Star Wars: The Clone Wars

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Fandom
Name: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Abbreviation(s): SWTCW
TCW
Creator: Lucasfilm Animation
Date(s): (Clone Wars 2003) November 7, 2003 – March 26, 2005
(Clone Wars 2008) October 3, 2008 – March 7, 2014
February 21, 2020 - May 4, 2020
Medium: Animated Series
Country of Origin: United States
External Links: Star Wars: The Clone Wars at Wikipedia
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an animated television micro-series (2003), and a 3D CGI animated film and television series (2008). It is made up of 133 episodes, spanning over 7 different seasons.

Context Within in Film Canon

Star Wars: The Clone Wars covers the time period between Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Ten years after the events of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, thousands of systems are planning to secede from the Republic, citing the corrupt government, endless bureaucracy, and financial hardship. With tensions rising, the Republic Senate once again raises the issue of creating a Republic army. Padmé Amidala, now a Senator of Naboo, returns to Coruscant to vote on the issue. Upon her arrival, she is immediately attacked and survives an assassination attempt. The Jedi are asked to protect her and investigate the matter.

While investigating the assassination attempt, Obi-Wan Kenobi pursues the assassin to Kamino. There, he discovers an army of clones, presumably produced for the Jedi. Obi-Wan reports this discovery to the Jedi Order. He follows the assassin to Geonosis, where he is captured by the Separatist leader, Count Dooku. His Padawan Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala attempt to mount a rescue, and are also detained. The Order mounts an effort to rescue all three of them from a grisly death in the Geonosians' gladiator arena, arriving with the recently-discovered clone army as reinforcements, thus sparking the first conflict in a 3-year war.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith shows the final days of this conflict. The war ends with the fall of the Republic and genocide of the Jedi under Order 66.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars bridges the gap in the narrative. Both television series work to develop the relationship between Jedi and the clones, showing the loyalty and camaraderie between them. The 2008 series in particular shows the Jedi in the context of the people they are trying to protect. The 2008 series also expands on Anakin Skywalker's relationship with Padmé Amidala, and provides a narrative for the change in their dynamic from Episode II to Episode III. Padmé Amidala is also given a significant role in the political storylines, along with Mon Mothma and Bail Organa. This was likely inspired in part by the entire political subplot that was cut from Padmé's role in Episode III.

Differences Between Clone Wars 2003 and 2008

The most obvious difference of the two series is the animation style: Clone Wars (2003) was made with traditional 2D animation and The Clone Wars (2008) was a computer-animated 3D series. Theirs lengths are also notably different, with The Clone Wars having 7 seasons of full-length episodes, while Clone Wars only has 3 seasons of 25 episodes, with some having only 3 minutes.

Both series were well received, though there are some discussions about what series is superior, with arguments about art style, characterization of the cast, the presence of the character Ahsoka Tano on the latter series, how well each series leads into Revenge of the Sith, among others. There were also fights about the Canonicity of the series, and if the two complemented each other, though this died out after Disney confirmed the 2003 series as non-canonical.

Fandom

Since The Clone Wars are a part of the Star Wars franchise and arrived at a time when the franchise was already alive and booming with fans, the fandom was quite big since the beginning. During the series' hiatus from 2014-2020, the fandom was in a period of drought, but fan works were made nonetheless, most likely because of the release of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy which was released at the time, bringing a whole number of new fans to the franchise and the lesser-known projects.

It is also credited of helping some people that did not like the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy to enjoy the characters and storylines more, with some considering it better than the Prequels. This isn't universal though, and some people dislike how the series presented or changed some things, like Anakin Skywalker's characterization, the Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker interactions, among other things.

Shipping

This fandom has quite a lot of gen works. Gen works focused on the Master/Padawan relationships of Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano (canon friendship and master-apprentice relationship) are quite popular.

The fandom also has a large number of rarepair works, most of which include the main characters such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala, and others. Shipping among the clones (often also called cloneshipping or clonecest) is also incredibly popular and those are some of the most popular in the fandom. Clone ships are also the source of a lot of conflict in the fandom.

Notable Fanworks

Commonly Used Tropes

The most famous tropes in The Clone Wars fandom are Fix-It and Canon Divergence as a lot of the fans want to change the course of the canon. Most agree that the show and its plotlines are well developed, but many want to see things done differently or want to include lesser-known characters in their works.

Fanfiction

Fanvids

Zines

Archives and Fannish Links

References

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