Star Wars: Clone Wars - TV Review

So for those who didn't read my previous review, I really didn't like The Rise of Skywalker. I have no idea how any of it was approved because it's a completely inexcusable mess with so many bad ideas that if it wasn't for The Mandalorian on Disney Plus I'm pretty sure Star Wars as a franchise would be dead. I had such a rough time with the film I decided that I was going to do two Star Wars reviews this week and talk about something kind of like The Mandalorian. It's something that came out in a time when Star Wars was in huge trouble, back when Attack of the Clones came out and everybody hated it. However unlike The Mandalorian, this piece of Star Wars media, despite getting high praise from fans and winning multiple awards, isn't talked about very much. It's probably because Disney now considers it no longer canon, which sucks. I'm talking about Star Wars: Clone Wars.

No, not THE Clone Wars, just Clone Wars. Running from 2003 to 2005, Clone Wars is a Star Wars micro-series directed Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of popular animated shows like Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and most recently Primal on Adult Swim. It revolves around the Clone Wars and the various battles the Jedi and clone troopers went through. Unlike the new Clone Wars show this one was 2D hand-drawn and for most of its run consisted of episodes ranging from three to five minutes until the season 3, which consisted of five 15 minute episodes.

Genndy was a fantastic choice for this series because he is really good at visual storytelling. The expressions of characters, the use of color and the right amounts of silence and dialogue have made many great moments in cartoons he's worked on and Clone Wars is no expection. It leads to many beautiful moments, as well as some very tense moments that just keep your attention locked on onto the show. Another thing that he's known for and worked excellently in this show was how he depicts violence in animation and toning it down just enough for younger audiences. One of the simple ways he does it is by changing the color of blood. For robots just have black sludge fly out of their dismembered limbs and people think it's oil (which it is) or for an alien make it green and it's slime. It's incredible how much he got away with using tricks like that. Then Primal came out last year and he made it for much older audiences because it is just a ride of violence and gore (I'll get more in depth in another review).

Now this leads back to Clone Wars because unlike the new CGI show, this one feels a lot more like a war. With the new show you got episodes revolving around smaller moments and they're often wrapped up before the end of the episode, but here it's more of a sprawling series of clashes between the Republic and the Seperatists.! When I watched it recently I was kind of shocked how much destruction was going on. Helmets and armor were getting wrecked and shattered, droids were continually getting smashed and ripped apart by gunfire, and so many well-done explosions! Eat your heart out Michael Bay! But in all seriousness the shootouts are incredible and it was also our first time seeing troopers (of any sort) just be badass. So many cool guns and gadgets and they're fighting fantastically in squads and I care for them when they lose people. Now they're still mostly just people in helmets and the newer show does a lot better job in fleshing out the troopers and making them human, but trying to do that with such limited episodes would never work for this. They just had to be badasses with helmets on.

Then there are the Jedi and Sith battles and oh my god was my mouth a continual smile watching these once more. It's kind of incredible, but when you look at all the Star Wars movies and even the new show, most of the Jedi and/or Sith fights are mostly just hitting light sabers and using the force to throw things at people. I mean it's still cool to watch, but after watching this show I can't help but feel... ripped off a little. That's because the force is tool of endless possibilities, even if it's just pushing and pulling things about. There's such versatility with it and in a fight it could be used for a lot of things I never see happen, such as using it trip a person up and making them an easy target. But in Clone Wars... we got that versatility.

I haven't seen the force used in so many creative ways in a long time. A few examples include Jedi master Kit Fisto creating a bubble of force underwater that breaks through metal and Mace Windu, after losing his lightsaber, using Force speed mixed with martial arts to fight off hordes of droids. That's just two examples of so many Force tricks we never see anywhere else in Star Wars. It helps shine the traits that 2D animation has over 3D animation and live action. Combined with real emotion and effort in the battles from both sides and a great musical score leads to some very memorable moments.

One of the biggest things this series did is introduce a new villain to the franchise: General Grevious. Now in the movie and in the newer show he's depicted as kind of a mustache twirling villain that's more bark than bite. But in this older show he's almost a completely different character. Instead of bumbling about, failing against every fight he's in and running away all the time with his tail between his legs, this version of Grevious is ruthless, experienced, terrifying Jedi killer that every quivers upon seeing. In his first appearance he fights off five Jedi at once, kills two of them (plus another one that was stupid to run away), incapacitates another two, and almost kills the last one before being stopped by some clones. I remember when I first saw him do all that my mind was racing with questions like, "Wait that's a droid with lightsabers. He ain't a Jedi, is he a Sith? Wait can droids use lightsabers? Oh my god he's fighting them all off and he's not even using the Force?!" I later found out he didn't have Force powers, but that just made him even more amazing because he's a cyborg fighting off multiple Jedi with ease.

I, and plenty of others, just love this version of Grevious because he was something completely new to the series and his introduction left us in shock at how easily he could fight off the Jedi. He didn't feel overpowered, more so he was something so unexpected to the Jedi that they didn't know how to handle him. Plus his style of combat continually kept breaking everybody's composure and rhythm, making him even more deadly. Combine that with his extremely flexible body and agility and you have a truly terrifying and dangerous enemy. So when I heard recently from an old interview that George Lucas had no plans for Grevious other than letting him speak in a coughy voice and getting killed by Obi Wan I kind of lost my temper and had a massive rant in my apartment. It's just a completely idiotic move to butcher such a great and unique character.

Now I'm going to calm down a bit and talk about some parts that I feel others might not like as much as me for this show. First off the story. Yes, it's a lot shorter than the new show, just over 2 hours long, but with lots of the show being all these different battles and us only getting a few minutes seeing them at times people might be a little miffed by the story structure. What I believe is happening is all these storylines are happening at the same time. I can understand that and at times I was a little unhappy how the story kept changing about. I don't think it's that bad, but I feel others might not be as forgiving. Other than that I think the story is great and really sells the grandness of the whole event.

Another thing I can see some people no liking is the animation. Not saying it's bad, it's far from it. In fact when you consider when it came out the animation is excellent! When I look at it now though there are some parts of the animation I feel could have looked a little better, like what troopers look like from far off or how thick some of the lines are for characters. But again, this isn't a big complaint and I'm mostly happy with the animation. In fact seeing it again I was surprised to see some great uses of a few 3D models in the show and how well the animators were able to blend them in with the 2D animation style.

After that the characters are pretty good. They don't get too much development because of how limited the episodes were, but it's enough for us to care about them. Additionally their voice-work was pretty good, a lot more emotions than in the prequel movies. Even Anakin, voiced by Mat Lucas, was nice. I mean most of this show was still whiny, annoying, and rebellious, but he grows as a character and we finally, my god finally, see him and Obi Wan really grow close together and become good friends. That there just makes this the best thing to come out of the Star Wars prequels.

Star Wars: Clone Wars is an under-rated gem in animation and in Star Wars. It's got great action, a fantastic sense of epicness of the whole war, really damn good animation, and a story that, while not that long and not always smoothly connected, is very entertaining and engaging. I love this show and it deserves a lot better than what it got. I highly recommend giving this a watch since the whole micro-series is just over two hours, which is shorter than any film from the sequel trilogy. It's absolutely worth your time if you're a Star Wars fan.

Tentative Score: 8.75/10

Tentative Score: 8.75/10

This was just what I needed after The Rise of Skywalker. Real action, suspense, tension, and story. And with fantastic visuals. I got to get this on DVD sometime so I can watch it whenever I want.