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Age usually hits you hardest when you the least expect it. Like e.g. when I recently read somewhere that Freddy Mercury died 1991 and I realized that in less than 3 months we have 2011...

I have to say that I enjoy watching it when it shows up in my TiVo's suggestions. I haven't taken the step of actually setting up a season's pass though (don't know why, it probably deserves it). But it means I'm not watching them in order, although I haven't found that much of a problem.

Order isn't really much of an issue, unless they're revisiting a previously-known character or plot point. Even then, at the beginning of each episode they take the time to explain what's going on (since, after all, this is actually aimed at kids).

 

As far as age goes, I work at a college, so I'm constantly surrounded by an ever-changing influx of youth. When I got to the point where we started having students there that were born after Star Wars (1977), I thought I was old then. Now, we're getting students who were born after I got there! (1991) I've been there their entire lives. Now that makes me feel old.

 

That, and the realization that some of my favorite arcade games (Battlezone, Defender) are now 30. That doesn't seem possible.

 

To put it into perspective, the time from when the original Star Wars came out (33 years ago) until now, is the same as the time from then, back to 1944! So the kids around today are as far removed from me, as I am from the generation that went through WWII!

Someone has posted a scrapbook on Flickr they made when Star Wars first came out. I distinctly remember this ad. Hard to think of any movie running in the theaters for an entire year, now. There's an interview with the guy on the official Star Wars site, too.

This week brought Assassin - the best episode of the season so far. Continuing the theme of Ahsoka's continued growth as a Jedi, she began seeing Jedi 'visions' in which someone was trying to assassinate Padme. There were a couple of nice scenes with Yoda mentoring her, as she tried to sort out what her dreams meant, how to follow up on them, and whether to trust her own instincts or not. The whole thing boiled down to an all-too-brief fight with bounty huntress Aurra Sing (the preview for the episode implied it was going to much more epic), but it still had good action, and showed the increasing skills and selfless bravery of the Jedi-in-training. Plus the episode had good intrigue and suspense (well, for a cartoon), and managed to keep the politicking enough in the background so it wasn't annoying.

 

A particularly nice touch was a visit to Alderaan, as Padme's ship was landing in the midst of this serene (and doomed) world, Princess Leia's theme was plaintively played. It was a very poignant and thoughtful moment.

 

The episode wrapped up with them discovering the villain behind the plot - Ziro the Hutt - who is kind of a purple, tattooed, smaller version of Jabba, whose voice sounds like Truman Capote, but with a New Orleans accent. Anyway, he'll be showing up again, since he swore revenge and all that.

 

In fact, this blurb is on the official website page for this episode:

This episode, more than others, reveals the convoluted chronology of stories from the first two seasons. The Season Two finale, "Lethal Trackdown," actually takes place before the Season One finale, "Hostage Crisis."

 

In a chronological flow of events, the series begins with the action on Christophsis ("Cat and Mouse," "The Hidden Enemy"), which introduces Ahsoka to the Clone Wars ("The New Padawan," which was incorporated into feature film). Then, the kidnapping of Rotta the Hutt introduces Ziro the Hutt, and the movie ends with Ziro's incarceration. Many Season One and Season Two episodes then follow, with Season Two's trilogy of Boba Fett episodes introducing Aurra Sing into the storyline. The crashing of the Slave I leads the Jedi to mistakenly believe that Aurra is dead, until she surfaces in this episode, which brings back Ziro -- chronologically -- for the first time since his imprisonment. The story continues in the next Season Three episode, "Evil Plans", and Aurra will somehow be freed from captivity in time for Cad Bane's attack on the Senate in Season One's "Hostage Crisis." The drama surrounding Ziro and his freedom then picks up in "Hunt for Ziro," the ninth episode of this season.

 

Guess I'll have to pick up the Clone Wars movie now... I've still never seen it. And with the next new episode in two weeks, maybe now is as good of a time as any.

Age usually hits you hardest when you the least expect it. Like e.g. when I recently read somewhere that Freddy Mercury died 1991 and I realized that in less than 3 months we have 2011...

It just hit me. Ouch!

Tonight's episode was Evil Plans, in which bad guys formulated some... evil plans!

