DVD Review - STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS vol 1

Note to reader: My inner geekiness will be revealed when I start to talk about Star Wars. I've tried to hide it, but there is one thing that will open the floodgates and let the true nerd out. I happened recently when I put a certain DVD into my DVD player and pressed PLAY......

I am absolutely counting the days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith hits theaters. I've read all the message boards and leaks from the production and have pretty much read the entire script. Rather then spoil the movie for me, I will here and now say Revenge of the Sith will be the best Star Wars film ever!
So when this little gem of animation was released last week, I picked it up, not knowing how incredible it is, or how it could possibly increase my longing for "RotS." (Thats Revenge Of The Sith for you non-geeks out there.) When these animated shorts first appeared in 2003 on cartoon network, I just couldn't get into it. Breaking this story into 20 three-minute episodes was stupid. I only saw two episodes then because of work and gigs, and I just didn't get into the flow of this series. All this has been repaired now and the episodes are edited into one 69-minute film (69...aha ha ha ha - Billy Madison).

Some may complain about the animation. I love it. It's different but very stylish, and you have no problems recognizing the characters. It conveys action very well and proves old fashioned 2-D animation can still be relevant in this Pixar world. It really gets good during Anakin's lightsaber battle. WOW! The voices are all done by unknowns (except Anthony Daniels as C-3P0, he must be broke) but they all nail the voices of the original actors.

To help identify the characters I'll mention, I'll link their name to their entry in the official Star Wars Character Database. NOOCH!

The story begins not long after Episode II ends. The Jedi are now Generals in the Army of the Galactic Republic and they lead their clone troops into battle on numerous worlds across the galaxy. We follow Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker leading an army against the Banking Clans (and Obi-Wan wears some cool clone trooper armor into combat!), Kit Fisto and his army liberating Mon Calamari in an undersea battle (who says lightsabers can't work underwater?), and Mace Windu being a total badass and making battledroid chop suey. There also a secret jedi temple where Yoda and Padme Amidala must rescue Lumiara Unduli and Bariss Ofee . We see Count Dooku recruit a new sith apprentice named Asajj Ventress, and her confrontation with Anakin. We're also introduced to Genreal Grievous, who's gonna play a big part in RotS and who kills some lame jedi and whips up on the cooler ones like Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura.

There isn't much dialog in this picture. It's a war movie. It's filled with combat and action. There are great new revelations, like the ARC troopers, which are like special forces clone troopers, and Durge, a bad-ass bounty hunter who's got the urge to kill Obi-Wan. And you see anakin slip closer to the dark side. There's an incredible scene when Anakin and Asajj are dueling atop the great temple on Yavin IV and Anakin loses his blue lightsaber and grabs one of Asajj's red ones, then it's red on red action and you can't help thinking that the winner of this duel is gonna be the next Dark Lord of the Sith. The space battles rock too. They trounce every space battle in Episdoe I or II.

And they leave you with a cliffhanger, setting up Clone Wars vol. 2 which bagan airing LAST NIGHT on cartoon network. I missed it, but i'm watching tonight (3-27-05) And this time there's gonna be like 5 15-minute episodes. SWEEEET! If you miss them head over to cartoonnetwork.com and you can watch them all online! HOLY SHNIKEES! I cheated and watched them all online already! And in the first new episode, Anakin becomes a full Jedi Knight and C-3PO get his Shiney gold plating! AWWWWW!

I watched the clone wars twice the day after I bought it. I'm about to watch it again. I drool when I watch it and my eyes hurt from not blinking. It's Star Wars. Simple as that.

All that's missing is "fade in: a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade: A+