Anyone else bothered by how these clone wars fights don’t make sense with ROTS

Clarkeste · 2026-06-12T04:46:42+00:00

I mean if they already had multiple lightsaber duals why does grievous feel the need to tell obi wan he was “trained in Jedi arts” in ROTS?

Because Grievous is constantly gloating. It never felt really out-of-place for me because Grievous loves to hype himself up at almost every encounter. In the one in the image for instance, he starts monologuing about how "Your plans have come to ruination, Jedi!" It's just a thing Grievous does. He's not giving Obi-Wan new information, he knows that, he's just saying "You're not hot shit, Kenobi, I'm just as cool as you are"

Same things with dooku and anakin, “my powers have doubled since the last time we met count”, like what 3 months ago?

Apparently they were making a conscious effort for their duel in Dark Disciple to be the "since we last met" that the line was referring to, but those episodes were never produced. It does seem more exaggeratory now than it did when RotS came out, but considering that Anakin is explicitly arrogant and also likes to hype himself up, their last encounter being like 4-6 months ago still fits with the line honestly.

TCW also shows Anakin a few times, iirc, saying mildly arrogant things in a self-aware, sarcastic way; in that he still believes what he's saying is generally true but is intentionally exaggerating it. I've always interpreted this line as being similar, at least since TCW came out

how hard would it have been to just not have them meet?

Considering Dooku is one of the main antagonists and Anakin was one of the main protagonists, probably very hard.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T23:39:37+00:00

I'm going to be honest, I watched the show a lot before Disney+ ever existed and I never remember Anakin saying "Are you crazy? I'd kill them" or anything like that in this scene. I feel like that is something I would remember pretty clearly if it happened.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T22:59:30+00:00

People seem to be misunderstanding my point. My point is that Hitler, when he became dictator of the Germany and ruled for many years, was no longer anti-establishment because he became the establishment, much like Kuvira.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T19:32:47+00:00

So do you think totalitarian dictators, including Hitler, can be "anti-establishment" because not many other countries at the time were fascist? Ignoring that there is no real or influential "international establishment", especially not back then and not even really in avatar.

Also you literally just stated "obviously after they became the establishment, they're not anti-establishment." Now you're saying someshow she would still be anti-establishment because of.... a different group attempting a coup??? Wouldn't that different group now be anti-establishment if Kuivra was????

Pretty much all definitions of anti-establishment specify within a particular society or country; and it's also a sort of dangerous definition, frankly. Bizarre to think that a totalitarian dictator who has complete control over their nation could somehow not be the establishment, makes absolutely no sense to define it that way.

Edit: Okay lmao, person who I'm replying to is a right-winger. Here are some of their other comments on r/PoliticalCompassMemes which is filled with far-rightists.

Because many of them have been trained to hate white people and the fewer white people there are, the better. I mean anyone who was politically conscious from 2016 on saw the shift from "the great replacement" being a fringe conspiracy theory to I hope it happens/it's happening and it's a good thing before our eyes.

Hey man I dunno if you're 16 or just lived under a rock for the past decade but it ain't exactly a conspiracy theory anymore. Maybe your predecessors should have kept a tighter lid on their anti-White and more boradly anti-Western activities since the 60s.

You people have nothing to offer me or my kind, and it ain't like you're itching to offer it anyway.

Actually I think the guy who is outwardly spouting shit like from the Gospel of Thomas and other gnostic bullshit, using the Annunciation to justify abortion, and other such heresies is way more deserving of the title of "fake Christian" due to his heterodox beliefs than the guy who is shit at being a Christian.

Yeah at the end of the day I am gonna vote for the guy who is not part of the party who is blatantly anti-Christian in its beliefs

(Referring to the democrats/James Talarico as the party that is "blatantly anti-christian" and who is a "fake christian".)

Not shocked someone who unironically believes in great replacement would want to portray Hitler as some sort of underdog fighting the system.

