By Dan Murray | Follow on Twitter
Right, this article will really prove what a Star Wars fan boy I am but I don’t care, I need to know the answer to this question so I really have to ask. Why does everyone think the new CGI Clone Wars is the best thing George Lucas ever gave us? Now I’ve only seen the movie and a smattering of episodes but they all left underwhelmed with everything I saw. I know I’ve gone off on a few rants about Star Wars lately but I swear this isn’t just anther one. I genuinely don’t get it. You see, I remember Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars series and it was actually brilliant.
Here’s a quick look at one ep of the show (I really wanted a scene with Yoda but unfortunately it was intercut with so many other plots that it wouldn’t have made sense, you’ll just have to settle for Mace and his pimping purple lightsaber instead):
Now come on, wasn’t that the kind of Jedi bas-assery you’ve always wanted from the movies? It perfectly demonstrates why these guys are held in such esteem much better than them sitting around a council tower rubbing their chins and picking on children.
What do you mean you’re a 10 year old boy who’s been taken from everything he knows and loves and you miss your mama, you little cry baby! You’ll never make it as a Jedi, you big mama’s boy.
Tartakovsky took the style he’d perfected from Samurai Jack and used it to give us some of the best lightsaber duels I’ve ever seen. The first series were mostly shorts featuring different Jedis in battle, Mace Windu, Yoda, Obi-Wan, that weird fish looking dude (Kit Fisto) putting up a fist in a fight against Quarrans on Mon Calamiri and featured (my favorite and under-used surplus Jedi) Ki Adi Mundi facing off against General Grievous in his first appearance in the universe.
And that was only the first season, the second has longer episodes and even has some brilliant, tension filled episodes were 3 jedis (Foul Moudama,Shaak Ti and Roron Corobb) face off against Grievous as he tries to kipnap Palpatine (In another confusing storyline where Palpatine seems to be working against Darth Sidious) before Windu arrives to crush his chest and gave him his distinctive wheeze in ROTS.
You might not know it from the way Obi-Wan cut off my arms and roundly kicked my ass with a minimum of fuss in Revenge of The Sith, but I was actually quite a good bad guy for a while!
Right, all that reveals I’m quite into my Star Wars lore and what-not so I want to repeat that this isn’t another of our patented rants against all things Star Wars and George Lucas. I just really want to know why this show is often over-looked in favour of the CGI version. This show, whilst still obviously aimed at kids is no where near as insulting to the senses as the newer ones (A plucky sidekick Padawann for Anakin and a drooling and adorable Hutt baby spring to mind) and if anything, features more dark, tension filled and sinister moments that the first 2 prequels gave us.
Hell, it even handles Anakin’s descent to the Dark side with more plausibility than the movies. The slow building anger and hatred that leads to him killing Asajj Ventress in season one is much better (and exciting) than the movies take on his transformation. They mainly show him growing increasingly more angsty, going justifiable apeshit at the Tuskan Raiers when they kill his mum and having the most extreme character change ever seen when he kills Mace Windu to save Palpatine.
Don’t make me kill you! If you do I’ll have to immediately kill children and choke the life out of my pregnant wife………for some reason!
Clearly this is canon to the series, not just Grevious injuries, but the fact that the opening of ROTS continues exactly where the show leaves off as Obi-Wan and Anakin race after Grevious in an attempt to rescue Palpatine. Also,not only was it a roughly 2 hour movie that bridged the gaps between AOTC and ROTS for the main characters but it featured some much needed characterisation for some of the lesser known Jedi (Well, if you aren’t a big nerd like me and knew about them through the books, games and comics) which ultimately added an extra level of investment and emotional impact when they were killed once Order 66 was given that otherwise wouldn’t be there because let’s face it, the Jedi are woefully under-used in the prequels.
All right, this isn’t the best pic to prove my point, but I swear, there’s not too many council scenes in the show. Because they’re usually out being intergalactic bad- asses like they should be!
Also, people love that the clones are getting their own stories and becoming real characters, which is fair enough. Though I can only assume this will lead to trouble when order 66 is given because audiences won’t want them to be bad, so they’ll either be a sad moment where they turn or (In what I think will happen), some of them will somehow fight the order and still get to be on the Jedi’s side. Though if that happens, it would completely undermine so much as they’re clones and I’m pretty sure you can’t just turn off genetic programming.
Don’t worry Plo Koon, we’re still on your side………Ha, you sucker, aim for his breathing mask boys!
But even in this area, the animated show gave us some good ole fashioned clone awesomeness, check out one of my favorite eps from season one below to see what I mean:
See, it’s a wee bit like Black Hawk Down meets Stars Wars….kind off…not really.
Also, in case anyone thinks I’m annoyed that the show is CGI (which I havta admit, can annoy me alot at times), it has nothing to do with that. It’s the story and general tone of the new show I don’t get. Hell, Toy Story 3 was CGI and the furnace scene had me actually worried and the ending even made a cold hard cynic like me want Andy to stay with the toys!
Seriously, when they all started holding hands I was genuinelly worried the movie was going to have a very different ending from what I’d expected.
So I’m genuinely (and without any judgement) asking fans of the CGI version, what’s the big deal? Why has the animated show been forgotten about? Does the CGI version now trump this as the canon version of events? And if so, why? The early one was clearly made to link in between the two movies whilst the CGI one is stringing the whole thing out and even changing vital parts of the stroy (Why is Darth Maul coming back?). I’ll openly admit that my love for Star Wars has been slowly dwindling these last few years but that just makes me even more confused as to why an animated show, that was far superior to the prequels, has been so quickly forgotten.
So please, feel free to leave a comment, I’d really like to hear some-one else’s opinion on this.
Note: Also, if you have somehow missed out on this show and have no idea what I’m talking about, I highly recommend you give it a go. It really was the best thing to come out of the Star Wars universe since “Knights of the Old Republic”. Apologies for all the Star Wars references, I used to unashamedly love everything about it, which kind of makes it such a pity that I now just want it to go away.
