One way or another, Star Wars is a franchise constantly in conversation with itself. Whenever it’s not interrogating its originally held beliefs or systems, it’s providing a window into how those mechanics came to be. Sometimes it’s good, a lot of times it can be weird, but it all adds up to something compelling despite the often botched execution.
Look no further than Revenge of the Sith. The final chapter of the prequel trilogy recently came back to theaters ahead of its 20th anniversary, and picks up years into the Clone Wars which first begun at the end of its direct predecessor, Attack of the Clones. But real ones know there’s a bit more to it than that: Revenge was preceded and followed by two different versions of Cartoon Network’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars, an animated series that covered the gap between the two films. The original Clone Wars was made by Genndy Tartakovsky—a man heavily involved with Powerpuff Girls and creator of Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack, all on the same network—and initially existed as a series of five-minute shorts that could play in between shows, with the last season having a more substantial 12-15 minute episode runtime.
Like Samurai Jack (or his more recent adult animated series Primal), Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars is a genre exercise featuring ultra-competent heroes and villains doing what they do best, often without dialogue and with gorgeous imagery. The prequels were dinged for making the Jedi into overly choreographed martial artists, and what was interesting about this version of Clone Wars was how much it leaned into that idea. Seeing 2D versions of the cast jump around and clash swords made for some thrilling fights, and it’s easy to understand how some characters like General Grievious got the reputation they did back then. (It also makes you wish he got his due in the movie proper as he did where he first originated.)
Five years later, the CG Clone Wars series came rolling in with 22-minute episodes, and George Lucas’ direct involvement alongside then-supervising director and current franchise steward Dave Filoni. The 2008 Clone Wars had a lot more run time to work with leading up to Revenge of the Sith, so it spent its time exploring different corners of the Star Wars universe and playing around with what its cast could know or be leading up to their grim fates.
With 100 episodes already greenlit, the show could pit the clones up against an abusive Jedi who just wanted them all dead in one arc, and have Obi-Wan rekindle his situationship with Satine in the next. The new shades given to him and Anakin and other pre-established characters, plus the evolution of Anakin’s newly introduced Padawan Ahsoka Tano, made for some great TV back then. At the time, it was the only Star Wars we were consistently getting, so it’s only natural it continues to be held in such high esteem that it got to end its story three times.
The shadow of Revenge of the Sith looms over both Clone Wars shows, but the 2008 series actually got to be in the thick of it. While much of what goes down in its final season establishes or sets up future animated adventures for its characters—it introduces the Bad Batch, who headlined the next CG series, and explained how Ahsoka and Darth Maul got to where we first see them in the already ended Star Wars Rebels—the moments where it exists concurrently with Revenge deliver on the series’ original promise. Unlike the film’s montage of Jedi getting gunned down by their Clones, it really does feel like a tragedy when Palpatine’s directive hits Rex and Ahsoka’s ears.
A lot of what Star Wars is has been built off the ground work laid by Revenge and its two spinoffs. Since the true, proper end of the second Clone Wars, the franchise has tried for a similar interconnected importance across the original and sequel trilogies via projects like Andor and Filoni’s own Mandalorian saga. Whether those succeed is in the eye of the beholder: Andor likely enrichens Rogue One for many, or at the very least, makes you wish that film got the proper time to cook. Meanwhile, the time spent explaining elements of the sequel trilogy isn’t really Filoni’s primary objective with his shows, which can make the moments where they are interested in that feel out of place.
For better or worse, there is no current Star Wars without Revenge of the Sith, and that itself doesn’t exist without either iteration of The Clone Wars. On its own merits, it’s the best Star Wars prequel movie—and take that as you will—and made better by the two animated series that exist to beef up its weaker elements and deliver some fun military sci-fi action. But what’s made the film and its particular time period feel so poignant is that Tartakovsky, Lucas, and Filoni knew it had to be an end for its key players. That inevitability is gone from Star Wars now, but at least we got a taste of it while we could.
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