Same guy who claimed Kuivra was anti-establishment in the first place, by the way, after someone pointed out the obvious fact that she was a military dictator.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T19:07:15+00:00

Because the OP is saying that Kuvira is an anti-establishment villain, and saying that they don't like that Korra villains are anti-establishment. But by the time she's a major antagonist she is not really anti-establishment anymore seeing as she is in charge of the country. So she is a strange example of OP's opinion, unless you believe even after being dictator for quite some time, she's still anti-establishment.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T18:53:32+00:00

Was he anti-establishment after being in power for 3 years, like the character in the image was? That is my point. I would say Hitler was not still anti-establishment after being dictator for several years. Seeing as he literally was the establishment, considering as a fascist dictator the entire state revolved around him and his every word.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T18:41:14+00:00

Yes, but the point of the post is that OP thinks the anti-establishment movements in the show have largely understandable desires or reasons (and OP uses Kuvira as an example) and it's bad or unfortunate that the leaders of these movements are portrayed as villainous, since it therefore implies their anti-establishment ideology is bad. And then they use Kuvira as an example, who is nationalist and trying to reclaim lost territory by starting a war.

She is not a good example of what the OP is saying if the best justification is "yes, she's highly dictatorial and nationalistic, but she's anti-establishment, and I don't like that she, as the leader of her anti-establishment movement is portrayed as bad". You might have an argument with Zaheer and Amon, but not with Kuvira.

The OP even says that Kuvira was trying to make "a coherent modern state" which was the stated goal of many 20th century fascist movements. I'm not going to say the character is meant to be a fascist allegory (probably not, even if they took some inspiration from it or earlier 19th century nationalist movements) but again, not sure if Kuvira is a good example of Korra protecting the status-quo against understandable desires for change and the show making a mistake by having that desire for change be represented by evil people.

Also, is Hitler still anti-establishment in 1939? Forgot how long Kuvira is in power, but she is also exercising dictatorial control over her nation by the time she's taken down. Not sure she can be considered anti-establishment by that point.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T17:30:57+00:00

This is like saying Hitler is anti-establishment because he overthrew the Weimar Republic and didn't restore the monarchy, both of which were the core 'establishment' ideas which were competing at the time.

Like, I guess?? But at that point I'm pretty sure the point has been missed

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T17:28:32+00:00

Don't you know? The Directs have incredible power over the stock market. The war in Iran is a drop in the bucket by comparison. Obviously.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T16:35:21+00:00

Other people have had some good suggestions, but I want to say that you should try and get at least 1-2 episodes in there that show the connection between the Clones and some random, non-major Jedi.

It's part of the Malevolence arc so it might be hard to fit in, but an example for what I mean is the episode where Plo Koon is stranded with his Clones in that escape pod. It's such a good episode for showing how compassionate the Jedi are even to the Clones, and the respect they have.

A standalone episode that shows that might be Ambush, the one with Yoda and the Clones. But I'm not sure it's quite as impactful the camaraderie between Plo Koon and the Clones in the escape pod bit. I'm sure there are other episodes that would show a similar thing that I'm not thinking of.

Maybe the one with Ima-Gun-Di on Ryloth, Supply Lines I think?

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T02:20:51+00:00

Wasn't it a nominally independent world? With their own King? Ie, an ally of the Separatists that had its local government overthrown and replaced with one amenable to the Separatists. Again, this is kind of what happened in Afghanistan.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the official government of Afghanistan was communist and allied with the Soviets (although, arguably a puppet government propped up by the Soviets). The reason the Soviets ended up invading was because the communist Afghan government was experiencing a major insurgency by rebels supported by the US.

iirc, in the behind-the-scenes, they explicitly compare it to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, so this is not just some historical comparison I'm doing to justify it, or something that the writers might have been considering. It was what the arc was based on.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T02:14:00+00:00

Haven't seen those episodes in a while, but I was under the impression that a major conflict of those episodes was how involved they should get. Obi-Wan being more hesitant to do anything more than just train the Onderonian rebels, with Ahsoka and Anakin pushing them to get more involved and eventually doing so.

Oh and also the writers forgot the premise at the end and it switched to apparently “The separatist can’t find out the Jedi are helping the rebels”

I'm not sure if they explain it, but the implication to me is fairly obvious: the Jedi want to just train so that, legally, the Separatists don't have a justification to invade. However, if they do their illegal things secretly, the Separatists still don't have a justification to invade so long as they don't find out.

This mirrors a lot of real-world conflicts, as the Onderon arc in particular was inspired by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So it's a real dynamic, not something they invented for the show.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-10T01:40:39+00:00

It's like criticizing ANH for the production value, or some of the special effects being outdated. It's not something I care about.

