With that out of the way, these DVD’s are phenomenal. George Lucas approached animator/writer/director Genndy Tartakovsky about doing a small set of cartoons to fill in the blanks between Episodes II and III. OK, first of all, why in the world do we need short cartoons to fill in the blanks?! Why not make a damn movie to fill in the blanks?! Why in the world did I sit though that awful pile called Episode I? It would have been 10,000 times better to have skipped Episode I, started with Episode II and made The Clone Wars a movie in between Episodes II and III. Man this review is going to be hard to get through without ragging on those feature films over and over again.
So where was I? Oh, yeah, Tartakovsky. Genndy is the brilliant creator of the cartoons Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack. His animation style is fantastic and his stories are always rich with character development and full of action. Genndy got a team together and cranked out twenty 3-minute shorts and aired them on Cartoon Network. These comprise the Volume 1 DVD of the Clone Wars.
Volume 1 covers the Clone Wars at their peak. Now, because these were 3-minute shorts there is not a hell of a lot of dialogue or character-driven stuff. It is mostly action. BUT there is a compelling storyline about a bounty hunter named Asajj Ventress. Ventress was found on the planet Rattatak by Count Dooku and was hired by Dooku and the Emperor to kill Anakin Skywalker. Of course the Emperor knew she was incapable of killing Skywalker and this was just another of his ploys to pull Anakin closer to the dark side.
Other than this storyline, there are many battle scenes including a fantastic scene of Mace Windu kicking ass and an underwater battle led by Jedi Kit Fisto. There is also a key battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi and a new character named Durge. Volume 1 is great and as I said there is a lot of good action but without the time to really dive into the characters it is slightly lacking compared to Volume 2. You see, after Volume 1 was completed, Lucas approached Tartakovsky and his team again to make a second set of shorts. This time the shorts would be 12 minutes instead of 3 and they would tie in directly with Episode III. Again, why in the world would Lucas do this? Obviously there is stuff unanswered in the films, so why not just make another damn film?!
Volume 2 tells the story that is hinted to in the scroll at the beginning of Episode III. It shows the friendship between Obi-Wan and Anakin. It further uncovers the mystery surrounding General Grievous. It explains simple things like how C-3PO got his gold plating and how Obi-Wan knows Commander Cody. In other words, this Volume explains everything that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in Episode III.
The best part of Volume 2 explains how Anakin became a Jedi Knight and shows his final trial of self-reflection on the planet Nelvaan. It really provides more perspective on why Anakin makes his descent to the dark side and eventually becomes Vader.
The only real downside to these DVD’s (other than the aforementioned limitations due to time constraints) is that the real actors from the films did not lend their voices. The voice talent Genndy hired did a very good job, and they come damn close to the real actors, but it would have been nice to have had the real talent.
Lucas did lend Genndy the sound effects and music from the films and that goes a long way to making these really feel like a part of the Star Wars universe. Lucas gave Genndy a lot of freedom to make these shorts his own. Genndy chose the animation style (which looks fantastic), wrote the whole storyline with only an outline from Lucas (which made the dialogue and storyline SO much better) and even came up with some of his own characters.
The DVD extras are nice. There is a featurette on each volume that shows some nice behind-the-scenes stuff. There are commentaries on both discs by Genndy and his crew. These are really nice because they show how Star Wars fans (like Genndy and his crew) can take the Star Wars universe created by Lucas and really punch it up and make it cool again. There are also some trailers for video games and Episode III on each disc.
All-in-all, if you like Star Wars at all, these are a must have. If you saw Episodes I-III and wondered why they sucked so bad, check these out and you will see 1) what Episodes I-III could have been 2) fill in some of the blanks left by these films and 3) remember how much Episodes IV-VI kick ass and why.
Final analysis:
BUY THESE DVDs!
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