Clone Wars S01 E13 – 16 (SPOILERS)

Clone Wars has been a bit of a mixed bag lately. I must confess that, after the awesomeness of episode #12, I sort of laid off it a bit. If I’d rolled straight into #13, I think the happiness would have continued mostly but #14 onward show signs of strain that don’t ruin the episodes but make them a little frustrating at times.

Being enamored with both science fiction science (and all the dread that this entails) and references, the highlights of #13 for me were primarily the sight of ‘Star Destroyers’ within the atmosphere of a planet and Anakin’s ‘distinctive, raspy breathing’ whilst on life support.

Having said that, the opening was frustrating in a way that has become increasingly regular during CW episodes: too much set up happens in the actual narrative opening, leaving the viewer to occasionally feel as if they’ve missed a preceding episode. #13 is a case in point of this.

I know that the argument for it may be that ANH drops you in the middle of the story and the narrative is the verbal equivelent of the traditional opening scrawl, but there are things you can do in a film that don’t always work in a modern cartoon. I love RKO, Universal and Republic as much as the next guy but this is not 1939 and these cartoons are not the equivelent of those old serials, as much as George Lucas will try and tell you they are. This is a modern, multimedia project focused on a CGI cartoon with attached toy sales and comic spin offs and, as such, it would be nice if a little more focus could be spent on setting up stories rather than throwing vital information into the narrative blurb.

As a testament to the modernity of the show, after the set up and interesting survival sequences, the rest of #13 and all of #14 go on to deal with an alien species that looks as if it wondered straight out of a Rare platform game – all this with comical psuedo-Gallic accents.

Episode #15 raises the bar by addressing similar themes – indigenous people threatened by violence – but goes about it in a different way. You might recognise the Talz from their Mos Eisley representative in ANH, the rest is a divide between a more engaging story addressing violence than #14 was (and possibly a commentary of Victorian Britain?) and the biggest Hoth-flavoured nostalgia fest in the world. All of which works quite well, especially when complimented by the Amidala-lite character, Senator Riyo Chuchi.

Episode #16 rounds out this review as being an interesting idea stapled to a somewhat plodding story. Not much to say other than the idea of a clone betraying the Grand Army is something I’d like to see explored in greater detail in different stories…by anyone but Karen Traviss.

And after all that, I *still* haven’t caught up to date with all the episodes!