Review: Star Wars, The Clone Wars

I’m a big Star Wars fan so there was no way I would miss this 3D-cartoon style premier of Star Wars: The Clone Wars presented by Cartoon Network.  Because of my life with little kids I haven’t seen the full-motion picture yet.  A lot of folks basically gave it the same rating as, “It was OK – you can wait for it to come out on DVD.”  This version, being shown on television, uses the same drawing style as the movie.  I’m not certain if Cartoon Network will run two half hour shows each week or end up showing one half hour show, but this premier had two shows, pretty sweet.

I’m unclear who’s idea it was, but they start the show off with a quote.  Really!? Do we need life lessons in the beginning of the show.  I guess because I’m older (29), I should probably know these things already.  So; I’m going to assume they are targeting those messages to the tweens that watch CN.  I was a bit confused at first when it started.  The announcer-guy sounded way too fake or “animated” for the Star Wars universe.  It reminded me of Starship Troopers.  At first I thought he was recapping for some tv show or newscast, but it seems to be the way their setting up the scene, weird, but I might be able to live with it.

What really pulls this show together, for me, are the droids and clones.  They’ve done a great job giving each drone and clone some personality.  The droid are funny, because of their lack of human emotion they go around carrying orders and seem to be having a great time doing it.  One droid was humming a tune while on his way to kill clones in an escape pod.  Cynical… I love it!  The clones, for the most part, have different hair styles and different personas.  Master Yoda made a good point about The Force being in and on all living creatures… so even though the clones are from one person they look different or as individuals through The Force.  Because the clones now have a human element to them I don’t want to see them die.  When a droid gets shot or cut in half, it’s comical… when a clone dies – a small part of me dies too (very dramatic, eh!?).  Oh and unlike the droids the clones seem very teachable.  Every episode it seems as though the clones learn a new lesson from their general.

Episode One

This episode was kind of slow, but good overall.  Master Yoda and three clones had to make their way to meet a king and gain his alliance to the republic.  While being hunted by Count Dooku‘s apprentice and a battalion of droids.  The clones learned some things from their general, it was comical that even they didn’t understand the profound things Master Yoda was saying, and in the end we got a full episode of Jedi action from tiny Yoda.

Episode Two

The second episode gave us a sneak peek into some of the prototypes for the ultimate weapon in the universe, that would eventually be engineered on the Death Star.  This time we saw a huge star cruiser and it was an ion cannon.  Very nice concept; fire this device to render ships and all electronic devices helpless, then go out and destroy what you want.  General Grievous was manning the ship and we saw him fail.  I thought Count Dooku would chop him up into pieces, but he didn’t.

This episode we saw more Jedi, and we also saw that Anakin had a padawan- a young girl named Ahsoka Tano.  It’s not her fault, but she looks like a little black girl with funny white/blue hair.  I think she’s fifteen, or that’s what her body type says to me.  It was weird seeing Anakin with a padawan and he seemed so cool and collective.  Too bad he ends up killing all the Jedi (in the future), what a jerk!

Overall; I am excited about this new series from Cartoon Network.  I put it on my Google Calendar and I don’t plan on missing anything.  The 3D drawing style is OK, I’m more interested in the content though.  It’s nice to have two female presence; on the dark side Asajj Ventress and on the light side Ahsoka Tano.  In the earlier cartoon series of the Clone Wars, General Grievous struck fear and kicked the mess out of the Jedi – the commercials paint a different picture in this time frame.  I’d like to see the Jedi put a whoopin’ on him this time.

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1. Mech Wars, coming soon!