Yeah, it was definitely one of TCW's many, many, many flaws. The old comics felt much more vast, and even managed to tone down the "Separatists are so ebul guys" crap sometimes, putting it on slightly more equal moral footing to the Republic. I was just looking over the issues with Dass Jenner in them last night, and when he asks Bomo Greenbark why his people sided with the Separatists, and Bomo gets pissed, saying they had no representation in the Republic, and the Republic banned the sale of their one export. Jennir later concedes that he might have fought under those same circumstances.
Separatists were probably the most relatable bad guys in SW canon. The Sith are backstabbing scumbags with Force powers, Imperials were bullies and tyrants, but the Separatist just wants to be left alone. Even Dooku and Grievous had legitimate concerns about the Old Republic and the Jedi that caused them to turn against the ''good guys''. At the end of the day, the Separatists are just like the Rebel Alliance, except they're cast as the enemies of the Jedi.
One could say that Filoni and Lucas were to blame in TCW, since they made the Seps into one-note bad guys, but at least Lucas tempered his one-sided ideas down the line. He even told a kid that Stormtroopers were ''good guys fighting for an evil man'' when asked if they were bad guys. And of course, during his iron grip on all things Star Wars from 1999-2012, he allowed people with differing opinions to write stories in the SWEU. You had stories where Separatists, Imperials, Sith, even Jedi-hating Mandos, were allowed to speak their piece and make valid criticisms of the good guys.
Filoni, not so much. He continued being single-minded with his views, even when it came to post-TCW shows, to the point where anyone who has a slightly favorable opinion of the Empire is either a zealot or misguided. But he also made the mistake of making them comically useless, like he and Lucas did with the Battledroids in TCW. This then leads to the Empire not really being that interesting to fight. In games like Rogue Squadron, Jedi Knight, and the Force Unleashed, the Empire is a challenge to fight. Even when you're just fighting mooks, they can still be challenging, which evokes the same spirit that the OT did where the Empire was a legitimate threat. This made it all the more sweeter when the good guys triumphed over them; it was a triumph of David over Goliath, of the plucky rebel against the elite Imperial force, and the joy over their defeat was earned.
You can't say the same for the Empire in the Filoniverse; they're buffoons. Even the dreaded Death Troopers were reduced to costumed punks that kids beat like it's nothing. Remember that scene where' Mando and Boba killed over a dozen Stormtroopers; it's not enjoyable, it's not a triumph, it's glorified euthanasia, killing off incompetent goons just to make yourself look great. If the Stormtroopers were given their time to shine, then the likes of Ahsoka, Sabine, Ezra, and Kanan would look good in defeating them, but since they're costumed clowns, it makes the conflict stupid. When the good guys win, we expect it, and when they lose later on, we ask ''how could you lose to those costumed buffoons?'' Hera and her whole squad getting shot down by TIE Fighters isn't a testament to the latter's skill, it's a testament as to how clumsy she was that basic-bitch TIEs shot down her squadron after she blew up a TIE Defender and a light cruiser, destroying an ISD in the process.
The Imperials lose their benevolent status of protectors of the galaxy and employers of the people, and they also lose their badass factor where aside from a few characters like Vader, they're reduced into costumed clowns. Filoni made the Empire boring. At least the Empire in Lucas' Force Unleashed game was powerful despite being cartoonishly evil; we see them roll over the Wookiees, the Rodians, the Felucians, and we see in other works like TIE Fighter they actually perform legitimate government services like rewarding hard work and trying to end civil wars. But we don't see that anymore, we see through Rebels and the Bad Batch that the Empire is pointlessly cruel, but also boring and incompetent. So if they're evil and boring, why should we care if some ''empowered'' wahmen characters defeat them? They're blind losers anyways, so killing them isn't an accomplishment. You don't get a pat on the back for defeating asshole lemmings. And if your heroes lose to them, it's not because the bad guys were tough, it's because the heroes got sloppy and got waxed by dumb lemmings.
People blame it on wokeshit like muh wahmens or darkies or whatever - and trust me, blackwashing and inserting trannies into movies like they insert themselves into womens bathrooms is nauseating - but I think the core problem is, for the last ten years or so, so much media has been about SuBVeRtInG ExpeCtaTioNs. I don't know where we could pinpoint the start of this trend in popular culture. Maybe Breaking Bad, maybe Game of Thrones? But it's all about writers thinking they can "outsmart" their audience by delivering what is usually the exact fucking opposite of what we want. Sometimes we want the good guy to win, sometimes we want a fucking powerful villain. Sometimes, those old school tropes are just satisfying, and the story can reach a satisfying conclusion by using them. Every piece of media I've viewed where someone has tried to subvert something has failed.
It's not even that. It's that the modern writers want their stories to be power fantasies for their OCs, but their OCs are boring, and the enemies their OCs fight are either kneecapped by plot armor, or reduced to one-note stereotypes. So it's just not that exciting. If you had relatable/sympathetic good guys and bad guys, and both sides were badass, it would be more believable and fun. You can sell action figures of both the good guys and the bad guys, sell stories and games based on them, and both of them can be marketable; Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Kyle Katarn and Starkiller. Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn. Han Solo and Boba Fett.
But the kind of power fantasy these modern writers imbibe in is not the exciting kind of power fantasy you'd find in anime and older SW works where the main characters become really powerful and the whole thing gets your adrenaline pumping, it's the kind of power fantasy where you're forced to watch as bland heroes defeat an enemy that should've crushed them a long time ago, but the good guys win because of obvious plot armor. Oh, and they remove anything sympathetic or badass about the Empire because they don't want anyone falling in love with Space Nazis. So the Empire is just pointlessly cruel, but not that strong, not that badass, all it takes is friendship and the bad guys are beaten.