 

As Padme had to put on a fancy dinner to impress some other senator, C-3PO got to strut his stuff as a protocol droid (he'd be right at home on Private Chefs of Beverly Hills). When they needed a cake topper for the dessert (no... I'm not making this up), he and R2-D2 had to run out to the 7-11 to pick one up. However, R2 got sidetracked by some place offering the robotic equivalent of a Swedish massage, and C-3PO got kidnapped. Then, R2 got kidnapped and they were both tortured by Cad Bane, who extracted information about the interior layout of the Senate building from R2. Y'see, the Hutt family (one of whom looks a little like Peter Lorre) wants Bane to bust Ziro the Hutt out of jail. So... guess what happens next week? Yep. If this week was "Evil Plans", then next week must be "Evil Break-Out".

 

Lorre the Hutt

 

Other than setting up for next week, it wasn't much of an episode. R2 seemed out of character, going off to get a massage while C-3PO got kidnapped. (Usually, R2 was the more reliable one, wasn't he?) I was also disappointed that in the end, nobody knocked over the big huge cake, like when they fall over on Food Network Challenge. Anyway, some of the robot masseuses were cute... in a robot sort-of-way. Not really my thing, but some people might be into that.

 

Just flipping through the slideshow on the episode's webpage really reinforces how much work they put into this show, from a visual standpoint. It's really pretty impressive, although I have to wonder how they can afford that kind of budget for a 1/2 hour cartoon.

 

Must be selling lots of toys.

This week's episode was Hunt for Ziro. Apparently, last week's episode was a flashback from before the end of the first season, since in this episode, Ziro has already been busted out of prison.

 

Follow that?

 

Me neither.

 

Anyway, he's out, and Obi-Wan and surfer-dude/Jedi Quinlan Vos are tasked with tracking him down. Ziro is being held by the rest of the Hutts so he can't reveal their criminal activities (see also: The Untouchables).

 

Now then, remember Sy Snootles from Return of the Jedi? The ugly lead-singer Muppet from Jabba's palace? Well, it turns out she's Ziro's girlfriend (try not to think about that...) and breaks him out of the Hutts' headquarters.

 

Oh, and there's a Vegas showgirl musical number in there, too. Which really wasn't half-bad.

 

Anyway, we then get to meet Ziro's mom. Now if you thought Jabba was fat... well let's just say, Ziro's momma is so fat, when she sits around the planet, she sits around the planet. His momma's so fat, the Death Star got stuck in orbit around her. His momma's so fat, Darth Vader accidentally blew her up because he though she was Alderaan. His momma's so fat, Obi-Wan said, "That's no moon... that's yo' momma!" His momma's so...

 

What?

 

Oh, sorry. Got sidetracked there.

 

Anyway, Ziro gets off the planet, finds his diary with the secret Hutt info in it, then gets betrayed by a certain Mick Jagger-lipped yellow female alien singer. Then there's some shooting, and Cad Bane shows up and teaches everyone how cool a bounty hunter is supposed to be (no falling into Sarlacc pits here). And in the end, the Hutts are in the clear, Sy has job security for life, the Jedi's are left standing around looking stupid, and really not much of anything has changed. But maybe we'll start getting into some more meaty stories next week. After all, this season is subtitled, "Secrets Will Be Revealed", and a bloated yellow Muppet on scrawny legs lip-locking with a giant purple slug wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

Speaking of Star Wars... check these cool new posters out. I think I may have to get the Star Destroyer one.

Those are cool - forwarded the page to my SW fanatic friend.

Last night's episode - Heroes on Both Sides - was a morality tale about deregulated banking.

 

Yep. Nothing more appealing in a kids' show, than a Senate debate on deregulated banking.

 

Deregulated banking.

 

Just sort of rolls off the tongue... doesn't it?

 

You see, Deregulated Banking is the name of a new Sith Apprentice. He's sort of like Darth Maul, except he kills Jedi with financial double-talk and mountains of accountancy paperwork. His catch phrase is, "We will drown them in pools of their own bureaucracy!"

 

And then he...

 

No?

 

That's not what it was about?

 

Wow. I guess I need to pay more attention.

 

Actually, deregulated banking was only the plot device for the episode. What it was really about, was teaching Anakin's apprentice (Ahsoka) about war having two sides, and even though one side (the Separatist Accountants) is run by evil people, not all of the people who are Separatist Accountants are evil themselves. Of course what we know as the audience, is that both sides are being run by evil people. But that doesn't get figured out until it's waaaaay too late. Anyway, Padme takes Ahsoka off to visit a friend of hers who used to be part of the Republic before the war started, but is now an Accountant. This puts a human face to what she assumed was just an evil droid army.

