It was a very stupid thing I think from the second season of Rebels. The non-Vader sith were too lazy to swing their light sabers so they built a spinny doohicky to spin them while they held on. I think at the end of season two all the inquisitors die and they bring in Thrawn as the bad guy and it gets much better. They also do a good job with Vader.
But ya that is one of many reasons I don’t rank Rebels very high there is also a lot of force magic and force sensitive animals which is just weird.
I’ve been trying to catch up with CW as well - up to the end of season 5 now; the last 4 episode arc of that season was the first time it felt actually worthwhile though.
I enjoyed some of the clone trooper episodes, and Hondo was always fun but my problem with it is two-fold: one, there’s just very little progression or character development - I feel like you could just jump a couple of seasons ahead at any time and things just don’t chang much. Part of that is due to the “interquel” nature of the show - neither side can get any closer to victory in the actual “Clone Wars”, and the movie characters can’t really have much of an arc as then they just wouldn’t be in the right place by the time they get to Revenge of the Sith. But even the characters they could have done more with (like the Jedi we hardly see in the movies) don’t get up to much.
And the other issue is the inconsistent tone - even in the more “serious” episodes the writing is often simplistic and aimed at a younger audience, while the level of violence and number of troopers/other characters dying is really excessive for that age group.
At least animated Anakin as voiced by Matt Lanter is a lot less irritating than Hayden Christensen’s version.
I think they do well with ships/locations, but not so well with characters with actual faces - their movement is still very wooden.
Overall I enjoyed Rebels more than CW - probably because it had more of an ongoing storyline focused on one group of characters that the writers had more freedom to work with. As you say a lot of it was still very kid-friendly, but Agent Kallus, Vader, Ahsoka and the season 2 finale on Malachor were pretty great.
Update
Just started Season 5 and it has gotten better. Some of the three-episode story arcs are awesome with others less so. And people are less enamored with Anakin than they were at the beginning but strangely Ahsoka seems more accepting of his “that’s not the Jedi way” choices than she was before. I know she has a whole series arc but I don’t know what her arc is so I’m interested. But still some bad parts too. Seems like Obi-Wan gets slapped around a lot now and that ridiculous slaver arc with the Queen and Anakin was just not good in any way shape or form…
Glad you stuck with it. Some of the episode arcs are childish and boring, but the good ones absolutely make up for it. And the four episode ending is some of the best Star Wars material ever made.
I thought TCW was uneven, but some really great Star Wars in places. It fleshed out the prequel movies and made me appreciate them more. When I saw the Phantom Menace I didn’t care what a Trade Federation was or what the senate was doing, I just wanted to see the origins of Vader and see some clones fighting. But seeing more the of players, politics, and moral questions in TCW helped explain what was in the background of the prequels but maybe not fully explained enough, instead we got awkward dialogue and Jar Jar being an annoying Scappy Doo. And TCW Anakin was so much better than the prequel Anakin, mostly because of the prequel dialogue.
I’m rewatching with my kid, who hates it. Thankfully we’re on the last season so I don’t have to listen to the whining any more. And it’s not all hate all the time or we’d not have gotten out of S1. Just a lot of teen theatrics and exerting independence.
I think what makes the show difficult is that there are so many murders and dead kids so it’s a little off putting for kids, but really unsophisticated characterizations and plots that put off adults. My child just chimed in with “This is really depressing” watching Anakin and Padme say “I love you” to each other, knowing in-universe he kills her within a year. It hits some interesting emotional beats and is a mess, but I like it and I’m glad I pushed through. Ahsoka might be my favorite SW character of all and until TM S2, I wouldn’t have otherwise known who she was.
I’m a bit surprised to see so many people disliked the series but I thought it was pretty good for the most part. The droid episodes usually weren’t very good, the episode with those three Force spirits was lame, but each season had some pretty good episodes. Yeah, we all know it’s going to and on a sad note but that’s okay.