By Fred Topel | Image property of LucasFilm, Variety
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Star Wars: The Clones Wars might not have been much on film but, like the volumes before it, the upcoming television series is getting some positive nods.
TV Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
I had high hopes for Star Wars: The Clone Wars considering that the two-volume animated series offered some of the best stories, footage and action to be seen from the franchise. Even with the standard animation, the series was great.
Why did it work? Well, for one, it was action-packed! It looks like Lucas is sticking to the formula that worked best, as the first review of the upcoming animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars claims that the thirty-minute episodes work way better than an entire film.
First the good news: "Clone Wars" -- the "Star Wars" animated series that amounts to an "interquel" between Episodes II and III -- is vastly superior to the advance theatrical movie. That's mostly because the half-hour episodes are so jam-packed with action the clunky dialogue flies by less obtrusively, and the irritating characters have less time to annoy. Those factors suggest the program should successfully scratch an itch for movie-deprived fans and yield dividends to Cartoon Network, even if the tone hews more closely to those born after "The Phantom Menace" premiered in 1999.
Under the stewardship of director Dave Filoni, "Clone Wars" faces a delicate mission -- navigating the timeline between two of the movies while using established characters (along with some new and unknown ones) whose fates have already played out.
Fortunately, the Clone Wars were full of all kinds of mayhem and heroic Jedi Knights to exploit. Visually, the series tackles that challenge with gusto -- taking full advantage of impressively rich animation to mount big, splendidly realized battle sequences.
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