#i maintain that tcw is best approached as a philosophical essay

[angualupin]

I don't want to put all of my tags from the previous post into a reply to that post because I almost 100% agree with OP and don't want to derail what is a truly excellent post. But. I do want to derail here because it's my blog and I can derail if I want to

So: I really fundamentally disagree that The Clone Wars is an example of wasted time. I think that interpreting TCW as such shows a misunderstanding of the type of storytelling TCW was engaged in.

Hollywood, especially in the post-Save The Cat era, has trained us to expect very tightly written plots with standard story beats. Formulas, in essence. (For those of you who don't know what Save the Cat is, it's a book published in [checks wikipedia] jesus fucking christ 2005 that lays out, beat by beat, the formula for a successful movie.) Almost everything Hollywood produces nowadays follows those formulas. This can produce something clever (Zootopia) or something completely vapid (almost every MCU movie). A huge component of the post-StC formula is an extension of Chekov's Gun far beyond what Chekov meant: in a modern movie, it's likely that everything that is mentioned at any point in the movie will be brought up again at the end. There are no wasted lines in a post-StC movie, let alone wasted scenes.

But the StC formulas are not the only way to tell a story, and IMO, the slavish adherence to the StC formula that Hollywood has embraced has been only to the detriment of storytelling. StC is primarily plot driven; character development and themes are relevant to the story only insofar as the plot must be boiled down to The Hero's Journey (NOT what Campbell would have agreed with, for the record) and therefore the character development of the Hero is intertwined with the plot. The post-StC method of storytelling leaves little room for storytelling that is primarily character-driven and/or primarily thematic, and Hollywood's profit-driven devotion to StC formulas means that we have gotten to the point that we consider character-driven and/or thematic storytelling to be bad storytelling.

Thus, a complaint that TCW is filled with wasted time is a fundamental misunderstanding of what TCW is trying to do. It is not a story that is primarily plot-driven; if you go into it expecting StC-type story beats you will leave (probably long before the seventh season) with a sense of bafflement and possibly anger. In essence, the plot to TCW can be summed us as: 'Get from Attack of the Clones to Revenge of the Sith'. There is a plot in there, because honestly the prequels were light on such things and there's a big black box between AotC and RotS that needs to be filled with, like, things happening that make sense (never an accusation that can be leveled at the prequels). But the plot of TCW is not the POINT of TCW. We all know how the story ends. We've all seen RotS. The point of TCW is not how we get there. The point of TCW is what happens along the way.

It is, therefore, better to think about TCW not as 'plot' but as 'story'. The plot is 'Palpatine uses an endless war to orchestrate the downfall of the Republic'; the story is 'how do you turn Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader'. Those are very different! Very very different! Because the point of the story is primarily 'how do you take a lost, frightened, very powerful child and turn him into a Sith', the way you tell the story is not so much plot point as themes. Those themes allow you to explore other, related stories as well (how do you turn the Republic into the Empire? what does it mean to fight a war with disposable soldiers? what were the flaws of the late Republic Jedi Order that led to them sowing the seeds of their own destruction? what does moral responsibility mean in a universe where people are randomly gifted immense personal power and limited institutional power? what effect does endless war have on a society that is largely insulated from the downsides of that war? what are the ethics of sending children into battle? what if you tell yourself they're not children? what are the effects, both practical and moral, of making compromise after compromise after compromise for the sake of expediency, until you've forgotten the moral stance you were taking at the start of it all?) because ultimately the story IS the themes. It's not a plot. It's not trying to be a plot. We went in knowing what the plot is; we don't need it explained. What we need explained is why and why is fundamentally a thematic question.

This is, incidentally, why TCW is almost unwatchable if you try to watch it in chronological order rather than in the order in which it was released. Yes, there are lists out there that put all the episodes in chronological order. I've actually watched it all the way through that way. It's virtually incomprehensible, and I say that as someone who had watched all of it (six seasons at the time) all the way through twice before. It's incomprehensible precisely because by watching it in chronological order, you are inherently watching it for a plot. You are watching it for the expected story beats of an action film, and it doesn't have those! It doesn't make sense! Things just happen one after another and they don't have any overarching plot to tie them together and that's because you're doing it wrong. TCW is tied together if you watch it in the order in which it was intended to be watched because the story beats are thematic.

(I will note that the OP on the original post does call out 'thematic resolution' as well as plot resolution, but doesn't really seem to address that, because, as described above, pretty much all of TCW has a definite thematic narrative.)

So, to circle back to the reason I started this rant, I completely disagree that TCW is a good example of wasted time. Sure, if what you want is a tight plot (and to be fair, mostly people should be writing tight plots, especially beginning writers), then yeah, it's an example of what not to do. But in that case, it's an example of what not to do from the ground up, because it is, intentionally, structured to not have a tight plot. That isn't the type of storytelling it is engaged in. And, frankly, I think that's wonderful. I love stories with tight plots. But I hate the idea that those should be the only type of storytelling we engage in. Not every hero needs to have a moment 2/3 of the way through the movie where they save the cat. We are Pan narrans, the storytelling ape. We can tell all sorts of different kinds of stories and enjoy, and have need of, all of them.

As a side note, if you want an example of wasted time, I'll give you a few episodes of Rebels: 'The Wynkahthu Job' and 'Warhead' in S3 advance neither plot (which Rebels actually has) nor themes nor character development. S3 of Rebels remains my favorite, but S2 is far more tightly written.