 

And in the end, we all learn a little bit about ourselves, and feel better for it.

 

But then some vacuum cleaner droids go all Transformers, and blow up Coruscant's power grid and ruin everybody's fun.

 

Jerks.

 

(They really missed an opportunity to slip the Transfomers' sound effect in there, too.)

 

So, not the most action-packed episode. But what surprised me is how good some of the facial animation has gotten on Ahsoka. I suppose it makes sense, since she's effectively the central character of the show, being the one that the kids who are watching will most closely identify with. There's some really solid, subtle emotional animation being done in this episode, where they take some time to give her some different expressions, thoughtful moments, and so forth.

 

One of the things likely helping this, is that they're starting to use new CG models for some of the principle characters. Ahsoka and Anakin are noticeably different. They both appear a bit older, their costumes have changed (for the better), and Anakin appears more like he did in Revenge of the Sith. Angrier, scruffier, darker. Although his eyebrows are weird. They appear to be molded as part of his face like an action figure's, and painted just as badly (only on the front, not the tops or sides). I found that very distracting. (Admittely, without HD, I'd likely never have noticed it). Ahsoka has grown up, appearing less like scrawny kid, and more like a teenager, and the additional maturity seems to be reflected in her character more. She's also sporting dual lightsabers now, although they have yet to explain how or why she picked up the second one (and she didn't use them in this episode, either).

 

 

It's cool they're making the decision to age the characters. Very rare for a cartoon series. It's also interesting from the standpoint that they're acknowledging they're moving forward towards Revenge of the Sith, and at some point, when they get there - this series will come to an end.

 

From the Star Wars website:

As previously reported, this episode unveils new models for several of the main characters, including upgrades to Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, and a new wardrobe for Chancellor Palpatine. Ahsoka is now older; there is an unspecified passage of time between this episode and her last appearance. With the start of this arc, which continues in "Pursuit of Peace" and concludes in Season Two's "Senate Murders," the Clone Wars storyline advances to its furthest point in the timeline, and subsequent episodes should continue going forward without as much jumping back and forth.

Cartoon Network finally showed the theatrical Clone Wars movie yesterday.

 

Saved me the cost of a Blu-Ray rental!

 

It was really impressive in scope. There were more large set pieces and battle scenes than in typical episodes of the series. The animation was generally pretty good too, which was probably attributable to this being geared for a theatrical release. And although you can clearly see how things have improved both from an animation standpoint and technical aspect since then, it holds up pretty well.

 

The story is twofold - following Ahsoka's introduction as Anakin's new apprentice, and their mission to rescue Jabba the Hutt's son - Burpy the Hutt - from kidnappers. Or was it Stinky the Hutt. Belchy? Wormy? Not sure. Never caught his name. Anyway, it was all a setup to blame the Jedi for the kidnapping, so the Hutts would deny the Republic forces safe passage through the outer rim systems. Turns out the (now late) Ziro the Hutt was put up to it by Count Dooku. (Ziro, by the way, is Jabba's uncle. News to me.)

 

Surprised I remembered all that? Me too! But they repeated it a half-dozen times during the movie, so it wasn't really by choice.

 

Anyway, it was interesting to see where the characters started, and be able to look back now at how they (especially Ahsoka) have changed. She started off as a hyper, headstrong, annoying little kid, and Anakin didn't want anything to do with her as a Padawan. But by the end of the movie, she'd begun to prove her worth, and Anakin began to show a genuine, big brotherly fondness and protectiveness for her. One interesting thing Yoda mentioned (which could be foreshadowing), is that while Anakin was ready to be her mentor, he wasn't ready to let go of her, and that would be something he'd have to learn to do.

 

There was plenty of good action, including a lightsaber fight between Anakin and Dooku, and one between Obi-Wan and Ventress. And how much better is Obi-Wan than her? At one point in the fight, she had two light sabers, and he had none, and he still beat her. Take that.

 

There were plenty of battles both in space and on the ground (and one really cool vertical battle going straight up the side of a cliff), and lots of really unpleasant deaths for the Clone Troopers. But hey... that's what they're there for. Sort of like Red Shirts in Star Trek.

