@LORD IMPERATOR I agree with nearly everything you say about the outcome though I had a different rationale for why it's come about. I had just considered Filoni's work to have gone off a cliff the way a lot of successful people's just do, rather than it be lack of Lucas's influence and deliberate marketing guidance from Disney. Maybe is those things rather than my rather simpler "he's lost it". I don't know how we'd tell.
I think some people here get a little too into their Hate and judge TCW series more harshly retroactively. I found the writing mostly strong and I very much enjoyed the nuance and politics you talk about. I enjoy the PT but whilst the themes and subjects are there in the background there isn't enough space to explore how the Jedi Order really fails the Republic, how Palpatine is able to use the war to get himself ever greater power, how the Separatists feel and think. You mention 'Heroes on Both Sides'. It's a good episode not only because it brings nuance and more background to the war, but because it does so whilst seamlessly interleaving that with character development. At the start, Padme talks about politics with Ahsoka who says: "Truthfully, I don't understand any of it. I know the Separtists are evil but all people talk about is bank deregulation..." What this achieves is:
- It shows flaws and youthfulness in Ahsoka. She just has this received viewpoint of Good vs. Evil that she hasn't arrived at herself but just inherited and not questioned.
- It shows flaws in the Jedi Order that they bring people up like this. The Jedi Order is far removed from the ordinary world. They understand philosophy and idealism but are at see with the chaos of reality. Chaos that the Sith are both fully immersed in and thrive in - Palpatine in the world of banking, politics and corruption, Maul in the world of crime and terrorism.
- It ties what the episode is going to do for its wider purpose - show us another perspective - to a character sharing that change in perspective and character development. In this arc Ahsoka is forced to choose to do things Anakin and / or the Order might not fully approve of and start making her own judgement on things.
It's very well written. On the whole, TCW is in this regard. Aside from the more overt arcs like the Death Watch, the banking arc with Rush Clovis, Heroes on Both Sides, etc. it doesn't miss chances to just also weave these things into other storylines. I distinctly remember the Jedi agreeing to pay Hondo for something and Hondo laughing "so long as it isn't in Republic credits". Inflation is wiping out their value and tiny little lines like that keep adding to the wider tapestry even in an episode about hunting droids or whatever it was. IIRC, they end up paying Hondo in missiles which you can see Obi Wan isn't happy about but he does it anyway.
Obi Wan and Anakin's relationship is also something that benefits from the extra room. There's a great scene where Obi Wan talks to Anakin about his relationship with Padme. And you can see that Anakin really wants to tell Obi Wan the truth. Obi Wan clearly has
some idea of what is going on but seems to think that it's a temptation Anakin is resisting and that a mentor like speech about making the 'right' choice. After all, he faced the same choice with Satine and made the 'right' one. All Anakin needs is a little reminder of his duties because that's all Obi Wan would need, after all. And you also see Anakin's room in that scene as an aside. Immeasurably sad to see his pod racing poster on the wall and little model Naboo fighter reminding you that in some ways he was just a kid whose childhood was stolen from him.
(I also think Ahsoka's "I know" when Anakin confesses to her that he understands wanting to leave the order as meaning she knows about Padme. He does a very significant facial reaction to what she says that I think supports that.)
TCW is great in SO many ways. It really expands and builds on what Lucas created adding a lot of the detail that frankly a movie couldn't put in. It really enriches the setting and it does it very well through use of interesting characters, their experiences and through taking the viewer from episodes about clones being hunted down by evil bald women to stories about personal betrayal, civic unrest and undercover diplomacy. Padme is the one who actually comes closest to stopping Palpatine's plans by very nearly brokering a truce between the Republic and the Separatists behind his back. But ultimately, TCW is a Tragedy in the classical sense - the events are larger than the characters, they're swept along and cannot change their fate and ultimately their own flaws bring them down. That's the awful of beauty of Palpatine's plans. He's not some Thrawn-like "just as planned" villain who magically knows every detail. He's working with the tide of history and nudging things along. The Jedi discovered the droid army being built on Geonosha early due to Obi Wan and Anakin's meddling but he still makes it work not because he secretly planned for them to do so all along but because when they did so they responded by launching an attack which kicked off The Clone Wars and he was able to build on that politically and because he'd managed to conceal from the Jedi (due to their own detachment) the full weight of the political momentum behind separatism. The Jedi thought they were performing a quick strike to prevent a war. Instead, they gave Palpatine the rationale he later needed to say that they started it.
As I said, this is Tragedy in the classical sense. And you really get a sense of it in the arc where Ahsoka finds herself on the run from the very forces she helped establish and the helplessness of the Council to save her.
How we went from this to the TV show Ahsoka I don't know but is a tragedy of a less classical kind. Whether it's the merchandising of the Mouse or the lack of Lucas in the background with his - whatever flaws he may have had with dialogue - strong feel for an epic story and morality; or if it's simply success and age undoing someone, I don't know.
But I wont retroactively take away credit for something that was great for the sake of criticising something that isn't. There was a Grand Republic before there was a strife-filled tyranny. Just as there was The Clone Wars before there was Ahsoka.
I think there's still chance of better days. This isn't like Doctor Who where the blow is mortal and so much damage is done the only thing you could do was pretend years of it never happened. Star Wars is still a rich universe. Disney will fuck up (has done) and it may lie fallow for a while. But it will return.
