Worst Star Wars Movie Actually Did More to Expand the Universe Than Any of the Others
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is often considered to be the worst Star Wars movie. (Or, at least, the worst Star Wars movie by George Lucas, depending on your viewpoint regarding the sequel trilogy.)
A number of accusations were and are raised against it with various degrees of justification, from plot holes to bad dialogue and acting. Even the choice of its title is questioned by the fans!
But despite its problems, Attack of the Clones probably did more than any other movie since the original Star Wars to expand the universe.
That may be a coincidence caused by Lucasfilm's multimedia machine only reaching its full throttle by Episode II's release. But in all likelihood, the Clone Wars era, opened by it, proved to be a genuinely interesting addition to the settings and a fertile ground for spin-off products in various media.
Those included some of the best Star Wars comic books ever, such as arguably the better parts of Star Wars: Republic series by Dark Horse. Some of the best Star Wars novels ever, such as the books by James Luceno, from Cloak of Deception to Darth Plagueis, or Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover.
Two different animated series, both of which ended up beloved by fans, and both of which spawned their own tie-in comic books.
A diverse stable of video games, some of which, like Republic Commando and Bounty Hunter, were not merely "good by standards of tie-in games", but actually good. (And Republic Commando, in turn, spawned tie-in novels – the spin-off ecosystem was truly thriving at that time).
In short, The Clone Wars multimedia project was the real deal. Disney 's efforts, with all of its various TV and animated spin-off series, maybe only recently started to be comparable with it. While coordination between its different parts left much to be desired (you could sort of form a unified canon out of Star Wars: Republic comics and the novels, but good look reconciling it with either of the animated series, or those series with each other), it resulted in a lot of great stuff and it shows the potential of the ideas, contained in Attack of the Clones.
Too bad that the execution of said ideas in the movie itself was often lacking, or at least questionable.