Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Star Wars has made a few attempts at coming up with marketable TV ideas. The Christmas Special, Droids, Ewoks, they didn’t seem to understand that we fans wanted Jedi duels and freakish aliens, not singing and cutesy teddy bears with spears. These TV ventures lacked the depth and danger of the movies.

Finally a TV adaptation delivers with Clone Wars. Just as the name suggests it is about war and those who fight it. It accomplishes many tasks: filling in some of the time between episodes 2 & 3, developing the character of Anakin as a loose-cannon Padawan becoming more and more enamored with Palpatine and skirting the edge of the Dark Side, furthering the relationship of Anakin and his master, deepening the plot of Count Dooku’s scheming, illustrating the level of power that some of the Jedi have, and introducing the fearsome General Grievous. And I’ve just touched on a few of the episodes! There are several minor characters explored in more depth, original villains introduced, and pretty much all of the main characters given some attention.

***The plot summary includes SPOILERS that may affect the next movie, but are nothing the die-hard fans haven’t known for some time.***
Palpatine manages to separate OB1 and Anakin by sending them to different parts of the battle. Not only is he setting up Anakin for a scheme to win him to the dark side, he subtly inserts a little dissention between master and padawan. I’m sure this will escalate in Ep.3. OB1 takes a special force to battle the armies put together by San Hill’s banking clan. There he faces off against the bounty hunter Durge while elite clonetrooper forces attack the droid armies in lengthy battles showing off skills worthy of Jango Fett clones.

In space Anakin leads fighters against the huge gun platforms. Some very impressive maneuvers give his fleet the upper hand. Meanwhile, Count Dooku has been searching for the next great warrior. He finds a promising candidate in the Force trained Asajj. We never learn where she got her training, but she does show it to be informal when she grossly underestimates the power of the Sith. Dooku spanks her like a little kid, but once she has learned her place she is the ideal candidate to hunt Anakin. The Siths’ motives are never expressed on why they want her to destroy Anakin. For Sidious we can safely assume that he wants to push the padawan closer to the Dark Side. If Anakin dies he was unworthy all along, if he triumphs the dark master will use it to his advantage. Dooku, on the other hand, is not so easy to say for sure. He may be doing his master’s bidding regardless, but I think it more likely that he assumes Anakin is his biggest potential threat and truly wants to see him destroyed. He doesn’t know Sidious is cultivating Anakin to become Dooku’s replacement.

Asajj lures Anakin into an ambush even though OB1 sternly warns the young man. There is a great level of maturity in OB1 even from Ep.2 where he was more unsure of himself as a master. Anakin finally recognizes his master’s wisdom in the matter, but not until after he has destroyed Asajj in his fury.

That is what the primary story line covers. There are several smaller stories intertwined. I have read a couple of reviews have called some of these pointless, so I, in my geekiness will attempt to explain the points I see.

Mace fights an army of droids on Dantooine. This is little more than to show why he is not involved with any of the other events; he caught up in this battle. It’s also a showcase of the level of his power which we have barely seen. When he is defeated in Ep.3 we know the victor will be someone of tremendous abilities. The impact of that would not be the same if we didn’t know Mace is so formidable.

Kit Fisto assists the Calamari in fending off a combined attack of droids and Quarren. Hopefully we will see more of the Calamari in Ep.3 so this may tie in with something there. As it is it simply shows that the war has reached numerous planets and has pit different native species against one another. It also showcases Kit’s Jedi powers in a unique way, using his amphibious makeup to battle underwater. This suggests that certain Jedi are better suited for certain tasks and are sent on missions according to their strengths.

Droids attack a secluded Jedi temple trapping two Jedi beneath tons of rubble. Yoda and Padme embark on a rescue mission. First of all, this shows that Jedi training is not limited to Coruscant. Second, we get to see a portion of the lightsaber creation process. Third, it reveals that no place is safe from attack, not even remote caverns supposedly known only to the Jedi. Fourth, it shows Yoda’s concern for other Jedi in need as well as his ability to single-handedly mount a rescue. And finally, it shows Padme’s heart by her concern for Yoda’s safety even though she has no idea how greatly she has underestimated the master’s abilities.

Volume 1 ends with the introduction of General Grievous. He is a fearsome warrior that makes Darth Maul look like an easy opponent. He takes on multiple Jedi, at least 2 of whom are highly trained. He’s incredibly agile and impossibly fast. We don’t learn much about him this time, but there is more to come.
***END SPOILERS***

It’s fast-paced and exciting. It’s dark and dangerous. It’s bold and heroic. It is a worthy addition to the Star Wars cannon. Which is not to say it’s without its flaws. I think the animation design could have been better. I like the angular characters in Samurai Jack, but they don’t work as well in Star Wars. I would much rather have had a more faithful recreation of the actors’ likenesses. They are not so far off that it’s hard to tell who’s who, but a dead-on image would have fit the universe more.

I think the writing has one major flaw. Mace, in his battle against the Super Battle Droids, is too powerful. It’s one thing for him to come up with a clever way to win the day, but to be completely surrounded by legions of heavily armed killers and get out with a single Force push makes me wonder why he didn’t send the rest of the Jedi home and battle the droids himself when rescuing Anakain and OB1 in Ep.2.

