So last night I watched a SPECTACULAR episode of The Clone Wars. And I mean REALLY SPECTACULAR, like, I haven’t gotten this excited over a piece of media in months spectacular.  I’ve kind of been thinking about it all morning because it was just so darn good. It’s Season 5 Episode 16: The Lawless.

(THAT ANIMATION THOUGH. THIS BLURRY GIF DOESN’T REALLY DO IT JUSTICE BUT OH MAN, IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL)

I wasn’t surprised at all to find out that this is actually the highest rated episode of the entire Clone Wars series on IMDB. Everything about this episode: the pacing, the score, the drama, the emotional impact is just

There are SPOILERS AHEAD, so if you care about that kind of thing, and if you are considering watching the Clone Wars, (or the Phantom Menace) I would strongly advise you not to read any further, because I’m about to talk about plot stuff here.

Among critics and fans, Episode I is pretty much universally considered to be the worst Star Wars movie of all time. If I even attempted to give a brief overview of all of the reasons for this, this post would be way over the word requirement, so right now I just want to talk about a particular poorly-received concept that this film introduced: midichlorians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoVpSPXGCvc

I actually have a friend who is weirdly obsessed with Liam Neeson’s character in the Phantom Menace and is thus is a whole lot more sympathetic to this movie than the average person, and a while ago he raised me an interesting question: “Why don’t people like the idea of midichlorians?” I realized that I hadn’t actually ever taken the time to consciously think about why I think midichlorians are stupid. For me it was just one of those things that you just intuitively understand is a bad idea.

To answer his question I just muttered something about how it demystifies the force and undermines the hero’s journey “every-man” aspect of Star Wars by taking away the idea that everyone can be a Jedi. Upon further consideration, however, I realized that this is not a sufficient explanation. For one thing, the idea that only some people have the ability to use the force is not a new concept of Star Wars. When Yoda tells Luke in Return of the Jedi,

it implies that there is SOMEWHAT of a biological basis for force sensitivity, in the same way that in Harry Potter, some people are born wizards while others are born muggles. However, in Harry Potter this is not explained as determined through some simplistic microorganism that lives in people’s blood. In fact, the mention that IS made of blood is the pure-blood mud-blood distinction, which is very obviously an allegory for eugenicist white nationalist belief that certain important traits are based on fundamental biological differences between races. It is clearly not rooted in any actual science because frankly,

And I know of course it’s dumb to expect science within a science fiction series to make sense, but if the whole purpose you are introducing a scientific concept is to put some logic into something mystical, I feel like it should be maybe, I don’t know, logical? The whole concept of an entire ability set being determined simply by the presence of a microorganism is just, going back to my original point, stupid, in my opinion.

So basically the problem with midichlorians from my point of view is not necessarily that it is deterministic or that it demystifies the force, but that it does so in the weirdest and least interesting way possible. They  contribute absolutely nothing meaningful to Star Wars canon, and the fact that they are never brought up again within the series is a pretty telling reflection of that fact.

However, my opinion on this isn’t the only one that exists. There are plenty of people who find midichlorians to be a fascinating piece of worldbuilding. What do you think? Were midichlorians an interesting idea, did they ruin the force, or are they somewhere in between?

The Clone Wars is not just the name of a show, but the name of a three-year conflict fought between the Separatist and the Republic. It is a conflict that was first mentioned by Obi-Wan in A New Hope, as seen in this completely unedited footage from the very first Star Wars film. (Okay, the first part is unedited. I couldn’t find an unedited clip but honestly I think this might be even better).

While only mentioned as a throwaway line in the original trilogy, this war is heavily expanded upon in the prequels films and the TV show. I may or may not have mentioned this in my first post, but something I talk about a lot when I talk about why I like the prequels era is that for a franchise with “Wars” in the name, a lot of the conflicts that take place in the original trilogy, and especially the new movies, do not have the size, scope, or political and ethical complexity of real historical wars.

I’m laughing at myself as I type this when I say political and ethical complexity because the prequels era is infamously overrun with childish aspects which in some instances, absolutely cause these analyses to fall short. At the same time, however these interesting nuances do exist in other places across these series. A good example of this dichotomy is that on the Republic side, the primary soldiers who actually do the fighting are clones, hence the name: The Clone Wars. The mere concept of a clone army is honestly so much more ethically messed up and thought-provoking than what the evil Separatist side uses, which are comic relief battle droids.

A central Separatist ideological justification for the war is that the Republic is corrupt, a point which is actually shown to be accurate in many cases. Throughout the war, the main figurehead at the head of the Republic is this guy, Supreme Chancellor “Meme-fodder” Sheev “Definitely Not Evil” Palpatine, who shockingly ends up having been a sith lord the whole time.

There’s a lot of silliness here, sure, but The Clone Wars TV series actually does a fantastic job at portraying the politics of the war in a way that actually does feel realistic and true-to-life. The battles, the conferences, the stakes, the effects on civilians, and sheer brutality of the war are portrayed in a very unique way in the prequels era. I will definitely expand on the ethical implications of clones and the way that the Clone Wars TV series portrays the brutality of war in future posts.

If you were to ask a Prequels fan to think about some of the time period’s most powerful and formidable figures, they would instantly think of Jedi like Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka, as well as Sith-aligned individuals such as Lord Sidious, General Grievous, Darth Maul, Count Dooku, Savage Opress (Yeah there is a Star Wars villain whose name is literally “Savage Opress.” We might talk about him later), and General Grievous. However, a really fun fact that only Clone Wars fans know is that every single one of these people, with the excpetion of Sidious, has at one point been captured and/or defeated by THIS GUY:

This Slashflim article does a really good job at explaining who Hondo is and why he’s awesome, and in this post I will be talking about some of the reasons I personally think Hondo is one of the best Star Wars character of all time.  On the off-chance that you did check out that article, you saw that Hondo is voiced by Jim Cummings who is best known as the voice of Winne the Pooh and Tigger. (Quick side note on that point; A lot of prequels fans have made jokes about Ewan McGregor, who plays Obi-Wan in the prequels, being cast as adult Christopher Robin in that Disney movie that came out this August, like the one pictured below, but this tweet from Jim Cummings is also absolutely hilarious to me.)

Anyway, there are two major reasons why Hondo’s voice actor is significant. The first is that Cummings does an INCREDIBLE JOB at voice acting him. SO much of the appeal of Hondo comes from his fantastic performance. Here’s a cool fraction of a scene that shows why I can’t help but smile every time Hondo is on screen and how much of his character derives from the way Jim Cummings delivers his lines.

The other reason it’s significant- and you may have gleaned this from the video- is that Hondo Ohnaka is a straight savage. He murders and tortures people all the time (because Clone Wars is a kid’s show). In one episode I watched a few days ago he straight up ordered his men to kill children if they got in the way of his profit. As you hopefully read in the article, though, he really can’t be classified as an all-round bad guy, and that’s part of what makes Hondo so refreshing in a galaxy full of so much black and white morality.

He’s also just hilarious. Here are two clips of my favorite Hondo quotes

“Insolence?! We are pirates. We don’t even know what that means”

“THIS EFFORT! IS NO LONGER! PROFITABLE!”