[kaasknot]

#i maintain that tcw is best approached as a philosophical essay #on the nature of failure #but i do recognize that that is not what most people want out of their television #and are likely to view that as a turnoff #ah well

I don't want to put all of my tags from the previous post into a reply to that post because I almost 100% agree with OP and don't want to derail what is a truly excellent post. But. I do want to derail here because it's my blog and I can derail if I want to

So: I really fundamentally disagree that The Clone Wars is an example of wasted time. I think that interpreting TCW as such shows a misunderstanding of the type of storytelling TCW was engaged in.

Hollywood, especially in the post-Save The Cat era, has trained us to expect very tightly written plots with standard story beats. Formulas, in essence. (For those of you who don't know what Save the Cat is, it's a book published in [checks wikipedia] jesus fucking christ 2005 that lays out, beat by beat, the formula for a successful movie.) Almost everything Hollywood produces nowadays follows those formulas. This can produce something clever (Zootopia) or something completely vapid (almost every MCU movie). A huge component of the post-StC formula is an extension of Chekov's Gun far beyond what Chekov meant: in a modern movie, it's likely that everything that is mentioned at any point in the movie will be brought up again at the end. There are no wasted lines in a post-StC movie, let alone wasted scenes.

But the StC formulas are not the only way to tell a story, and IMO, the slavish adherence to the StC formula that Hollywood has embraced has been only to the detriment of storytelling. StC is primarily plot driven; character development and themes are relevant to the story only insofar as the plot must be boiled down to The Hero's Journey (NOT what Campbell would have agreed with, for the record) and therefore the character development of the Hero is intertwined with the plot. The post-StC method of storytelling leaves little room for storytelling that is primarily character-driven and/or primarily thematic, and Hollywood's profit-driven devotion to StC formulas means that we have gotten to the point that we consider character-driven and/or thematic storytelling to be bad storytelling.

Thus, a complaint that TCW is filled with wasted time is a fundamental misunderstanding of what TCW is trying to do. It is not a story that is primarily plot-driven; if you go into it expecting StC-type story beats you will leave (probably long before the seventh season) with a sense of bafflement and possibly anger. In essence, the plot to TCW can be summed us as: 'Get from Attack of the Clones to Revenge of the Sith'. There is a plot in there, because honestly the prequels were light on such things and there's a big black box between AotC and RotS that needs to be filled with, like, things happening that make sense (never an accusation that can be leveled at the prequels). But the plot of TCW is not the POINT of TCW. We all know how the story ends. We've all seen RotS. The point of TCW is not how we get there. The point of TCW is what happens along the way.

It is, therefore, better to think about TCW not as 'plot' but as 'story'. The plot is 'Palpatine uses an endless war to orchestrate the downfall of the Republic'; the story is 'how do you turn Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader'. Those are very different! Very very different! Because the point of the story is primarily 'how do you take a lost, frightened, very powerful child and turn him into a Sith', the way you tell the story is not so much plot point as themes. Those themes allow you to explore other, related stories as well (how do you turn the Republic into the Empire? what does it mean to fight a war with disposable soldiers? what were the flaws of the late Republic Jedi Order that led to them sowing the seeds of their own destruction? what does moral responsibility mean in a universe where people are randomly gifted immense personal power and limited institutional power? what effect does endless war have on a society that is largely insulated from the downsides of that war? what are the ethics of sending children into battle? what if you tell yourself they're not children? what are the effects, both practical and moral, of making compromise after compromise after compromise for the sake of expediency, until you've forgotten the moral stance you were taking at the start of it all?) because ultimately the story IS the themes. It's not a plot. It's not trying to be a plot. We went in knowing what the plot is; we don't need it explained. What we need explained is why and why is fundamentally a thematic question.

This is, incidentally, why TCW is almost unwatchable if you try to watch it in chronological order rather than in the order in which it was released. Yes, there are lists out there that put all the episodes in chronological order. I've actually watched it all the way through that way. It's virtually incomprehensible, and I say that as someone who had watched all of it (six seasons at the time) all the way through twice before. It's incomprehensible precisely because by watching it in chronological order, you are inherently watching it for a plot. You are watching it for the expected story beats of an action film, and it doesn't have those! It doesn't make sense! Things just happen one after another and they don't have any overarching plot to tie them together and that's because you're doing it wrong. TCW is tied together if you watch it in the order in which it was intended to be watched because the story beats are thematic.

(I will note that the OP on the original post does call out 'thematic resolution' as well as plot resolution, but doesn't really seem to address that, because, as described above, pretty much all of TCW has a definite thematic narrative.)

So, to circle back to the reason I started this rant, I completely disagree that TCW is a good example of wasted time. Sure, if what you want is a tight plot (and to be fair, mostly people should be writing tight plots, especially beginning writers), then yeah, it's an example of what not to do. But in that case, it's an example of what not to do from the ground up, because it is, intentionally, structured to not have a tight plot. That isn't the type of storytelling it is engaged in. And, frankly, I think that's wonderful. I love stories with tight plots. But I hate the idea that those should be the only type of storytelling we engage in. Not every hero needs to have a moment 2/3 of the way through the movie where they save the cat. We are Pan narrans, the storytelling ape. We can tell all sorts of different kinds of stories and enjoy, and have need of, all of them.

As a side note, if you want an example of wasted time, I'll give you a few episodes of Rebels: 'The Wynkahthu Job' and 'Warhead' in S3 advance neither plot (which Rebels actually has) nor themes nor character development. S3 of Rebels remains my favorite, but S2 is far more tightly written.