Star Wars: The Clone Wars Watch Order Is Not What You Think
If you’re a new Star Wars fan, chances are you’re considering getting into The Clone Wars. While the decision to watch the series is pretty easy, the question of how to watch it is a bit less cut and dry. Should you watch the episodes in release order, or should you binge The Clone Wars in the official timeline order? We say neither–start later in the series, and only go back if you’re really feeling it.
The Clone Wars Story Has Been… Well, Cloned
The Clone Wars as a concept can be pretty daunting. What started out as a throwaway line in A New Hope has—thanks to the prequels—become a multimedia smorgasbord of content. It’s hard enough just to differentiate between all the different IPs with Clone Wars in the title. Are we talking about the 2008 movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the 2D animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003), the video game Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (2011), or the other video game Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2002)?
Release Order Often Doesn’t Work
Obviously, if you read the first paragraph, you know we’re discussing the seven-season-long 2008-2020 Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series. The series is beloved by fans young and old for not only legitimizing the prequel era but also introducing characters like Ahsoka Tano and Asajj Ventress to the fandom. Unfortunately, watching The Clone Wars in release order can be, well, a bit of a turn-off.
Don’t get us wrong, there are certainly worthy episodes in Season 1, but there’s also junk, like Jar Jar. Apologies for the kids that grew up with monsieur Binks but us old cranks still find him fairly grating. One Clone Wars watch order could be just to skip all the Jar Jar-centric episodes.
Season 7 Is Mandatory
There is an official chronological order to watch the episodes, but that’s just release order with extra steps. The question of what order to watch the Clone Wars in really comes down to why you’re watching it. If you’re watching it for lore reasons, then you can easily get away with skipping several episodes every season until you get to Season 7. That entire season is a must-watch.
Seasons 3 And 4 Are Wonderful
If you just love cool Star Wars stories and don’t care about being a completionist, you can pretty much just start with Season 3 or 4. Then, if you want to, you can go back and watch the first couple of seasons. The proper Clone Wars watch order can really be whatever you want it to be.
Following Specific Characters
If you want to follow a specific character, you can do that too. Let’s say you saw Solo: A Star Wars Story, and at the end, you were gobsmacked to find out that Darth Maul was alive. In that scenario, you’d want to start with The Clone Wars Season 3, Episode 14 -“Witches of the Mist” where it’s revealed that Maul survived being cut in half, before jumping to Season 4, Episode 21- “Brothers” where Maul is revealed to have turned himself into a robot-trash-spider.
The rest of The Clone Wars Darth Maul watch order would immediately continue with Season 4, Episode 22 before jumping to S5E1, then to S5E14-16, and ending with Season 7, Episode 8 – “Together Again.” Closing out Maul’s arc requires moving on to Rebels but that’s a whole other can of worms.
There’s No Wrong Way
Basically, if you’re nervous about starting The Clone Wars because you’re not sure what order to watch it in, don’t be. Ultimately, each fan has their own preferences but there’s no wrong way to watch The Clone Wars. Unless you somehow ended up watching a playthrough of the 1995 Sega Genesis game X-Men 2: Clone Wars.
If that’s the case, buddy, you’re in the wrong fandom.
