TV Review – “Star Wars: Clone Wars”

The first portion of the animated series is now on
DVD.

Cast and Crew

Anthony Daniels provides the voice of C-3P0
.
The remaining voice cast are sound-alikes, detailed at
the IMDB page
below.


Complete information is
available from this
IMDB
page
.


Buy from: Amazon.com
or Amazon.ca

Past TV reviews can be found here.

Synopsis

The events taking place during the Clone Wars are
depicted here, with
hints about what is to come in episode III.

High Point

Mace Windu in action.

Low Point

The first half is utterly plotless.

The Review

The originality is poor; it’s a collection of
Star
Wars
action sequences. We’ve seen it all before,
but we love it
anyway. I give it 2 out of 6.

The animation is very smooth, with a natural
blend of
traditional and CGI work. I’m fairly impressed with
the fluidity, if
not the actual character design. I give it 5 out of
6.

The story is very, very weak. The first half
has no plot;
it’s a series of battles that take place during the
war. The second
half starts to introduce actual events, but there’s
still not a
complete story here. It feels like fans who love
Star Wars
were allowed to brand things with the name, but
weren’t allowed to
actually do anything of signifigance with it so that
they didn’t
contradict episode III. I give it 2 out of 6.

The voice acting isn’t bad. Some of the
sound alike don’t
sound much like the original actors, but others aren’t
bad. (Well,
really, it’s a matter of the voices; some of the voice
actors do well
with one character and poorly with another.) The
actual expression and
delivery is pretty good, though. I give it 4 out of
6.

The emotional response is good, in spite of
the problems
above. Let’s face it; Star Wars has always
done a much
better job with action scenes than withh actual plot,
and that’s
exactly what we have here. I give it 5 out of 6.

The production is well done as far as music
and editing are
concerned. However, with an animated series,
character design is also
an aspect of the production, since that’s a
significant part of the
look and feel of the work. These character designs
just didn’t feel
like Star Wars to me. They were entirely to
blocky around
the face and curved in the arms. It just didn’t sit
right. I give it
4 out of 6.

Overall, it’s entertaining as an hour long
action sequence
set in the Star Wars universe, but that’s
about it. For the
serious fans only. I give it 4 out of 6.

In total, Star Wars: Clone Wars Volume 1
receives 26 out of 42.

14 replies on “TV Review – “Star Wars: Clone Wars””

  1. I Disagree, Circle Gets The Square
    Pointless it may be. But somehow, still manages to be better than Episode I. We get to see a lot more of the dynamics of the republic army here, and how the Jedi work with the army as a whole. Mace Windu’s fight scene has got to be one of the best applications of Force powers ever. Ever. EVER! As a student of martial arts, watching Mace use the Force as an extension of his own body was fantastic!

    As to the lack of plot. Really. Everyone who has any interest in Star Wars at all already knows the broad plot developments that take place between Episode II and Episode III. Frankly, I think there is precious little plot development at all, and it really doesn’t need any. It’s the Clone Wars. We see some vingettes of battles, and watch some of the growing tension within Anakin, and his relationship with Obi Wan. What else do we need? We know the confrontation is coming.

    We get a lot of action, some humorous/foreshadowing references (Anakin’s “I have you now” as he’s chasing the Sith apprentice, for instance), and see Mace Windu kick a lot of ass*. It’s action that I feel is sorely lacking from episodes I and II. III looks like it might redeem the prequel trilogy. Might.

    Clone Wars, Vol. 2, which recently finished airing on CN in the US, has much more plot to it. Plus the introduction of a central character in Episode III. It also ties in some of the developments from Clone Wars, Vol. 1.

    *Which, frankly, should have happened a lot more in I and II. Yes, he’s sort of Yoda’s touchstone in some respects, but give us some of that Sam Jackson baaaaad-assssssness. Otherwise, why have Sam Jackson?

    • Rewriting History
      Sysop stuff! I’m assuming there weren’t supposed to be ten copies of the same comment, so I’ve manually deleted the extras. We apologize for the inconvenience.

      • Re: Rewriting History

        Sysop stuff! I’m assuming there weren’t supposed to be ten copies of the same comment, so I’ve manually deleted the extras. We apologize for the inconvenience.

        Phew! Thanks. No, there weren’t. It was a proxy error or, well, something which made me think I wasn’t posting when in fact, I was. Now, let’s see if I can get this message to post. One ping only please.

  2. Another High Point
    … Lightsabers in the rain.

    Episodes 17-19 were absolutely amazing. That saber battle ranks up there with the great battles from the movies. Its better than the battle in episode 1, and almost as good as Vader vs. Luke in Jedi. They did some amazing things with the animation there.

    Of course this is just a review of part 1, part 2 is even better.

    • Re: Another High Point

      … Lightsabers in the rain.

