Send In the Clones

So, a little while ago I bought the first season of the Clone Wars animated series on Blu-Ray and apart from being just amazed with the overall quality of the presentation, I have kind of been rediscovering these early episodes and seeing them in a slightly new light.

Stories that seemed a little 'meh' on first viewing stand a little taller when watching them in a clump on this set. I've started to really appreciate the writing more, especially in light of where things have gone with the next season. I also think I've started appreciating their time and dollar budgets a little more and have been cutting them some slack for any early missteps. Again, when you see how far they've taken things in season two, you start to see these things from a certain point of view.

One of my favourite things that has really stood out have been the textures on the show. Everything from the characters skin to the sides of buildings and the clone armour have been textured in such a way that they have a very painterly feel to them. And when I made the connection between the crews love of early Star Wars production artwork and the look of Ralph Mcquarrie's artwork, it was like a lightning bolt to the head. Everything on the show is, essentially, a three dimensional, walking and talking Mcquarrie painting. It's great.

And there are so many other tiny details and minutia that make this show a truly underrated effort. I know it is popular, but it doesn't get talked about much outside of Star Wars fandom and the playground. I would actually love to see someone who has lost their Star Wars mojo post-prequels try this show out and see what they think of it, to be honest. I think they might be surprised.

Anyway, that's my Lucas-related post for the month.

As always, more later.

mike

Clone Wars Season 2 - Not Disappointing

I've been posting a lot of negative thoughts on the ol' blog of late, which may be bad juju since I'm trying to do the whole 'Hey, I'm back and blogging regularly' thing, so I'm going to change gears briefly and throw out some positive thoughts regarding the second season of The Clone Wars.

If you saw season one, you probably were very aware of the various limitations of the show. Not a lot of characters, not a lot of settings/environments, characters whose models were a little stiff and whose faces did not move quite right, and the usual first season stumbling around and finding your rhythm kind of thing. With season two a lot of that has changed. Subtle bits of acting are not uncommon, better mouth movements to match the voice actors, humongous improvements to details, textures, editing and story. Most of all the stories.

Before there were a lot of two or three part arcs that were generally interesting, but there was a rhythm to the storytelling that felt off. Whether that was due to budget and time restrictions, I'm not sure. But lately I've just been feeling that I am, indeed, watching Star Wars, or a logical extension of it. Plus, watching the relationships develop is nice because it gives some context that was missing from Revenge of the Sith and, at the end of the day, may just make the prequel series a little bit better than it was a couple of years ago.


I'll leave you with the trailer for season two. There's some nice teaser stuff in there if you've yet to see any episodes, and other than that, it's just fun to watch.



May the force be with you.

Mike

Clone Wars Review With Dave Filoni

While surfing the Star Wars site I ran across this interview with director, Dave Filoni. I've read a number of interviews regarding the show, and seen a few featurettes on the DVD and online, but this was one of the more informative pieces on season 1 I've seen in a while.

Now, if only someone could get an answer as to why Ahmed Best is no longer voicing Jar Jar, I would be a happy Clone Wars fan.

Cheers!

mike

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