I hate the Star Wars prequels, I love the Star Wars prequels. There are a lot of fans who share that sentiment, even if they don’t realise it. The movies are dreck, but the worldbuilding around them is brilliant.
Republic Commando, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary today, is easily among the best to flesh out that era. It’s a gritty, atmospheric, boots on the ground military shooter following a special ops squad of Clone Troopers. Through their eyes, we see the reality of war in this universe, something that’s usually sidestepped for flashy heroics and dazzling lightsaber battles.
Yet two decades later, the only other time Star Wars has examined the harsh reality of those fighting on the frontlines again was Andor, delving deeper into the already exhausted original trilogy. Disney seems completely averse to its own era, the sequels, and peering beneath the glamour of its heroes to focus on the world around them. But this is only endemic of a wider, growing problem in Star Wars, one that is leaving no room for games like Republic Commando.
The Sequel Trilogy Feels Empty
Picking apart all of the problems with the sequel trilogy is tired. There’s no point digging up old arguments and prodding at old wounds. It’s a bad trilogy, but so were George Lucas’ prequels. That didn’t stop him, and LucasFilm, from digging deeper to find potential buried below the surface. That’s why we have so many gems from that era, like The Clone Wars, Battlefront 2, and Dark Disciple. Disney needs to give the sequel era that chance.
Right now, it feels empty. The world is a facsimile of the original trilogy, ripped apart and pieced back together again. The broad strokes are tracings of stories told years ago, but as the prequels showed, looking beyond the peripheral vision of the main cast can bring even the dullest of settings back to life. But for the sequels, even ten years later, we don’t know anything about the ordinary Joes (or Jabbas) on the sidelines.
The prequels are so fondly remembered now because they allowed for us to see through their eyes. We could look beyond the bad CGI, hammy acting, and paper-thin plots and piece together a much more complex world, one with characters worth caring about. Republic Commando was especially adept at doing that, humanising Clone Troopers and making them far more than mere canon fodder, paving the way for The Clone Wars TV series to do the same.
Disney hasn’t done that yet. Instead, the sequels have been all but abandoned, as the media conglomerate hones in on the original and prequel trilogies, turning over every stone and ripping away the mystique, outright avoiding the one era that would benefit most from being explored further.
It’s All About Glup Shittos Now
Granted, we’ve had stories set between the original and sequel trilogy, but they still draw heavily from the fan-favourites of old eras. Just look at The Mandalorian, which went from a story about an innocuous bounty hunter to one where young Luke Skywalker returns alongside a slew of Clone Wars icons, even setting up spin-off shows for Boba Fett and Ahsoka Tano. Disney has tried to create another new era, the High Republic, which is far and away the best that Star Wars has been in years, but with little fanfare those plans appear to have been mostly shelved.
Modern Star Wars is now all about dangling familiar toys in front of us before smashing them together, which only makes the galaxy feel smaller, not more expansive.
Republic Commando was so unique because it wasn’t about existing characters or filling in the lore like a toddler scrawling past the lines with a blunt crayon. It was about emotion, capturing the feeling of those on the frontlines. We cared about and related to that era more because stories like Republic Commando immersed us in it.
I don’t want Republic Commando reheated and fed back to me, I want the spirit of that game — and the ethos of that era of Star Wars — to return. Forget cameos and explaining every throwaway line, tell stories that mean something, stories that resonate. Republic Commando worked so well because it was simple: what were The Clone Wars like for the Clones? Those are the questions that should be answered, not the backstory to every background character who sneezed out a one-liner.
Star Wars Republic Commando
- Released
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February 28, 2005
- ESRB
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T For Teen due to Blood and Gore, Violence