      Episodes 17-19 were absolutely amazing. That saber battle ranks up there with the great battles from the movies. Its better than the battle in episode 1, and almost as good as Vader vs. Luke in Jedi. They did some amazing things with the animation there.

      Of course this is just a review of part 1, part 2 is even better.

      When is part 2 coming out on DVD? I can’t catch these on cartoon network.

      • Re: Another High Point

        … Lightsabers in the rain.

        Episodes 17-19 were absolutely amazing. That saber battle ranks up there with the great battles from the movies. Its better than the battle in episode 1, and almost as good as Vader vs. Luke in Jedi. They did some amazing things with the animation there.

        Of course this is just a review of part 1, part 2 is even better.

        When is part 2 coming out on DVD? I can’t catch these on cartoon network.

        You can download them from the Star Wars site as well.

        • Re: Another High Point

          … Lightsabers in the rain.

          Episodes 17-19 were absolutely amazing. That saber battle ranks up there with the great battles from the movies. Its better than the battle in episode 1, and almost as good as Vader vs. Luke in Jedi. They did some amazing things with the animation there.

          Of course this is just a review of part 1, part 2 is even better.

          When is part 2 coming out on DVD? I can’t catch these on cartoon network.

          You can download them from the Star Wars site as well.

          I hate the Star Wars site. Most of the content there requires a $40 membership. You can get all the episodes in 320×163 free in quicktime format for free though, but I’d rather have the DVDs.

  3. Favorite epp
    I don’t remember what ep it is, but I loved the one with the ARC Troopers. It reminded me of an old issue of G.I. Joe that I read years ago, where Scarlet, and I beleive Snake Eyes broke into a building to rescue someone. The issue was totally without dialogue.

    Very cool effect.

    • Re: Favorite epp

      I don’t remember what ep it is, but I loved the one with
      the ARC Troopers. It reminded me of an old issue of G.I.
      Joe that I read years ago, where Scarlet, and I beleive
      Snake Eyes broke into a building to rescue someone. The
      issue was totally without dialogue.

      Very cool effect.

      Scarlet, Snake Eyes, and Storm Shadow broke into a Cobra
      complex to rescue Jinx. I believe it was issue #85, but I
      could be mistaken. I haven’t read it in a decade or so.

      • Re: Favorite epp

        I don’t remember what ep it is, but I loved the one with
        the ARC Troopers. It reminded me of an old issue of G.I.
        Joe that I read years ago, where Scarlet, and I beleive
        Snake Eyes broke into a building to rescue someone. The
        issue was totally without dialogue.

        Very cool effect.

        Scarlet, Snake Eyes, and Storm Shadow broke into a Cobra
        complex to rescue Jinx. I believe it was issue #85, but I
        could be mistaken. I haven’t read it in a decade or so.

        You remember more than I do. All I remember is wondering why nobody talked, then thinking to my self, “15 guards, or 50, it wouldn’t make any diffence.”

        • Re: Favorite epp

          I don’t remember what ep it is, but I loved the one with
          the ARC Troopers. It reminded me of an old issue of G.I.
          Joe that I read years ago, where Scarlet, and I beleive
          Snake Eyes broke into a building to rescue someone. The
          issue was totally without dialogue.

          Very cool effect.

          Issue #21 is the classic silent issue, where Snake-Eyes breaks in to rescue Scarlett and they fight their way out. Available in Volume 3 of the Marvel G.I.Joe reprint TPBs.

          • Re: Favorite epp

            I don’t remember what ep it is, but I loved the one with
            the ARC Troopers. It reminded me of an old issue of G.I.
            Joe that I read years ago, where Scarlet, and I beleive
            Snake Eyes broke into a building to rescue someone. The
            issue was totally without dialogue.

            Very cool effect.

            Issue #21 is the classic silent issue, where Snake-Eyes breaks in to rescue Scarlett and they fight their way out. Available in Volume 3 of the Marvel G.I.Joe reprint TPBs.

            Now that I think about it, there may have been another silent issue. This one I remember better. Zartan and a pack of red ninjas try to take out Storm Shadow, in his second uniform. I remeber there was a lot of bow & arrow stuff. Zartan had a sonar scope on his bow… I think one of Zartan’s arrows shattered all the extras that Storm Shadow was carrying. I also seem to recal Storm Shadow catching one of Zartan’s arrows.

            Okay, I’ll stop talking… for now.

  4. Volume 2 (episodes 21-25)

    Episodes 21-25 were good, but they diverge from the actual events as described in other Clone Wars literature. The hunt for Palpatine, for example, is different than the same events as they occur in Labyrinth of Evil, the official prequel to Episode III.

    Further evidence of this appears in the Star Wars Timeline (an amazing document) which classifies half of episode 21 and all of episodes 22-25 as “alternate histories” in the Infinities section. Note that volume 1 (episodes 1-20) appear in the primary timeline.

Comments are closed.