Clone Wars: Volume Two Continues Bridging the Gap Between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith

As a Star Wars fan from the '77 Generation, I remember vividly the yin-yang effect of the seemingly endless wait between Episodes when it became apparent that George Lucas' unexpectedly successful space-fantasy film was part of a larger storyline that was once rumored to span nine parts. 

On the one hand, my friends and I looked forward to the release of first The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and later Return of the Jedi (1983) with both enthusiasm and impatience, with thoughts such as Man! Three years till the next one? That's like freakin' forever! often crossing our minds.

On the other hand, the waiting period also became a time of much speculation about the characters, possible story developments, and both the characters' origins and possible future fates. And as often happens with adolescent fans, hours were fruitlessly spent on such now-trivial issues as:

Was Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi a clone? (For years there was a bizarre theory that Ben was a clone based on his "real" name sounding like OB-1. I never really took it to heart, but lots of fans did.)

Who would Leia choose, Han or Luke? (This was, of course, before Episode VI's big "reveal" that Luke and Leia were twins.)

Would there be a big final battle on the Emperor's throne world, perhaps on a lava planet? (While there was a big climactic battle involving the Emperor, the technology that made the prequels' depiction of Coruscant - the city planet - possible didn't yet exist, so Lucas set the final clash between Sith and Jedi aboard a second Death Star.)




Oh, sure, there were attempts - some good (Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye) and some horrible beyond the pale (ABC's Star Wars Holiday Special) - to at least "fill in the blanks" between Star Wars (now retitled Episode IV: A New Hope) and The Empire Strikes Back, but none of them really became part of the "official" (canon) story.