Welcome back my friends to the war that never ends. As you may recall, The Clone Wars volume one detailed some of the Jedi action on the front lines between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. We saw the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi versus Dirge, Mace Windu against a Confederacy superweaon, Anakin Skywalker battling a Dark Jedi and a whole bunch of B-List Jedi you've never heard of getting owned by a powerful new foe: General Grievous.

Volume two picks up right where the first volume left off - with a squad of Clone Troopers rescuing the besieged Jedi from the Confederacy. Meanwhile, the Clone Wars rage on, spreading across the stars. Obi-Wan and Anakin (now promoted to full knighthood) are reassigned from the front by Chancellor Palpatine to track down General Grievous on a remote rim world. While there, Anakin must help the indigenous tribe after their men are taken by the Evil Bankers for hideous experiments.

Meanwhile, the Confederacy makes a bold attack on Courscant, seat of the Republic's power. Every available Jedi joins the battle, both in space and on the ground - only to discover that the battle is simply a diversion while General Grievous makes to kidnap Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. The Jedi assigned to protect him fight valiantly, but will it be enough to stop the sinister cyborg commander. . . .

The Clone Wars began life as a series of three minute shorts on the Cartoon Network, spearheaded by Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack. For the second go round, instead of 20 three-minute segments, we get 5 fifteen-minute segments, allowing for more plot and character development and dialing back the action just a bit. Instead of developing the series in a vacuum, Tartakovsky and his team worked hand in hand with Lucasfilm to tell the story of Revenge of the Sith, showing what led to the opening crawl of the movie.

And that's this segment's strength - not only is there ebb and flow of a story, there's coherency and continuity. It feels like there's actually a narrative here - and it still manages to deliver on the gratuitous over-the-top Clone combat, Jedi jumping and Force-pushing, and copious lightsaber duels. The highlight of the Courscant battle is the Shaak Ti (the red and white skinned Jedi) and friends versus Grievous and the MagnaGuards in the subway station with some really nice choreography.

However, the flip side of that coin (the Dark Side, if you will) is that the Anakin journey of discovery is boring as hell. His story starts out well, with a montage of Anakin proving just why he was such a respected and revered Jedi Knight and cunning warrior. And then he gets stuck on a backwater planet listening to some country bumpkin shaman how he has to rescue a bunch of genetically altered aliens. It seems like small potatoes to The Chosen One, one of the greatest Jedi ever to live, a future Sith that would bring the Galaxy to it's knees. It’s not nearly as dynamic as the epic saber duel between Anakin and Asajj Ventress from volume one.

THE DVD -
Once again, Lucasarts delivers a sweet looking package. We get a 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen that looks vivid and gorgeous with some eye-popping colors. The audio seems more robust this time around too, with some nice surround sound action going on.

THE EXTRAS -
Much like the first volume we get a short documentary about the ties between the live action films and the animated versions, we get commentary from
Genndy Tartakovsky, art director/writer Paul Rudish, writer/storyboard artist Bryan Andrews, and production manager Darrick Bachman - and it's much more interesting with a group to play off of this time around.

Also included are the largely pointless cross promotion trailers to Star Wars Battlefront II (along with a playable XBox demo) and Star Wars: Empire at War (a utterly crap game that you should avoid at all costs. There, a free mini-review inside a review). Lastly there's a still gallery filled with the concept art and promotional whatizts that we've come to expect, the trailer for Revenge of the Sith, and a short CGI film called Revenge of the Brick that takes Lego Jedi and puts them through their paces - although the Star Wars Lego games look much better than this, and I wish they had done it in that style.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
While Tartakovsky and crew have managed to improve on the deficiencies of first season of Clone Wars, infusing season 2 with far more character development and plot, they've managed to make 50% of the plot suck. So skip the Anakin bits and jump right to the Courscant bits and you'll be golden.

THE STAR WARS REVIEWS:
* THE PHANTOM MENACE
* ATTACK OF THE CLONES
* THE CLONE WARS VOLUME 1
* THE CLONE WARS VOLUME 2
* REVENGE OF THE SITH
* A NEW HOPE
* THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
* RETURN OF THE JEDI

Recommended:
Yes

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