Clone Thoughts

I just finished watching the feature film and the first two episodes of the brand-spanking-new Clone Wars animated series and, I must say, I am very much impressed. More by the show than the film, really, but when you think of my biggest complaints with the prequel trilogy being the fact that we did not spend enough time with Anakin to give a rat's ass about his fall, this whole endeavour is just a godsend, you know? All we saw were the whingy bits with Anakin pining away for Padmé and none of the bonding with Obi-Wan, or the heroic efforts he made during the Clone Wars to rate 'potentially greatest Jedi ever', so having the opportunity to go back and spend some time with the guy is something I'm looking forward to.

So far, the show has just about everything I would have expected or wanted from this particular material covering the time period between Episode 2 and 3 of the Star Wars saga. The feature was paced in such a way that we spent a LOT of time watching battle scenes interrupted briefly by characters moving location to engage in more battles (which is a funny thing to complain about when you're talking about a war movie) so it's not my favourite of the two projects but I can say with some conviction that I'll be watching it again soon (and with any luck on Blu-Ray in the very near future). The half-hour series, however, is pretty exceptional and I hope it has a long life on the network because I think they might be able to save Episodes II and III from themselves if they do a good job on the character writing.

Anyway, I just wanted to chime in and give a happy thumbs up to the show and encourage those who have not checked it out to go and do so. You can watch them for free on the official Star Wars site and on Cartoon Network's site.

Later!

mike