 

Which brings up a question... if you had a battle between Red Shirts and Clone Troopers... who'd die first?

 

I think it'd be the Red Shirts. While the Clones are susceptible to dying in battle, Red Shirts are susceptible to dying everywhere. Meet up with a salt-sucking alien? Dead. Step on an exploding rock? Dead. Get shot by a poisonous flower? Dead. The Red Shirts would be lucky to even make it to the battlefield.

 

The Clone Wars movie will be on a few more times this week (check your local listings). It's worth checking out, or at least DVR'ing for later viewing.

This week's episode was Pursuit of Peace.

 

It involved more Senate debates, more talks about deregulated banking, and other fun stuff that kids love in their cartoons.

 

Like for instance, during her "Pursuit of Peace", Padme attempts to drag a bounty hunter to death behind a speeder bike that she's riding. Then, because he won't die fast enough by slamming him into obstacles and buildings, she sprays gasoline in his face.

 

But she doesn't light him.

 

Because that would be violent.

 

Then, because Senator Bail Organa (who was probably teased with the nickname "Fail" as a child) doesn't have airbags in his landspeeder, Padme had to give an impassioned speech about how the cost of the war is affecting people like her handmaiden, completely missing the irony that she's part of the privileged set that can still afford handmaidens, while the rest of the galaxy is starving to death. Aren't politics fun?

 

At the end of the episode though, we did get to see a brief exchange between Palpatine and his assistant, which was really our first look at him without hiding behind his public persona. So we're getting to see a little more of the future Emperor from time to time, which is kind of cool.

 

According to the website:

This episode is immediately followed by Season Two's Senate Murders, where Onaconda and Mee Deechee meet their end.

So we're still out-of-order.

 

Wait a minute... Anaconda and Medici? Sounds like a bad SyFy channel buddy-cop movie.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble!

 

Catching up on the two most recent episodes - Nightsisters and Monster. These are the first two episodes of a three-part trilogy centering around Asajj Ventress. She's the female apprentice of Count Dooku, in case you haven't been following along. She's skinny, bald, and wields two lightsabers.

 

The Emperor (aka Darth Sidious) feels threatened by her increasing powers, so he orders Dooku to kill her off, to prove his loyalty. He reluctantly does so, but unbeknownst to him, she survives. Realizing she's been betrayed, she heads back to her homeworld, where we discover some more of her backstory, and that she comes from a planet of space witches. This also happens to be the planet where Darth Maul (the red-faced guy who got chopped in half in Star Wars: Ep. I) came from, and it turns out the men there are subservient to the women. So if you thought he was "all that", then the women are more "all that".

 

Anyway, using magic, Ventress and two of her Nightsisters attack Dooku, disguised as stealthy Jedi Ninjas. Or something. Anyway, it was really cool. All wispy and smoky with lots of cool fighting. But while they fail to kill him, the attack convinces him he needs a new apprentice, which of course, the Nightsisters offer to provide.

 

All part of their master plan.

 

So Ventress goes shopping for someone from Darth Maul's kinfolk, and comes back with a French guy - Savage Opress. (It's pronounced "Sah-vahj Oh-press", although he doesn't sound French. Maybe he's French-Canadian.) Then they use their magic to über buff him up, and present him to Dooku (who still thinks Ventress is dead, I should point out). The idea is, he'll earn Dooku's confidence, then turn on him.

 

So Dooku sends Opress on his first mission, in which he uses a big spear-thing to kill off a bunch of Clone Troopers, and two Jedi. Brutal.

 

Anyway, it's nice to get into some more meaty, action-oriented stories again, and these two deliver big-time. No boring politics here, and the backstory on Ventress is a nice change of pace. There are some genuinely creepy, moody moments in these episodes, and some fierce action sequences. I'm looking forward to part three.

 

As an aside, the two "fortune cookies" they started these episodes off with were: "The swiftest path to destruction is through vengeance" and "Evil is not born, it is taught". Yeah! Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout! Finally some lessons the youth of America can take to heart!

 

Oh wait... were those supposed to be negative?

 

Well, whatever.

Last week's episode was Witches of the Mist, and it was probably the best episode of the season so far.

 

Savage O'press (I've decided he's Irish, not French), is going around causing all kinds of ruckus. The Jedi decide they better put a stop to it before they end up on the endangered species list.

 

Or would that be engendered species? Take your pick.

