Having already had our expectations lowered for the first animated Star Wars TV Series by the first animated Star Wars movie, Star Wars: The Clone Wars premiered Friday, October 3 with virtually nowhere to go but up.
It does a pretty good job of not completely letting us down. Like the movie, it helps to have lowered expectations and it’s good to keep in mind that it is a kid’s show.
Broadcast in HD, the series is a good-looking CG cartoon, continuing the relatively high visual standard set by the movie. The blander textures aren’t as prevalent as they are in the big-screen and the good things are still good.
There’s still plenty of annoyances. The opening scroll of the movies is still replaced with a jingoistic narrator and Seperatist Droids are still ridiculously stupid. The obvious question is why, oh why, do droids need to speak to communicate if they have a big antenna on their back?
We’d all be better off if they did work via Bluetooth.
It seems Christopher Lee has left the voicework for Count Dooku to a merely adequate imitator, though the series seems to have picked up a very good voice actor in the man behind Plo Koon, who sounds commanding, different and interesting.
The premiere consisted of two episodes, “Ambush” and “Rising Malevolence.”
Ambush is decent, but contains way too much droid-talk. Yoda gets to be flashy with a lightsaber and give an uplifting speech to a couple of Clone Troopers, who are now distinguished by their hair, but all still apparently voiced by all voiced Crocodile Dundee.
The second episode, Rising Malevolence is a much bigger, better start to the series. What stands out in this episode is how intense it often is and how dark it is for a Cartoon Network series.
While hiding in an escape pod, Plo Koon and his men come across another escape pod. Turning it around with the Force, Plo and his compatriots see dead Clone Troopers hanging out of it in a pretty graphic display. They soon discover a group of Battle Droids are moving from pod to pod, breaking it open and killing those inside by sending them flying into space.
Why lasers weren’t good enough, we have no idea, but it makes for a good TV.
The trailer for the rest of the season shows a good deal of promise, but still showcases things like the battle droids and the ridiculous announcer. Unfortunately it will also contain at least some Jar-Jar.
Hopefully it’s not more of an appearance than he had in Episode II.
More General Grevious is always good. Allowing him to actually develop a personality will add a good deal to the show and Ahsoka’s cutesiness has been reigned in just enough to let her bounce of the stoic and still-emo Anakin.
A heavy-handed theme that like it may crop up fairly often is the worth of the clone troopers themselves. Clones are people too! It’s somewhat forced, but it contrasts the “Clones are unfit” take Rohm Kota took in The Force Unleashed.
Plo Koon and Yoda heartily and insistently tell their clone followers that they matter to them and this could be a very good theme and exploration for the series to follow.
Overall, Star Wars: The Clone Wars does a decent job of continuing the story of the movie and filling in more of the gap between Episodes II and II and the time between Volumes I and II of the traditionally-animated Clone Wars series.
We’d certainly watch Heroes or Chuck over The Clone Wars, but it certainly makes half-decent DVR fodder for a Friday night. At least it doesn’t have to compete with Battlestar Galactica.
Leave a Reply