The Star Wars timeline has never been exactly straightforward, and George Lucas has never pretended otherwise. Let’s face it, this was a franchise that technically jumped in halfway through the story with “Episode IV.” He followed exactly the same pattern when he launched Star Wars: The Clone Wars in 2008, because the animated series initially hopped around the timeline with impunity. It means the best Clone Wars viewing order is an in-universe chronology rather than in release order, simply because characters are literally killed off before appearing later.
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Oddly enough, the first four episodes actually turned into a movie, enjoying a theatrical release. As Lucas explained when speaking to Entertainment Weekly at the time, the film “was almost an afterthought – we were doing the TV series and looked at some of the episodes on the big screen and said, ‘This is so beautiful, why don’t we just go and use the crew and make a feature?’ So we did.” But even the movie assumes time has passed since Attack of the Clones, because Anakin is already a Jedi Knight. And then, in 2009, Lucas inevitably released a story that serves as a prequel.
The Hidden Enemy is the Ultimate Clone Wars Prequel
The first episode of The Clone Wars Season 1, “The Hidden Enemy” tells the story of a traitor among the clones who was feeding information to Asajj Ventress. As Lucasfilm’s Dave Filoni noted in a featurette for the episode, some clones have a little too much Jango Fett in them, “reverting to his ‘I’ll do that for money’ kind of way.” The episode uses this to shine a light on one of the darkest ethical issues in the Clone Wars, the fact the clone troopers have no choice and thus can be presented more as slaves than soldiers.
This whole story was designed to serve as setup for The Clone Wars animated movie. It helps establish the stakes for that particular epic, with the Republic and the Jedi left on the back foot, explaining their need to strike a deal with the Hutts. Some connections are even more striking; there’s a clone pilot named Hawk who was originally supposed to appear in the film, called by Anakin to help with an extraction from the B’omarr monastery on Teth. Hawk would have died there, but the cut meant he became a regular asset to Anakin Skywalker’s 501st Legion after appearing in “The Hidden Enemy.”
“The Hidden Enemy” is, oddly enough, rather more popular than The Clone Wars animated movie. The film itself grossed only $68.5 million, and it has an IMDb rating of 6; in contrast, “The Hidden Enemy” has a score of 7.6, showing the difference in reception. There’s good reason, of course, because both Lucas the Clone Wars co-creator Dave Filoni had grown in their experience and skill when it came to this genre. Ironically, The Clone Wars‘ own reputation would improve even from this point, because the show eventually stopped bouncing around the timeline and began to tell a more structured tale.
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