I like Trek more, but I rewatched Empire not long back and knowing what a whiny unlikeable plank Anakin was really detracts from the movie

The Force Unleashed, featuring direction from fresh blood, couldn't solve this problem for me either.

Boy this series is gonna suck a fart out my ass!

I should inform you, Liberty, that Lucas himself had fuckall to do with Genndy's "Clone Wars" and "Force Unleashed". This is why he gets none of the credit. See how that works? He didn't write, direct, produce, or oversee those two properties, therefore he doesn't deserve any credit. As opposed to the prequels, which he DID write, direct, and produce, thus he gets full blame. It's a fairly easy distinction to make.

My problem with this new series is that Genndy Tartakovsky already told us the ENTIRE FUCKING STORY, nuts to bolts, of the Clone Wars. He told it beautifully, violently, without any kiddie fart jokes or other cringeworthy bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, this new series is lies and revisionist history. It's pandering to McDonalds tie-ins for no reason other than to pander, and what I've seen of the animation is plodding and slick. It's like animated fast food.

I'm aware that my opinion means fuckall in this matter, but I don't really care. Lucas once was a quality director with something to say. Now he's slovenly billionaire fatboy who's sold out in horribly corporate ways. Creativity and good storytelling mean nothing to him now. He worships and fellates the almighty dollar, and it saddens me how he's completely forgotten his artistic roots.

Oh well. I'm sure the under fifteen crowd will love the meaningless whiz bang visuals in the new series.

The transition to a post-Empire, intergalactic government would've been a hell of a story, I agree. Plus, in an animated series, we could've revisited Luke, Han Solo, Leia, Chewie, and other characters we actually LIKED, for god's sake. Anakin is a kid-slaying, mass-murdering psychopath. He's not likable in the least. Yet his story has managed to trump the stories of far more compelling and heroic characters in the Star Wars universe. This, to me, is a colossal misfire.

I agree: move forward with the story that the world fell in love with.

Oops. Lets try that again with the fingers in the correct positions.

High praise indeed.

I enjoyed these two episodes. I know this series catches a lot of flack for "we already know what is going to happen to these characters", but as long as it gives us more stuff like this, it will be fine. Getting to see characters like Plo, who really only got to just sit around and look interesting in the movies, actually speak and do things is nice. So long as they actual show some real character moments/development, and have solid stories, this could surprise a lot of people.

Seriously, cut the Larry, Moe, and Curly comedy and you have gold!!!

And yes ROTS still owned.

so only 2 marks against it, by my count: 1. Bad announcer 2. shitty comedy from the battle droids.

Oh, and this show was fun and not too bad at all. I enjoyed the one starring Yoda, with his laughing and cool use of the Force, letting the droids blow themselves up instead of doing it himself. The little popping in the hologram and beheading that droid was great. The droid humor's mostly terrible, but the "But I was just promoted!" line was funny.

I think the first 2 episodes were pretty good. For a show aimed at children it can still be watched by adults. I do find it funny that in between Episode 2 and 3 Anankin had a padawan yet she was nowhere to be found in Episode 3. Who knows maybe she lived....

I really DO hope they make SOMETHING based on The Force Unleashed though. Even a CGI movie would be cool. It has a really cool story and so long as they don't screw it up (i'm only half way through the game) it COULD be really good.

The way I see it with the battle droids, they're no different than the cheesy humor in A New Hope. "Walking carpet", growl at mouse droid, "you're braver than I thought", "flyboy", "OK Han, you put these on him.", "He tricked me into going this way!", and so on. If you guys can accept Yoda's humor in Empire, and Chewie's Tarzan yell in Jedi, then I don't know why you'd think the battle droids are stupid-- They're on the same level. Creepier, actually, because they're committing acts of mass murder while acting that way.

And come on! It's a whole series in which Ventress gets some play, where Yoda can be a main character, where Jedi fight some kickass battles, where clone troopers are shown to have individual personalities, where Anakin comes off a lot less stiff and dull--- It's what the prequels should have been.

My only complaint is that they stuck with Tartakovsky's models as inspiration for the characters, when I know they could have done photo-realistic characters with the same amount of effort. Genndy's work wasn't that amazing. It was good, but it was WAYYYY over-the-top, and it was so damn pointless most of the time; Very low on plot, very high on action, and he designed the characters to fit that formula. In this new series, when the characters get to having calm conversations, the animated nature of their faces reminds you that this is a cartoon. Honestly, I think they should have scrapped everything Genndy's version inspired, and came up with their own designs based on the movies.

