Way back before George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, the canonical boundaries of Star Wars were in flux. When The Clone Wars started airing on the Cartoon Network in 2008, “the expanded universe” of Star Wars comics and novels was still alive and kicking. But, post-2014, those comics and novels were ejected from the canon, while The Clone Wars, very retroactively, became part of the “real” canon. Because The Clone Wars is the bulkiest retcon in all of Star Wars, its aesthetics and tone feel discordant from the rest of the saga, especially The Mandalorian. But now, The Mandalorian Season 3 is quietly trying to fix all that.
