Clone Wars S01 E20 (SPOILERS)

I have to say that, at least in respect to the multi-part arcs, the in medias res approach seems to work quite well.

Whilst the actual episode itself is an odd mix of Star Wars: Battlefront and war drama, it actually works fairly well. One of the things that is most striking about the Clone Wars as a series is its freedom to tell the story from the point of view of supporting characters – something a lot of established or recent shows don’t have the ability to do. There’s a fair amount of Obi-Wan in action during the course of the 20 odd minutes of this episode but the real focus is Waxer and Boil and their relationship with Twi’lek Numa.

If 2000 AD were to be stripped away of its acrid humour then I get the feeling that it might have been something like this episode, particularly in the final Twi’leks vs. Tactical Droid showdown.

It’s getting hard to find new nice things to say about the series, especially when it consistently achieves. This does of course make me somewhat concerned about Season 2 and the rumour that the episodes will be sliding around through the entire course of the conflict and not remaining as a clear line. I also can’t help but feel that Ahsoka has been a bit of a red herring; introduced early to shock and then left mostly to languish as a supporting character who rarely appears and takes the spotlight even less. Such an approach for Season 2’s format is unnerving for me because I can’t help but feel that it will make it even easier for writers and certain elements of fandom to ignore her.

On the plus side though, it means that, however unliklely, we might at last discover the true fate of Asajj Ventress and perhaps even see cameos from Yoda: Dark Rendezvous characters, Scout and Whie Malreaux, which would be awesome but is, at best, improbable.

Hope, however, springs eternal.

Clone Wars S01 E19 (SPOILERS)

Mixed feelings with this one.

Again, the idea of cramming all the story set up into the opening narration continues and I’m beginning to find the three-part-story format frustrating, especially as the ties between what were once frequent stand alone stories interspersed between larger stories is kind of weak.

Episode #19 is a great episode for both Ahsoka’s character and space battles but there’s the annoying spectre of how it all relates to ‘part two’ hanging over the whole affair and that detracts from what we’re actually seeing in this episode. All of this is par for the course now, I guess. 19 episodes in and when a new episode of Clone Wars now airs, it’s pretty clear exactly what we’re getting – I’m okay with that, I guess, I just wish these stories weren’t in so much of a rush to please everyone.

Nonetheless, episode #19 really did Ahsoka justice, perhaps not as a teenager but certainly as a young woman who initially had little military training yet has spent the last year/half-a-year or so living as a soldier in a very military environment.

Mar Tuuk is another interesting character in this episode whom, despite being new to the series displays something of ‘the Thrawn method’ to evaluating his enemies. Hopefully he’ll turn up again soon.

With that, I find we’re rapidly approaching the end of season one. Perhaps the new format of season two will help shake things up a bit but, even if it doesn’t, the Clone Wars TV series remains one of the highlights of my delayed Sunday viewing. It’s not a perfect show but it’s a long way from the car crash of some of Lucas’ canonical material and that means that, despite what you might think about it, it’s probably still ‘more’ Star Wars than you might expect and that in itself should be enough to recommend it.

Clone Wars S01 E18 (SPOILERS)

I really thought this was going to be awful, mostly because of the ties to the previous episode but, actually, I have to admit that this was quite a good episode.

As mentioned previously, I wasn’t really a fan of the fake-alien-Nazi-scientist in space angle – which is surprising as this is usually the kind of thing I tend to go for – however, once the angle changed (and I dearly love the amount of genres this show can cross) and the story transformed itself into an 80s low-tech/low-budget sci-fi flick, I found myself instantly warming to the episode – especially as I decided fairly early on that Jaybo Hood would be played, in a live action film, by Corey Feldman.

There’s a couple of almost Miyazaki moments as we see the city of Cliffhold from above where it almost seems like Nausicaä. It makes you realise how much love and/or money goes into making these worlds environments in their own right. I can’t help but feel a sense of admiration for the ’set designers’ here. Bonus points also go to the writers for fleshing out an Episode I reference.

As a final note, it would be remiss of me not to mention that, if I were Anakin Skywalker, I might find it slightly suspicious if I suddenly got a breathless call from my wife as she draped her arm across the shoulders of an underage girl. Just saying.

Clone Wars S01 E17 (SPOILERS)

Clone Wars episodes featuring Padme!Amidala as the principal character tend to be…well, bad, if I’m honest. I think it’s the ’spy gal’ angle the EU keeps trying to reinforce, as if Amidala couldn’t be intelligent without slipping into a cat suit and doing forward rolls down every Separatist fortress corridor from here to the Outer Rim.

Perhaps it’s a little harsh to blame the EU for this as the flawed storyline of Episode II also seems to substitute the Amidala of the first film for this Bond girl-lite caricature.

All of this makes it sound like I’m against the idea of Amidala being an action character – I’m not, I’m just against stories that solely seem to focus on this aspect of her personality. Episode #17 is one of them.

At first I was really excited about seeing Theed on the small screen. Even with Binks as one of the main characters, I was hoping that this episode might be something like an Episode I.5 story…but it wasn’t, it was just a biohazard in another fortress with a stock Nazi character type of story; Escape from Castle Naboo and all that.

Not the worst episode thus far but certainly an episode that could be considered a wasted oportunity.

Considering the setting and Naboo’s ties to the Prequel Trilogy, a lot more could have been done with this. It’s a real shame that it wasn’t.