I didn’t care much for the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars
movie that was released to theaters last year. And I was really not looking forward to seeing the TV series that
it spawned on the Cartoon Channel. In fact, I avoided the series altogether,
because I figured it would be just as bad--if not worse--than the silly movie
was. Yet when I finally saw the entire first season of SW: TCW on DVD, I must admit that I was very pleasantly surprised. Taking place
between the Star Wars prequel films Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith,
TCW shows the Clone War in all of its epic glory, using each episode--clocking
in at just over twenty minutes each--to display a different front of the war,
often raising pertinent questions about such themes as honor and loyalty.
The blocky CGI-designed features of the human characters is offset here by the
intelligent scripts, which humanizes Annakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and
Skywalker’s apprentice Ashoka by treating them like complex, three dimensional
beings. While it’s still basically a cartoon, with vastly creative action scenes
showing the Jedi performing heroic and superhuman feats, The Clone Wars still
aims a little higher with its storytelling, making it more sophisticated than
the average cartoon, and far more enjoyable. Of course, it’s not completely
perfect. Once again, starting with the episode Bombad Jedi, we are force-fed
more of the loathsome Jar-Jar Binks. The viewer watches in numb horror here as
Binks’ supposedly "cute" but stupid antics actually put people’s lives at risk, making one
wonder just whose side he’s truly on.
Somebody really needs to sit George Lucas down and explain to him that the Jar-Jar character just doesn’t work; especially that his presence in The Clone Wars is dragging down an otherwise great series. But thankfully, Jar-Jar isn’t in every episode in the first season, and the series’ visually stunning style and smart story-telling rises above whatever drawbacks it may suffer from. The DVDs are loaded with special features, such as a booklet that details the production design, and having every episode come with an informative and entertaining ‘making of’ feature. And a third of the episodes are director’s cuts, so even if you think you’ve seen these on the Cartoon Channel, you still haven’t really seen the full story. Star Wars: The Clone Wars Animated Series more than makes up for the lame animated movie, it easily surpasses it by reviving our wonder in a galaxy far, far away….
--SF
Main Review Page | Animated Film Reviews |Star Wars The Clone Wars on DVD
