TGM

When Sir Alec Guinness, as Obi Wan, mentioned the Clone Wars wayyyy back in Star Wars Episode 4, what did you envision that conflict to be like? Clearly, it wasn't the crap we ended up getting 3 decades later...

islandclaws

The opposite of what we got.

Solid Snake

Well...isn't the clone wars what that show is about? A badly written one at that.

JTH182

When I was a kid I always pictured them fighting against evil versions of themselves, lol

resinrats

I thought the clones were the ones they were fighting against. Later when Boba Fett came out, it was mentioned his suit was armor used in the clone wars. In a way, that part is true. Boba is a clone & his clones were in the wars & their armor is very influeced by Boba's.

islandclaws

Are we talking about the show or the movies here? I've only seen the two animated films (mim-series?) they did, not the series. As for what's shown in the theatrical films, although it was minimal, it sucked.

Josh-da-man

Same here.

Back in the 70s and 80s, that's generally what a "clone" was.

This was also sort of what Timothy Zahn did with his novel trilogy; Joruus C'Baoth was, in Zahn's original pitch, a clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi. (Of course other instances of cloning in that novel mirrored the "clone army" with the Dark Fleet, and another character was later cloned in the third novel. Guess Zahn was covering all of the bases.)

Drexl

I didn't think about it much, to be honest. I just took it as an old war story that didn't have much significance other than to say he knew Anakin Skywalker. And by 1988 or so I figured the series was over.

yoshimi

Lucas should change the dialogue in Kenobi's hut when he is talking to Luke in A New Hope to "I knew your father back when we fought together in the clone wars when he was a whiny little bitch."

PopcornTreeCt

I never thought of it as fighting against clones. I thought it was just a name and possibly something that had to do with the war.

Patman

I first thought Obiwan said "Cologne Wars", and wonder if it was a war over smelling good or stinky.

story

I thought it was two wars with the same parties and same outcomes, back to back, or two simultaneous wars with similar issues at stake and similar outcomes. It didn't occur to me until I first heard the title, "Attack of the Clones," that the Clone Wars could possibly be about beings who are clones. I was wrong for twenty-odd years and I still like my idea better.

Groucho

Nick Danger

I never thought about it. It's like C-beams near the Tannhauser Gate or the The Giant Rat of Sumatra. I just took it as a way of expanding the universe. I was fifteen when I saw Star Wars. People who saw it at a younger age would have been more literal about it.

Of course, when an artist's creativity slows to a trickle and he has to resort to reworking his youthful ideas, the result is never as good as it would have been if he'd left it to everyone's imagination.

mcnabb

I guess I'm in the minority of SW fans, but I always wanted Lucas to make Episodes 7,8,9 when I was a kid in the 80's instead of the Episode 1,2,3. I always thought Lucas could do whatever story he wanted if he continued the adventures of Luke, Leia and Han, whereas the Prequels he would be locked into a story from all that was spoken about in the OT.

Artman

Similar to Empire vs Rebellion in the OT, it didn't need much explanation beyond that. Seriously, the Ep1 crawl couldn't taken care of it, and we'd have been in the middle of it right from the start.

Josh-da-man

Do you mean the giant rat of Sumatra?

And I have no idea what C-beams or the Tannhauser Gate are, but I can sure see it my mind's eye when Roy Batty is talking about them.

On the subject, though, the "Clone Wars" mentioned in Star Wars seemed important to the overall story arc of Star Wars, especially when you knew there are going to be more sequels and, especially, prequels that explored the pasts of the characters.

Shannon Nutt

I assumed that the Jedis made clones of themselves to do the fighting, while they relaxed on the beach.

Hey, I was seven!

joe_b

Same. I'm sure I imagined some kind of a "Body Snatchers" scenario. But whatever the clones were, I always envisioned them as the enemy being fought. I know they were eventually activated as enemies, but I didn't picture them being allies during the war -- and I certainly didn't expect them to be precursors to the stormtroopers.

I remember an Episode I tie-in comic that told of Anakin's life just before the events of the film. IIRC, one panel showed him dreaming of being a warrior fighting off a bunch of identical bald men. I was sure this was some sort of hint at things to come in Episode II, but it didn't pan out.

dugan

In Space Quest III you actually encounter "a genuine bowtie fighter from the cologne wars".

Nick Danger

Oops. Yeah. I'll edit.

PopcornTreeCt

Yes, I definitely wanted those episodes more than 7, 8 and 9. I think everyone did. I like to think 80's/early 90's Star Wars would've been a lot better than the shiny post 90's crap that we got.

Navinabob

I had no problem with "the clone wars" as the concept was a good one. I liked that they fought with the jedi (and ultimately killed them). The animated series has about a dozen Saving-Private-Ryan-like episodes that frame the wars fantastically. I think many people are mixing up the horrible execution, laughable dialog, questionable humor, and general shitty job Lucas did with the movies as opposed to the what specifically the clone wars was about.

I think the ideas behind the prequels were fine... we just needed Lawrence Kasdan to write them after a Lucas outline.

Preterite

I was ten when Star Wars came out and I saw it on the big screen, and I don't think we worried too much about what the Clone Wars were, either. After Blade Runner, though, I think I got it stuck in my head that the Wars were about the clones rebelling and fighting for their freedom.

Yep. Whatever we had in our imaginations was better than what we got with the prequels.

I think that's why Lucas went with 1-2-3. He didn't have to spend much effort on the story, freeing him up for his true passions, digital effects and merchandising.

Superboy

There's tons of fan theories about the clone wars. One of the most popular ones is that when the Republic went to war, they had to clone the jedi to have enough troops to fight. Obi-wan was actually supposed to be one of the last surviving clones.