 

We get to see some scenes of what training for the Dark Side of the force is all about. Remember Luke on Dagobah? Yeah... it's not that. This involves lots of Force Lightning™ and anger management.

 

So, the Jedi figure out where Savage came from, and find out that he's going to another planet to kidnap the King of the Little Weird Fluttery People. Same species as the guy who owned Anakin as a slave waaaaay back in SW Episode I: The Phantom Mess. Those guys.

 

So Savage goes in there, busts some heads, and just as he's about to get away with the king, Anakin and Obi-Wan show up. Savage gives them both a good thumping, and manages to escape with the King.

 

Except that he kind of killed him in the process, which was against orders. Bad Opress! No biscuit! So when he gets back to Dooku's ship, he gets chastised for that. With more Force Lighting™.

 

Just then, Asajj Ventress shows up, reminds Savage that his loyalties lie with her, and they both attack Dooku. Which is largely ineffective, but still cool. At some point though, Savage gets tired of being bossed around by everyone, and attacks them both. So Dooku and Ventress both run away, just as the Jedi show up.

 

Bad day for Savage all around.

 

So there's more fighting more escaping, and in the end Savage limps home in defeat, only to be told that he'll need to go look up an exiled relative of his in order to complete his training, and become the full-on galactic bad boy that Lucasfilm is promising everyone.

 

Oh, and this exiled relative?

 

Darth Maul.

 

Or at least, half of him. Or his twin. Anyway, it's a little hard to tell since the crystal ball they were using was all fuzzy.

 

But it was a good, solid episode, with lots of action. Great Friday Night TV, really.

 

I'm looking forward to this week's, too. The teaser promised "secrets would be revealed" including... the origins of The Force, the identity of The Chosen One, the future of Ahsoka... and what has Liam Neeson been up to lately?

Last week - Overlords. The Jedi council gets a call from someplace in the middle of nowhere, and Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka go to check it out.

 

What they find, is a giant floating diamond-shaped-thing in space. Sort of like a Borg cube, but tilted onto a corner. Within it (or maybe it was just a portal to somewhere else) is an Avatar-ish world where they find this guy and his two kids, and they can wield the Force like nobody's business. Fortunately, they're called "Force Wielders" so that worked out pretty well. Neither Jedi nor Sith, it seems they can wield both sides of the Force, and have been doing so for thousands of years.

 

News to me. I'd never heard of these guys before. But then, neither had anyone else in the episode.

 

It was a pretty trippy, but very cool episode. This is the sort of stuff George should've done with the Force back in Episode I. For one thing, it helped explain (without spelling it out completely) what Anakin is as the Chosen One. We still don't know quite exactly how he became the Chosen One, or who his father (or mother, for that matter) actually were. But now Star Wars nerds everywhere can speculate even more. Also, they didn't mention Midichlorians even once. So bonus points for that.

 

So, how tough are these Force Wielders™? Well, lightsabers do absolutely no good against them. They can push your lightsaber blade back into its hilt, and just shut it off.

 

With their hand.

 

Yep.

 

And they can also reshape reality around them, and stuff like that.

 

We got to see Qui-Gon briefly, and Anakin's mom, and Ahsoka's potential future self (she's hot, by the way) although given the nature of the whole episode, we have to question if they were real or not.

 

I don't re-watch many episodes, but I did this one and I'm keeping it in the DVR for awhile, since this was part one of a three-parter. I'm really interested to see what sort of stuff is revealed (according to the teaser trailers, that would be "secrets"). Are they real secrets though, that will re-write some of the history of the Star Wars universe? Or is it all a big fake-out that won't mean anything when it's all over. I'm hoping for the former, personally.

This week brought Altar of Mortis, which is part two of the three-part story arc involving all sorts of stuff regarding The Force, Anakin's destiny, and secrets being revealed.

 

In this episode, Ahsoka turned to the Dark Side.

 

Then bad things happened.

 

Next week is part three, where it looks like more bad things happen, including a glimpse at Anakin's future.

 

Two words: kkooooossssshhh wwwwsssssssssshhhh.

 

(That's Darth Vader breathing. Go on - do it out loud. It works.)

