Star Wars: The Clone Wars
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 "Begun, the Clone War has..." - Yoda
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an American computer-animated television series created by George Lucas and produced by Lucasfilm Animation, Lucasfilm, and CGCG Inc. The show began with a theatrical feature film which was released in August 2008 before its official debut on Cartoon Network on October 3, 2008. Being a reboot of the previous 2D series Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003–2005), each episode had a running time of approximately 22 minutes to fill a half-hour time slot instead of the 3–15 minute episodes that the previous series had. However, the seventh and final season broke this convention since it was released exclusively on Disney+, where it no longer needed time slots, resulting in the episodes' run times varying between 24-26 minutes. Dave Filoni was the supervising director of the series. The first season of the show was met with mixed to positive reviews while the rest of the run was met with a more positive reception from critics, audiences, and fans. It was also a rating success for Cartoon Network and was one of the highest-rated shows on the channel during its initial run. It initially aired on Cartoon Network from October 3, 2008, to March 2, 2013. The premiere was the most watched series premiere in Cartoon Network's history. In early 2013, Lucasfilm announced that The Clone Wars would be "winding down". The sixth season, The Lost Missions, unlike the previous five seasons, was made available in the United States on Netflix on March 7, 2014. In February 2020, the show was revived for a 7th season exclusively on Disney's streaming service, Disney+. The seventh and final season premiered on Disney+ on February 21, 2020, and concluded on May 4, 2020, after 12 episodes. At the time of cancellation in March 2013, 65 more episodes were in development. Thirteen of these episodes were finished to become part of Season 6: The Lost Missions, but there were still additional arcs that were never released. In September 2014, StarWars.com released details of three story arcs from the unfinished episodes. It was titled The Clone Wars Legacy, a canon multimedia project that revolved around unproduced/unfinished episodes of the television series.
Summary
The show takes place during the Clone Wars (22-19 BBY) and shows the events that stem from the Separatist Crisis, resulting in a full-scale war that leads to the formation of the future Galactic Empire and the annihilation of the Jedi Order.
Why Rocks, The Clone War Does
- The series does a great job of filling in the blanks of the Clone Wars that were mentioned in A New Hope, taking place between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
- Breathtaking CGI animation, which improves as the series goes on.
- The characters are much better developed and more likable than in the prequels, especially Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader.
- The minor background Jedi Knight characters are fleshed out and have a lot more character development.
- Even the clones have distinct and unique traits, and they're humanized and surprisingly very attaching; a far cry from how they were portrayed in the live-action movies.
- The new characters like Anakin Skywalker's apprentice, Ahsoka Tano, and Clone Trooper, Captain Rex are also well-written and likable and also get more fleshed-out as the series progresses.
- It has a lot of deep and engaging storylines and story arcs, especially in the later seasons.
- Excellent voice acting; the cast replicates the character voices from the films very well. Some actors even reprise their roles, such as Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks and Anthony Daniels as C-3PO.
- Even though there are political scenes and storylines, they are interesting and relevant to the show, unlike in the prequels.
- Many heartbreaking and emotional moments, such as Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order in "The Wrong Jedi", Fives' death, and the climax of the "Siege of Mandalore" arc.
- Nice soundtrack.
- It canonized several elements of the Expanded Universe of Star Wars.
- Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi's friendship is shown in the series, which especially makes for some great scenes of funny banter between the two.
- In addition Anakin's heroics are shown, like he trained several farmers to defend themselves against pirates and was a great warrior like Obi-Wan from A New Hope said he was.
- Jar Jar Binks is far less annoying than in The Phantom Menace, and gets some badass moments here and there. Also, he still serves real purposes in the story.
- Some great villains like Count Dooku, Asajj Ventress, General Grievous, Darth Maul, and Darth Sidious.
- Not to mention, the show had given Maul a lot of character depth, screen time, and motivation.
- The Battle Droids FINALLY have personalities to make us laugh at and we feel bad for them when they got killed by the Clones, by Grievous, and by Ventress. So they won't be one-dimensional robot soldiers saying "Roger, Roger" all the time. Despite its unnecessary changes of voices and characterization.
- Its season 7 revival has also spawned a spin-off/sequel titled Star Wars: The Bad Batch, focusing on Clone Force 99 during the events of Order 66, and Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious's reign as galactic emperor.
Bad Qualities
- The first season, while not terrible, isn't as strong as the later seasons, with Anakin still being like what he is in the prequel trilogy, and wooden animation. The series also got an average start in the form of the theatrical pilot film.
- In the 2003 Clone Wars series, General Grievous was a nigh-unstoppable killing machine who single-handedly massacred both Jedi and Clone Troopers alike without breaking a sweat. Here, he's changed into a short-tempered jerk who flees whenever a fight doesn't go his way (though he does regain some of his 2003 counterpart's frightening nature in a few episodes). The worst part, is he killed his droids, although it is understandable because they were inattentive, it's still harsh to kill his army as Dooku said to him was a total waste of money and environment!
- The seventh season was shorter than the others and adapted only three unfinished story arcs of the show, leaving the others incomplete and canceled (unless they are told in other media).
- As some of its last episodes take place at the same time as Revenge of the Sith, the seventh season could have depicted Grievous's kidnapping of Palpatine just like the previous series but chose not to do so without any apparent reason.
- It has some weak episodes like "Shadow Warrior".
- As mentioned above WHRTHCWD#15, The voice change of B1 Battle Droids is somewhat unnecessary since Episode 1 and Episode 2 did very well. And the portrayal of Battle Droids being goofy and incompetent doesn't help either.