Let's
time travel back one final time to a time not so long ago in a galaxy far, far
away with Star Wars: The Clone Wars which was released in theaters on August
15, 2008. This was the first Star Wars
movie to not be released in May, not to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, and
to be directed by Dave Filoni. It serves
as a lead-in to the Star Wars: The Clone Wars Cartoon Network TV series. The events of the movie and TV series take
place between Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode
III: Revenge of the Sith.
The
voice talents of many actors are featured including Matt Lanter as Anakin,
James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan, Cat Taber as Padmé, and Dee Bradley Baker as
the Clone troopers. There are also many special
guest voices throughout including Liam Neeson as the force ghost of Qui-Gon. We see most of the same characters as the
Star Wars movies, but one of the most important new characters we meet is
Anakin's padawan, Ahsoka Tano, voiced by Ashley Eckstein. She is my favorite character outside of the
main film series because of how fearless and strong-willed she is.
The
weekly 3D CGI animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars Cartoon Network TV series
aired from October 3, 2008–March 2, 2013.
The running time was approximately 22 minutes per episode and there were
six seasons, with season 6 streaming exclusively on Netflix starting on March
7, 2014. The first four seasons had 22
episodes each, the fifth season had 20 episodes, and the sixth season had 13
episodes.
Season
1 involves the Republic and the Separatists attempting to convince various
planets and races to side with them. In
Season 2, the Sith hire bounty hunters to steal objects and to assassinate
targets for them while the Jedi lead the Republic forces in an assault on the
primary battle droid manufacturing facility.
Seasons 3 and 4 involve diplomacy and show how different races and
planets are affected by the galaxy-wide war.
There are some episodes from the clone troopers' perspectives and we get
some foreshadowing of Anakin turning to the dark side. In season 4 we also see the return of the
supposedly dead Darth Maul from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace which
was really cool.
Season
5 focuses greatly on Ahsoka's character development and the series finale still
gets me every time. My heart still hurts
watching Ahsoka walk away from the Jedi Order because of her loss of trust in
the Jedi Council after she is wrongly accused of a murder. I think that showing Anakin having a Padawan
really emphasizes his character growth and his struggle to let go. I found the arc about the younglings building
their light sabers particularly interesting because I didn't know the process
was so complex.
Season
6 really segues into Revenge of the Sith with more details about the creation
of the clones and Order 66. Two story
arcs that really stand out to me are the Anidala and Yoda arcs. The Anidala arc focuses more on Anakin and
Padmé's relationship and the thought that it could be destructive is brought
up. The Yoda arc dives deeper into the
nature of the force and Yoda travels to Dagobah, the home world of the Sith. There is more foreshadowing of events that
will happen in Revenge of the Sith.
Star
Wars: The Clone Wars has been critically acclaimed and has won several
awards. I am still sad that it has been
cancelled even though I hadn't watched it when it first started. I only started watching it after my friend
who is a Star Wars fan asked me if I had watched it and she recommended some
episodes to me. My interest in the
series really took off from there and the series got better with each
episode.
Have
you ever watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars or if you haven't already would you
ever watch it? Leave your comment
below.
No comments:
Post a Comment