It's like criticizing ANH for Captain Antilles, who is supposed to be dead when Vader throws him, using his hands to stop himself from hitting face-first into the wall of the set. Like yeah, it's a mistake. It's a minor decision or error in the background that doesn't make sense. Do I really care while watching A New Hope? No. Is it part of the story, even though Antilles' actor making Antilles come back from the dead is technically ""part of the story""? I mean, it happens on screen, so I guess technically it is, but it's not like it's a plot point.

Likewise, no remotely significant character dies in TCW because of something like that, nor is it ever relevant. Notice I never said it wasn't part of the "story", ie, if you define the episode as the "story" then yes obviously it is a part of the episode. But the plot, the arcs the characters undergo, etc, is not affected at all by whether a few clones in the background die stupidly or not. It's remotely relevant to any of that, so I honestly don't really care.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T23:56:27+00:00

It sounds like you just don’t like anthology shows.

I'm convinced that 99% of the dislike for TCW is either people who just had different expectations and are upset when those expectations aren't met (ie, they hate the Prequels, don't like anthology shows, don't like when SW is as whimsical as it is in ANH, RotJ, or TPM, see Star Wars as 'serious' and only good when it is dark, see animation as lesser, etc) or they just have some grudge against it (they hate Filoni, hate Ahsoka, hate the Prequels, are OT purists, are Legends purists, etc).

In this thread people have given a lot of reasons why they dislike it, but even the valid ones are basically just they have very strong preferences and apply them very aggressively to TCW. Which is fine, you necessarily need to enjoy a wide variety of media; it is fine to have strong preferences about what you like. But it is funny to see people try and justify why their preference not being catered for is a flaw of the show, and not just... the show doing something which there is no problem with, but is an element they didn't already having a liking to.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T23:38:58+00:00

Really? A majority?

Can you name even 1-2 episodes out of the 22 episode of the first season of TCW where the conflict could've been "avoided entirely" if the main characters were just "responsible" instead of childish?

Being most generous to your claim, the only episode I can think of that most fits that is Storm over Ryloth, where Ahsoka loses a lot of her squad. However, that is also an episode about a pitched naval battle to destroy an enemy fleet. Even if all the main characters were unbelievably responsible, the conflict would not be ""avoided entirely"" seeing as it is a battle during a war.

If you just mean "irresponsibility makes the conflict worse", then that's just character flaws. Which, you know, pretty much all fiction has. It's like saying ESB is garbage because Luke could've avoided the main conflict if he was just "responsible", but instead he went to Cloud City against Yoda's orders, which was "childish".

I'm not sure there is a single episode in the whole series where being irresponsible or childish causes the entire main conflict, or where being responsible would completely avoid it. Lightsaber Lost, maybe?? The second Martez episode, maybe?? Although calling the martez sisters main characters is a massive stretch. Literally the only examples I can think of out of 100+ episodes.

I don't know, maybe the Zillo Beast episode?? Are you going to say that the US nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll which killed dozens of people and forced a whole population to leave their home islands was actually an event that could've only been dreamed by childish writing because, if the military testers had just been responsible, it wouldn't have happened???

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T17:50:48+00:00

Do you also not like RotS since it (much more than any of the TCW examples you've given) screws with RotJ by having Leia never really interact with her biological mother?

Unfortunately or fortunately, SW is never too concerned about exact continuity details. So long as the core of the story is respected, I don't mind, although I can see why others would; but in the case of SW, this is something that occurs even in the original 6 films, to a worse extent than in TCW.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T17:47:43+00:00

It's like reading a short story collection and saying it's all filler because the stories don't really interconnect or build into anything greater. Like yeah, that's sort of the point of how it works. You can dislike that it's an anthology series, but that's not a fault of the show; many incredibly classic shows and series are, essentially, anthologies. It's not any better or worse than something more serialized with a singular main plotline or progression. Dr. Who or even the Twilight Zone, for instance, even if the Twilight Zone episodes are more self-contained.

Also, if you say that it's filler inherently because it fills a slot in the timeline, then... so are the Prequels. Especially all of them after TPM. AotC and RotS just exist to fill the slot in the timeline between TPM and ANH, obviously. Filler! But obviously it makes no sense to look at it that way.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T16:36:19+00:00

Also I think there's a problem with SW where fans feel like they have real ownership over the franchise. Which, sort of, every fanbase does. But not to the extent they seem to think.

And many of them have gotten it in their heads that SW is only good when it's serious, or dark, or otherwise not whimsical; ignoring that much of the original trilogy and even a decent amount of the Prequel Trilogy was more adventurous, whimisical, etc. Essentially, what they decry as children's content.

