The Clone Wars ends having made the Star Wars prequels more watchable

The Week

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which just wrapped with its series finale on Disney+, proved itself over seven seasons to be an essential piece of the Star Wars canon — and the film saga is ultimately better for it," says Brendan Morrow, adding: "The Clone Wars' contribution to the franchise was... immense, and not just because it helped foster a love of Star Wars in a younger generation and provided the series with tons of new lore. Its most important function, instead, was to dramatically strengthen the prequel films and help right some of their wrongs. By far the greatest issue with Lucas' prequels, and indeed the whole Star Wars film saga, is the character arc of Anakin Skywalker, whose transformation into Darth Vader was rushed and unsatisfying. We're meant to see Anakin as an initially heroic figure who tragically falls to the dark side, both because of his fear of losing his wife, Padmé, and because Chancellor Palpatine stokes his growing distrust of the Jedi Council. But that first element doesn't fully land because Anakin is off-putting from the start, and the second doesn't exactly work either because the reasons why Anakin might legitimately resent the Jedi aren't well explored in the movies. Throughout its run, The Clone Wars retroactively addressed both of these issues."

ALSO:

• Dave Filoni discusses ending The Clone Wars and directing The Mandalorian
• The Clone Wars got an ending it always deserved, a dignified close to an era of Star Wars that wasn’t always so dignified
• What the final scene of Star Wars: The Clone Wars meant for Ahsoka and Anakin
• Ahsoka Tano embraced the greyness that has been been increasingly important to the Star Wars universe
• The inevitable end is what made Star Wars: Clone Wars so legendary