Other than that the writing is good. There are numerous subtleties and intertwining events. Often the dialogue takes a back seat to visuals and sound. This is one of the things that drew me to Samurai Jack. Telling a story with just pictures is no easy task. Sure a picture is worth a thousand words, but using no words takes a lot of talent. It adds an excellent artistic element.

There is a ton of action: space battles, lightsaber duels, gladiator free-for-alls, shoot-outs, ARC trooper infiltrations, and plenty more. Clone and droid armies, ships, and bounty hunters all get their turns to show what they can do. What most of us really want to see is Jedi and Sith in action. We get heavy doses of that. With genuine Martial Arts moves combined with Jedi powers faithful to what has already been set as the standard in the movies, the Jedi moves feel simultaneously natural and fantastic. Plus we get to see the extremely cool effects of water on lightsaber blades. I’d like to see the movies get a little inspiration from that!

There are a couple of moments where the voice acting sounds a little bit off like with maintaining a particular accent, but mostly the voices are outstanding considering they are not the original actors (with the exception of Anthony Daniels). I was particularly impressed with Dooku (Genndy says in the commentary that it turned out to be one of his favorites, too). The commanding boom captures Chris Lee’s essence incredibly well.

This is a great series in nearly every way. Some have called it better than the first two prequels. I don’t know if I would go that far, but if you like the movies you will almost definitely like the cartoon.

Content:
Very tame and child-appropriate. No language, nudity, sex, or so much as innuendo. The worst you get is some mildly frightening images and some tame violence. Droids gets blown apart, but human deaths are more implied like someone falling into darkness. Even when Durge shoots a clonetrooper 3 times the guy looks more like he was hit with a fist than lethal doses of laser. Nobody loses a body part so it’s less violent than the movies. Maybe that’s not as gritty as some people would like it, but I don’t feel that the lack of blood and gore makes it hokey or less enjoyable in any way.

DVD
The DVD is pretty good - not nearly as impressive as the movie DVD’s, but with more effort than many others. The case is standard plastic. I love the cover art design. Good guys on one side, bad guys on the other with Anakin straddling the fence so to speak.

Audio and video are awesome. You couldn’t get this in any higher quality except for more audio channels (available is 2.0 surround). Format is a 1.78 anamorphic widescreen for all you buffs with widescreen TV’s.

Besides the usual FBI crap and all that precedes the interface there’s a nice bit of animation. There is a little animation and some music on the interface itself and throughout the pages of the menu.

If you remember the run of the show you’ll likely know that there were originally 20 individual segments each with its own title card. 19 of the segments were 3 minutes in length while the last was more like 7. Could you imagine watching 3 minutes of cartoon then going back to the interface that many times? Thankfully this is not so cumbersome. There is one title card at the very beginning followed by 20 chapters. Each chapter is an episode all edited together in an almost seamless presentation. A couple of the wipes between segments could have been a little better, but sometimes you’ll find yourself deep in the next chapter before it seems like 3 minutes have passed. There is an additional chapter with some credits.

The extras aren’t as lengthy or numerous as I had hoped, but there’s some decent stuff here. There are 2 commentaries by Genndy. I don’t know why there are 2 by the same single person especially since the first one isn’t very good. Maybe it’s not so bad for someone new to the Star Wars universe, but at least for me, it was too much telling of the story and stating the obvious. The other is the same commentary featured on Hyperspace and is more informative.

There are a couple of short behind the scenes videos. One is kind of a general making-of type. It covers planning & designing, that sort of thing. It’s very interesting and offers a few small glimpses of Ep.3. The other is something of an overview. It covers more aspects including a look at the voice actors, something animated shows do not include enough of. This one has a small screen ratio for some reason. Both features are quite good but could stand to be longer.

There are 2 galleries. One is concept sketches. It’s shorter than I expected but does have some great images. The other is a collection of posters and is an excellent collection.

There are 3 previews that are slightly more exciting than the norm. One is a teaser for Ep.3, one is for the Ep. 3 game, and one is for the Republic Commando game. The last one is lengthy and worth taking the time to watch.

The last DVD feature is the THX Optimizer that comes on so many DVD’s. It’s a useful tool.

As always I would give up the X Box demo for more DVD features, but Republic Commando is my favorite demo far. You step into the boots of an ARC Trooper and go shooting Battle Droids, Genosians, and even a couple of Destroyer Droids. You decide who to set on point and who to provide backup, issue the commands, and carry out the mission. If I actually had an X Box it would definitely have gotten me interested in the game which is the whole point of it being there, I suppose. A PC version of the demo would have given more of us the opportunity to enjoy it.

Final Thoughts:
Clone Wars is a must have for any Star Wars fan. Fans of action cartoons may also want to check it out, but it won’t be as meaningful if you aren’t familiar with the story from the movies. Though it’s shorter than a movie and doesn’t exactly have hours of extras, it is also cheaper than the average new movie release so there’s a balance there. It could stand to have more extras or at least longer behind the scenes features, but other than that I have no complaints. What’s here is good. You can easily go through everything in a rental period, but it’s worth a purchase just to be able to go back to after you’ve seen more of the story. I give it as high a rating as the movies, it’s that good. 5*


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12