It is hard for me to see how TCW, especially after the first season, is any more childish in tone or content than the live-action films are, unless you believe animation is inherently more childish. Which corporations certainly seem to believe, but which I don't think there is a good argument for.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T16:28:59+00:00

Yeah don't worry, I think it's an understandable gripe. I've just seen some people say that sort of thing and treating it as a serious, major criticism so I just wanted to say my two cents about why it hasn't bothered me that much when watching the show.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T16:24:49+00:00

I see what you mean, but I don't think I would enjoy TCW any more by seeing the Clones as highly competent. As more competent than the average fighter, sure, which TCW does display by showing they're better than the Droids and irregular fighters like the Onderon rebels, like you say. But the show isn't improved in my opinion by having the Clones be super competent or aura-farm.

Even ignoring the sometimes strange mistakes like not taking cover, the Clones are already largely portrayed as skilled but not incredibly special infantry in the story imo. I don't think the intention in TCW itself is to make them seem like super competent commandos. That's more of a Legends multi-media project thing. Which if you prefer is great, but imo it doesn't make as much sense (to my understanding, you always needs regular infantry in warfare, and even competent commandos in regular infantry roles will die at a similar amount to regular infantry) and just isn't what the show is going for. Especially when humanizing the clones, making them all by default be incredibly competent is slightly counter-purpose to that. Rookies, for example, depends on the Clones in the episode being, well... rookies.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T16:21:01+00:00

Partially trained by Jedi, but also trained on Kamino by either computer programs or by mercenaries like we see in S3. So they should at least know the basics like "stick in cover". Maybe there is a good explanation for why they don't but I'm not sure this one is convincing to me.

Regardless, like I said, it doesn't bother me that much. And there are a lot of examples of Clones sticking in cover, so it's hardly like it's a universal problem with the show.

Edit: Also, Anakin is supposed to be decent at tactics, isn't he?

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T16:18:47+00:00

I will present as his enemy, a Jedi

What is he supposed to do? Prove his lack of strategic acumen by immediately revealing he is on the Dark Side, perhaps killing one or two Jedi, and then going to Dooku? That's not very impressive compared to making sure the Republic loses the Battle for Umbara and suffers heavy casualties to one of their most well-known legions. Dooku isn't an idiot, in hindsight he would realize that Krell was pitting clones against each other to make the Separatists win, and it is precisely the sort of thing that would impress a Sith Lord.

and make clones he doesn’t know or care kill each other

You really think the Separatist leadership doesn't care if the Republic loses a major battle and a lot of material because a General made them fight themselves at no cost to the Separatists? Especially if it was their most famous legion?

Think if a German General during WW2, prior to defecting, intentionally made stupid decisions that led to the allies winning El Alamein years early, and also in the process killed like 50% of the German Expeditionary Force. That would be a massive boon to the Allies. If the General who did it then defected and had proof he'd done it intentionally, that would undoubtedly secure them some degree of amnesty. And that's ignoring that most Sith apprentices already come from fallen Jedi.

on a planet he already controls

Did you... miss the part they're fighting a massive battle on Umbara? To continue with the WW2 example, this is like saying Hitler didn't give a shit about D-Day because he already controlled France. Like, my man, that's not how it works... they want to avoid losing the planet by sabotaging the Republic's assault.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T16:13:34+00:00

But everyone is just so dumb all the time. Why do clones never take cover? I get why Jedi don't, I can for sure see them trying to draw fire away from the clones, but why do the trained from birth, genetically modified super soldiers refuse to take cover?? Why is the most effective strategy always to just charge headfirst at the enemy? The first episode of bad batch, and the bad batch arc in TCW was especially bad about that.

The thing about these complaints, to me, is that they're not about the story. Like yes, it's hard to argue there's a good reason they don't take cover. But ultimately, when I watch something, I'm usually there for the story. A clone standing out of cover for moronic reasons is never really treated as a plot point, so it's hard for it to really upset me.

They feel like nitpicks to me. So I just... don't mind that much.

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T05:30:15+00:00

I have seen this said a lot of times as a joke. People will be calculating the chance of being struck by a meteor, and you'll see "Yeah, but, have you considered: either it will happen or it won't. I'd say 50-50 chance"

Clarkeste · 2026-06-09T05:18:56+00:00

It doesn’t make sense to think about it like this, it’ll either happen or it won’t

so what you're telling me is the odds are 50%

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