 

It's all quite good stuff, although it's a little strange, because the characters in the Clone Wars (Anakin and Obi-Wan, particularly) are far more interesting there than they ever were in Episodes I - III. Now admittedly, that's really not all that difficult, but it actually has the odd side-effect of making those movies look even worse. Ep. III was on TV not too long ago, and I found myself missing the characters as they're portrayed in the TV series.

 

It's just too bad that Lucas couldn't have made this series first, before making Episode III. Then maybe he'd have figured out how to write Revenge of the Sith better so Anakin's turn to the Dark Side had been set up more believably, and the final battle with Obi-Wan had more emotional impact.

 

As an aside, it always bothered me that in Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan didn't even try to save Anakin from turning into barbecued brisket. Moreover, it bothered me to find out that Obi-Wan was a big, fat liar, since he had told Luke that Anakin wanted him to have his lightsaber when he was old enough, when in fact no such thing ever happened. Finally, it bothered me that there was no remorse from Anakin during or after the fight with Obi-Wan. And the more I watch the Clone Wars, the less likely all three of those things seem.

 

What I think should have happened at the end of the lightsaber battle in Revenge of the Sith, would've gone something like this:

 

As before, Anakin gets his legs chopped off, and falls on the crusted-over lava, getting badly burned. But this time, Obi-Wan tries to pull him to safety, but can't because the ground is giving out beneath his feet, threatening his own life. He tries to persist anyway, but Anakin finally realizes the wrong he's done, and forces (or Forces) Obi-Wan to abandon the attempt. In his death throes, Anakin tasks Obi-Wan with taking care of Padme and his unborn son, making him promise that he (Luke) would become the Jedi that Anakin ultimately failed to be. As this is going on, the Emperor arrives, forcing Obi-Wan to leave before any further attempt at rescue could be made. Anakin is remorseful, but now too weak to resist the Emperor. Also, the Emperor should really be chastising Anakin, belittling him as a "pathetic fool" (you can just hear him saying that, right?), establishing a more antagonistic, manipulative relationship between them. Finally, George should have made it so that the Emperor was the one responsible for killing Padme, rather than her just "losing the will to live". This whole approach would have reinforced Anakin as the tragic, fallen hero, and the Emperor as the villain/mastermind.

 

Anyway George, if you want to fix that before the Blu-ray edition comes out, I won't mind. Call me.

Funny... I thought I already wrote up a comment on Ghosts of Mortis. Anyway, that was part three of the three part story arc, where Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka find this world where these heavy-duty Force-wielders reside, and Anakin's destiny is revealed to him. Which bums him out, what with the whole turning to the Dark Side, killing younglings, wife dying, and getting turned into a barbecued half-robot with bad asthma thing.

 

Of course, he can't really know that, so of course everybody's memories get erased at the end. And since all of the Force-wielders end up dead, the whole "balance of the Force" problem got neatly wrapped up. Kind of a cheat, sure, but it was still an interesting episode from the standpoint of Star Wars mythology.

 

After that, came another three-parter. The reason I haven't written that one up until now, was because I just waited until all three episodes had aired before I watched them together.

 

The three episodes were The Citadel, Counterattack, and Citadel Rescue. The basic plot is, a Jedi (and he's a widdle cute Jedi... yes he is!) gets kidnapped and taken to (da-dum!!) The Citadel. This is a prison deep in the heart of Separatist territory. The interesting thing is, this prison was built by the Jedi, to hold Jedi, in case any went bad. I thought that was kind of an interesting concept. For one thing, they're admitting that Jedi do go bad. And for another, that they figured they needed someplace to put them if they did. The Clone Wars is pretty good about showing the not-always-so-good-as-they-might-think-they-are side of the Jedi.

 

Anyway, so they have to break in, rescue the Jedi and his ship's Captain (because they each have half of a secret set of coordinates that both sides want), then get back out.

 

They did a few really interesting things this episode. For one, they introduced carbon-freezing. The Jedi and their clone troopers froze themselves to get past security sensors. Definitely a nice nod to The Empire Strikes Back. Then, they used enemy droids that they had captured and re-programmed to be on their side. This was a really smart move, and makes you wonder why they don't do that more often. Also, the Captain they had to rescue? That would be a rather skinny British dude by the name of Tarkin. So they had some fun developing his character. And all throughout this three-parter, they kept bringing the action, and more to the point, the reality of violence in a war. They don't shy away from it, either. The captured Jedi was shown getting tortured. Several clones died, including one getting cut in half by one of those all-too-fast-moving blast doors™, and another simply being executed by being shot in the forehead - point blank. Boom. Dead. Not kiddie stuff. Speaking of kiddies, Ahsoka ended up running her lightsaber through a bad-guy's torso. From behind. Ouch. Plus, there were some wolf-like creatures getting lightsabered in half, and tossed (alive) into lava. And there were even more of the good guys dying onscreen in various unpleasant ways.

