanized qualities such as a Wal'e, Razz, and the Transformers.
I have mixed feelings about your position. Yes, the separatists are not depicted very often, but u should not count Raxus appearances, u should count Serennos, because Dooku is the "enemy", not the Separatist Senate.
Other than that i would say that:
1. Clone Wars (as well as the 2003 series) is the best part of Star Wars
2. EVERYTHING Disney did was (and is) blasphemy and should be irradicated by the flames of a cleansing fire (plagueis quote here :D)
3. Star Wars is Jedi vs. Sith. Everything else is secondary. Although the "secondary" stories can be cool, like the freeing of Zero when Cad Bane took the Senate hostage)
I think it’s fair that ppl think the separatists were done dirty by the writers, but honestly I think there’s a whole lot of unnecessary contrarianism at play and it’s getting annoying. Yes the republic is corrupt, we all know that it’s deeply flawed and the show makes this clear, but I think ppl are confusing the hero’s of the republic, (which tend to be the most benevolent of that society) with representing it as a whole because we see them the most. Need I remind everyone the separatists were made by Dooku, and sidious by proxy to cause war and chaos in the galaxy in the first place? It’s safe to say the confederacy probably wouldn’t have existed without dooku and palps spear heading its creation and development. Also the republic’s military is run by the Jedi, and the clones were heavily influenced by said Jedi, is it really a stretch to think the republic’s military would be shown as mostly good? That’s because they were by a considerable margin. The droids however are run by programming, (even though they seem to have some rudimentary sentience) they are still just dumb b1s with hardly any justification for their own lives, unlike the clones who are humans with moral compass. The droids literally have no morals, they are made to fight and die at the whim of the separatist war generals who more often than not could give a flying fuck about what the average person on Raxus wants. Grevious even stated as much, “I have no interest in dooku’s politics”. Again this was the faction created by the bloody Sith, it’s a Sith proxy faction made to create a galaxy that turns in palpatines favor. Now I do think the show should have made more time with the average separatist civilian and ppls, to give perspective, but the show is not black and white, don’t ruin a good show simply because they want to show the hero’s more which happen to be fighting for a corrupt government. That’s how it usually goes in most situations, even in real life.
It really only did that with their military officials and people like King Rash. Senators and representatives like Bonteri where actually portrayed as noble.
True, but only one episode was really dedicated to the political side of the CIS.
Hear me out:
Star Wars the Droid Wars
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.
I know I’m sitting alone on this but I hate the “personality” given to the droids in TCW. I hate the stupid high-pitched voice they gave them, I hate the slap stick, I hate their illogical incompetence. They’re cold killer war robots, why do they act like goons. It shouldn’t matter it’s “made for children”, it just dumbs down the stakes and infantilizes the story. The 2-D CW show didn’t do that. It’s also yet another TCW-only decision that’s inconsistent with the movies.
I'd say that idea came before the 3D CW series. They have that same voice in Revenge of the Sith.
@ If they actually have the same voice then I 100% couldn’t tell. TCW absolutely flanderized the droids, way too silly and idiotic. They really weren’t that goofy in the film, just a couple of moments. They weren’t used for constant slap stick.
@@MT-iw6sl Well wouldn’t blame you since their only dialogue in the whole movie is like three brief exclamations.
Yeah, I remember that Episode with the Separatist Capital and Padme’s friend. The fact that they introduced those characters and then immediately killed them off royally pissed me off. It’s something that show did a lot actually from my recollection, which is one of the reasons I hate it so much. 😢
So...
we're forgetting that one episode where the Neimoidian fired a weapon onto a defensless village just to see if it worked?
Good to know.
If you want to get this sorta story I can recommend the fanfic "Sublight Drives". The protagonist is a CIS admiral.
6:55 poor dooku, he was just a kid
Although the high command of the separatists (Dooku and the military) were inherently bad, the other part werent bad, they only wanted to depart from the republics corruption and false democracy. Although they did show the corruption of the republic, they barely touch on the separatist's side of the argument, as Dooku and Sidious use this sentiments to wage war, similar feelings have been used in our own world (ww2). Star Wars has had very good ideas but they don't explore them, like a grevious horror show
Regardless the separatists are my favorite faction of Star Wars
I honestly wonder if a lot of separatists joined the rebel alliance during the galactic civil war
I wish that dooku was portrayed like snape was. He could've been a double agent against palpatine and a sort of secret pact between him and obi wan would've been really cool.
While I would not go that far, I do believe they could had made his intentions even more sympathetic. Like imagine Dooku wanting to eventually betray Sidious and pave the way for the Jedi to take control of the galaxy instead of corrupt politicians.
The Tarkin novel had a decent bit of its time from the perspective of some holdouts iirc.
I Love the Legends Canon version of General Grievous. His hatred for the Jedi is entirely warranted because in his experience as a leader from an independent planet the Jedi are not keepers of peace but just the Republic's attack dogs who massacred his people when they were defending themselves from being invaded by a Republic faction.
Same. He is truly a wonderful character in that continuity.