Star Wars Week - Clone Wars Review

It seems that Statboy^* may not have done a very good setting the line in yesterday's Over/Under. There were a lot of over guesses. If you still want to play along, just scroll down a little and enter your guesses in the comment section. In today’s installment of Star Wars Week, I'll be looking at Star Wars: Clone Wars vol. 1 on DVD and also vol. 2, which has yet to find its way to DVD yet.

When I first heard that George Lucas was going to be doing a cartoon version of Star Wars I was a little hesitant. Then I heard that it was going to chronicle the Clone Wars and I put my nerd hat back on. The Clone Wars in the Star Wars mythology was a massive war that brought the rise of the Empire and the demise of the Jedi. Not even the prequel haters can complain about this. Then I heard that the episodes would clock in at 4 minutes. I've urinated longer than that. And so the nerd hat came off. That's a lot to ask to tune in for 5 minutes at 8:00, the start of the primetime. But I guess that why they invented TIVO (not that I'm cool enough to have a TIVO, I instead had to use the VCR). After watching the first couple episodes, the nerd hat came back on.

First thing I noticed about the Clone Wars series was that Lucas alleviated the number one problem that has plagued most of the movies, ear bleeding dialogue. A majority of the episode go without any talking. The major storyline involved Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker trying to take another world back for the Republic. But Mace Windu, Padme with her droids, and Yoda get their own screen time. Even little known Jedis Kit Fisto (an underwater, Bob Marley look-alike) and Luminara Unduli get their own mini-episodes.

The best part of the Clone Wars are the introductions (and sometimes demises) of some of the baddest characters in the Star Wars lexicon with all due respect to Darths Maul and Vader. Durge, with his flair for medieval battle, wipes out a bunch of clones with his lance easily. Plus his Terminator (Robert Patrick version) like tendencies makes him very hard to kill. Asajj Ventress is a (wannabe?) Sith whose is hired by Lord Dooku to be a thorn in Anakin's side. And the last episode features the baddest of them all, General Grievous, the only non Jedi or Sith that uses a lightsaber. And as an added bonus, he's also the only character that can wield three at one time. Grievous is the only baddy here that will make an appearance in Episode III, and I am interested in seeing how the pull him off on the big screen, especially the three lightsaber trick.

There were a few unintentionally funny things that happened during the Clone Wars. First has to be the appearance of Shaggy, of Scooby Doo fame making an appearance as a Padawan. I had to watch this a couple time because I though the Scooby Snack I was eating were making me hallucinate. Secondly, I cannot get enough of Yoda riding on his mini-horse, it good for a chuckle. Also, for reason unbeknownst to anyone, the started out the four minute episodes with a "previously on" montage and ended each with a "on the next Clone Wars." These end up being almost as long as the actual episodes.

Don't check out the Clone Wars vol. 1 expecting any furthering of any of the movie's plot points. Aside from the appearance of Grievous, there is nothing here that gives us any insight on what will happen in the future. Also, don't expect to hear Natalie Portman or any of the stars voices on the DVD as only Anthony Daniels lend the orginal voice to his cartoon counterpoint as C-3PO. The thing that irritated me most is in one of the documentaries on the DVD; Lucas stated that the Clone Wars were the most exciting part of the Star Wars universe. If that is so, why did you not make a movie about it then? He should have scraped The Phantom Menace, make The Attack of the Clones Episode I, and the Clone Wars Episode II.

Star Wars: Clone Wars vol. 1 gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

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Not yet on DVD yet is Clone Wars vol. 2. Now we get five fifteen minute episode instead of 20 four minute like vol. 1. Vol. 2 starts off with a lot more dialogue than the first but luckily this trails off and we are left with more action in the latter episode. They were also were able to sneak in a little love story into one of the episodes. Also this season better bridges to Episode III with General Grievous kidnapping Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and Anakin becoming a Jedi Knight. I will wait until the DVD release for a more thorough review or rating it.