 

On top of all of that, they threw in a space battle that would give Return of the Jedi a run for its money.

 

At its worst, Clone Wars can get a little tedious. But at its best, as in this three-parter, it's easily up there with the best of Star Wars.

 

On April 1st, the season ends with a two-parter starring (wait for it... ) Chewbacca! He growls. He roars. He beats people up.

 

Now that's good TV.

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars looks pretty cool.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnsvc679cbs

 

Although I don't have any system that can actually run it. (The PSP doesn't count... you can't play Lego Star Wars with that horrible stubby little joystick to save your life.)

I haven't seen any of the Clone Wars shows, but that trailer does look cool. Star Wars and LEGO, how can you go wrong?!

 

..Al

I haven't seen any of the Clone Wars shows, but that trailer does look cool. Star Wars and LEGO, how can you go wrong?!

 

..Al

It's a good show, more often than not. The production values alone are worth checking out.

 

I'll probably pick up the game, if I ever get around to picking up a PS3. That won't happen for awhile though.

 

(Incidentally - when I quoted your post, it deleted your paragraph breaks before your sig, so I had to put them back in. I also went through and fixed the broken paragraph breaks in that earlier comment. Not looking forward to fixing the rest of those.)

Last episodes of the season!

 

This was an excellent two-parter: Padawan Lost and Wookiee Hunt.

 

In the first episode, Ahsoka gets lost.

 

Then in the second one, a Wookiee gets hunted.

 

So, there you go.

 

Actually, Ahsoka gets kidnapped, and taken to a planet of evil lizards (like Bossk), where she and others are hunted down for sport. Not exactly a new idea, but fresh enough in The Clone Wars anyway. It pays off really well though, as Ahsoka runs into some other younglings who have been there for quite some time (yet manage to have neatly trimmed hair), and have just taken to trying to survive, rather than fighting, escaping, or even helping other prisoners. Ahsoka won't have any of that, and rallies the troops, which of course, gets one of them killed.

 

Which brings me back to a point that I've mentioned a number of times. I'm always impressed with how bluntly at times The Clone Wars handles people getting killed. It's death. It ain't pretty. And quite a few people get murdered in this episode. Not killed in the course of war, but murdered. Hunted down, and shot.

 

While that may not be a reason to laud a cartoon show, the fact is, they always handle it with an appropriate amount of gravity. They don't shy away from it or downplay it. It always has impact, and consequences.

 

At least when humanoids get killed. When evil lizards get killed... well, all bets are off.

 

Which brings us to the second episode.

 

The lizards make the mistake of capturing and trying to hunt down... Chewbacca.

 

Don't upset a Wookiee. Someone once said it's not wise. Especially a really smart, really big Wookiee. (I was a little disappointed he didn't pull any lizard's arms out of their sockets, but I guess TV-PG only gets you so far). I think they handled his guest appearance really well, and they also brought in some other Wookiees at the end to help him bust lizard heads, and throw lizards to their deaths.

 

Those wacky lizards.

 

These episodes though really showed more of the maturity and strength of Ahsoka, and contrasted that nicely with Anakin agonizing over his inability to help her (an emotion that eventually turns him to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith). The animation was excellent, and ran the gamut from subtle emotion to full-on action, and even just nice incidental stuff like Ahsoka shifting her balance while climbing over a tree branch, or a couple of cute little birds dropping a gecko to its death (seriously... it's like the animators got to have a little fun with these little birds for a few brief shots, so they ran with it).

 

Overall, I'd say the latter half of this season featured the best episodes to date. Even some of the more boring episodes still had pretty amazing visuals and always managed to push ahead the story and character arcs. If you have the chance, check 'em out online at StarWars.com.

 

Lastly, they showed a preview of next season, in which we get to see yet another character from the movies make a guest appearance.

 

Three words: It's a trap!

 

See you then!

Okay... this needs to be a series:

 

 

(Painting by Andrew Chesworth. Full-size version available here.)