What it comes down to is that if you're an old, jaded hatergeek who can't watch "Attack of the Clones" and have a good time, then you should probably stop watching Star Wars and wait for BSG or the new Trek.

However, if you're a *real* Star Wars fan who doesn't think George Lucas personally owes you the story you constructed in your head when you were a kid, and you enjoy the EU books or the prequels, then you'll enjoy The Clone Wars. It's more of the Star Wars you have always enjoyed.

I just finished watching the next three episodes of The Clone Wars, and I have to say the show is pretty fucking awesome.

I also find myself highly entertained by the battle droids and their innate stupidity. As noted previously, it's sort of creepy that these idiot droids are saying such nonchalant, funny things while they're killing people. In one episode, they're cutting open escape pods, releasing people to the vacuum of space, and gleefully humming happy tunes and making bad jokes. It's almost gruesome, and it gives some insight into the kind of minds that programmed the despicable things.

It's also pretty funny watching them get themselves destroyed due to their limited programming and lack of an ability to filter what they say or do. Twice now, a droid has said something boneheaded while next to Grievous and gotten destroyed for it. In one scene, Obi Wan fights off a huge squadron of battle droids, droidekas, and super battle droids by force-pushing the droidekas into the others. After he wipes out the majority of them, and JUST MISSES destroying Grievous before fleeing the scene, there's a pause and then the droid next to Grievous says, "Well, THAT was impressive!" only to get smashed by Grievous a moment later. It was great comic timing-- Not comedy at the Jar-Jar level, but comedy at the Han & Chewie level. Clearly, Star Wars benefits from not having George Lucas script all the dialogue.

Another great droid moment was on the bridge of a warship that fires an ion cannon to disable enemy ships and then picks them off while they're sitting ducks. Two gunner droids are at their station, and Grievous has come to stand between them. One says, "You know, this is a whole lot more fun when they can't shoot back!" and the other droid says, "I *still* can't hit anything-" *BAM!* His head is knocked off violently by Grievous, who grumbles at the stupidity of his troops.

Anakin is MUCH more interesting in this series than he was in the prequels. Every so often we get glimpses of the man who would be Vader; We see his decisiveness, his brilliance as a commander, and his prowess as a Jedi. Even his padawan is tolerable in small doses (and she does grow on you. Her calling him "Skyguy" happens maybe once in an episode, and it doesn't come off any different than Han calling Chewbacca "Chewie").

Grievous is quite likable as a villain. The voice is the same, and this obviously takes place after Genndy's Clone Wars and his encounter with Windu, as he's coughing here, too. (Also, Anakin's got the scar on his eye, and 3PO is gold, so this takes place shortly before RoTS).

For anyone who complains that "we know what happens so there's no tension", you're wrong. There's plenty of tension, but even moreso, gravitas. Knowing what happens to these characters makes it more interesting because we know their eventual fates, and we see how they got to that point. We see more of them, learn who they were, and it makes their deaths seem even more sad. Now that I've actually gotten to like Plo Koon, his brief "shot from behind" scene in RoTS will have a different meaning. We can only assume Anakin's padawan meets a grim fate before this series ends, as she's clearly not present in RoTS. Even the clones get some attention and personal stories, and we learn to appreciate them as individuals rather than as expendable droid proxies.

I stick by my original review-- Unless you're a jaded old geek who is miffed that Lucas didn't write the story you had in your head, you'll probably like Clone Wars. It's surprisingly adult, even though it has a lot of light moments for the kids. It's not afraid to shed some blood to propel the story, and yet it realizes that part of the charm of Star Wars is that it mixes the best of space opera with some humor and light moments. If you ever liked Star Wars, I implore you to give it a chance. At least watch the first four episodes.

Ultimately, what makes this work is that a lot of the baggage the movies carried is gone. There are no actors working against green screens here, and as a result, the acting is better than the movies. Somehow, that "sells" it more. Unlike some moments in the movies, the characters here are really IN that galaxy, and they don't seem as out-of-place when they're interacting with it.

And of course, the fact that we're getting stories that aren't completely written by one man is lending to the diversity of the series. The Clone Wars does something that a lot of Star Wars naysayers have been begging for since The Phantom Menace: It lets other creative people play in Lucas' world, to great effect. It's the fresh perspective you've been begging for.

(Oh, and Hola! Orcus! Some of us old-timers do hang on.)