Forgotten Star Wars Show Reveals Major Prequel Problem
If you mention a Clone Wars TV show around your average Star Wars fan, they are most likely to think about Dave Filoni’s excellent CGI show that did the impossible by making the prequels seem cool and relevant. As Yoda might say, though, there is another … in this case, the 2D Clone Wars show created by Genndy Tartakovsky, the animation legend who gave us hit shows like Samurai Jack. It might just be the best Star Wars series ever created except for one problem: the show reveals how easy it should have been for Jedi like Obi-Wan Kenobi to defeat General Grievous.
Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars
If you’ve never seen Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars show, you should know that it has more going for it than impossibly stylish designs for your favorite characters. It also features Jedi who fully unleash their Force powers and show us exactly why they are feared and respected throughout the galaxy. This is never more apparent when General Grievous invades Coruscant to kidnap Palpatine and gets his chest crushed in by Mace Windu.
From a lore perspective, this moment was supposed to explain why General Grievous, someone more machine now than man, seems to be suffering from the galaxy’s worst case of emphysema whenever he talks. However, this Clone Wars scene also (perhaps by accident) illustrates the major power differential between Windu and Grievous. It’s very clear that the only reason this Jedi Master didn’t finish the villain off is that his ship immediately took off and began unloading all of its powerful lasers on a Jedi who couldn’t jump high enough to finish the job (gravity: Mace Windu’s biggest weakness).
A Logical Conundrum
Why was Windu able to crush the villain in Clone Wars in a way that later Jedi couldn’t, say, just crush Darth Vader’s chest box? Simple: Vader had the Force as his ally and could easily ward off such an attack. Despite inexplicably being a lightsaber expert, Grievous can’t use the Force, meaning he would constantly be subject to any and all attacks using this mystical energy field.
The Revenge Of The Sith Problem
It’s a simple enough idea, but after you watch Mace kick the bad guy’s bionic butt with a Force crush in Clone Wars, you’ll start second-guessing almost every General Grievous scene in Revenge of the Sith. When he tries to do his Batman grappling hook maneuver after breaking the window of his starship, why don’t Anakin or Obi-Wan just use the Force and send him tumbling into space? For that matter, why does Obi-Wan bother having a huge lightsaber duel with Grievous at the end of the movie when he could use the Force to instantly kill him, like he did with the Battle Droids right before their duel?
You’ll Never Look At Dueling The Same
After seeing Mace so effortlessly crush Grievous in the Clone Wars, everything about the Obi-Wan and Grievous duel is likely to drive you crazy. Why did Obi-Wan have to manually tear open the villain’s chest instead of using his space magic? And why did he have to use a blaster to shoot Grievous in the heart when he could have just torn his heart out, giving us the Star Wars version of that freaky scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (a movie that just happened to start in a club named after this Jedi Master)?
The Rule Of Cool Strikes Back
Before anyone says it, the obvious answer is that George Lucas just wanted the villain to look cool, and “rule of cool” trumps logic or common sense in Star Wars every single time. It’s just disappointing to hear how powerful the Jedi were before the Purge and then discover that they can’t even handle a coughing robot guy with no Force powers whatsoever. Now that Star Wars belongs to Disney, there’s a lesson they could learn from the 2003 Clone Wars series: fans are absolutely hungry for powerful Jedi and not just ones who alternate between fretting and screwing up (looking at you, Acolyte).
