Watch all highlighted recommended episodes AND the "Honorable Mentions" episodes. Skip the episodes that aren't marked at all. Also I'd recommend skipping the pilot movie, just know Anakin is given an apprentice named Ahsoka (The orange alien girl).
Same, it's my favorite of the Star Wars shows. I much prefer it over The Clone Wars (2008).
It has like 7 or so actually good episodes and at least 3 of them are purely closing out Clone Wars stories/don't entirely work as satisfying episodes just of Rebels because the focus isn't even on the Rebels characters.
I think there's only one thing it skips over that I'd really consider as pretty good, the Padawan Lost Arc at the end of S3. But whatever. For the most part it's a perfectly good guide. It skips over really dumb/kiddy episodes that are focused on stuff like Stinky the Hutt, Jar Jar Binks, and droids wandering around doing nothing. Whatever is missed is worth it if it means actually getting people into the series instead of making them check out. If they really like the show after they've seen the truly good stuff, they can go back and see what they've missed.
The recommended guide that I posted earlier in this thread does not recommend skipping even close to "half of" the series. Trespass is one of the episodes included. Like I said, anyone using the guide should watch all those highlighted as well as "honorable mentions" (ie, not plot essential but still great). The only episodes I am suggesting people skip are the ones the guide does not denote at all, because in the vast majority of cases they're not great, and some are outright awful.
Fair enough, better to finish it and then go back to watch the rest if there is interest, than to quit it.
Exactly. For all the people hating on the old Clone Wars series for not being canon anymore, it practically set up the 2008 series. Asajj Ventress was never introduced in the 2008 show because viewers were expected to already know her from the 2003 show where she was first properly introduced. And I think the idea that Dooku first encountered her on Rattatak is still canon.
TCW might just be the one media property where chronological order is objectively better than release order. Like with the movies, you're supposed to do release order because the prequels assume that you know what happens to Anakin Skywalker.
Honestly, the "canon" or not argument is pretty crummy imo. The 2003 series doesn't really contradict anything in TCW or vice versa apart from how Grievous is portrayed. So it might as well be canon. The bigger issue is that while it's animated well and the action is cool, the plot within it is super thin. I'd say it's "fine" ultimately, but it really just exists as a cool action scene demo. More or less though, you can consider "season 1" and Episode 1 of "Season 2" of it to be prior to TCW and the rest of "season 2" of it to be post-TCW.
Watching TCW in "chronological order" is overblown. From mid-season 3 on every episode is in chronological order anyways. The "out of order" stuff is only in the first couple of seasons (last episode that is "earlier" being in season 3) because they decided they wanted to do a couple of things before the pilot movie, or do a backstory arc for certain characters. And so-called "Flashback" episodes aren't exactly out of the norm in other TV series, so this isn't really a big deal to watch it in release order rather than chronologically.
That's... pretty much what I said though?
I just don't particularly think it matters. Pulling out certain episodes and jumping around between seasons is just confusing to me. I don't think the "insight" of seeing those in chronological order really adds anything.
The Clone Wars was Lucas's pet project. He had no qualms throwing money at any problem.
