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I saw the first two episodes last night. I liked the animation but the characters and story left me cold. Perhaps it's supposed to be purely a kid's show.

The one by Genndy Tartakovsky is great.

I'm talking about the new series that just started the other night. I had no idea there was another animated Clone Wars before this one.

Yea, the first set of Clone Wars animated were traditional-style animations. Those were awesome.

I haven't seen the most recent movie but did watch the two new episode from Friday. I think the show needs some time to hit its stride. It looks good imho, if you like the new art style. But the episodes felt a bit slow in pacing. Some of that I think is due to them maybe wanting to take their time and explain the new characters and plots though.

I'm not up on tween-targeted cartoons though. Are they usually a lot of dialog with a bit of action and taking-forever-to-get-to-the-point story arcs?

That's got nothing to do with modern tween cartoons. It has to do with the fact they want to mimic anime. That bullshit is a direct result of Japan not letting cartoons that are hot just go their merry way. Sure, there are a few that died during their prime, Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop come to mind, but a lot of American cartoons flow like DBZ, Naruto, etc. They're unwatchable IMO. If you can't tell a story in 26 episodes, it's instafail for you (at least with me). Odd since every single Japanese live action TV show manages to somehow only be 13-26 episodes and if they SOMEHOW MAGICALLY get a second season it's a completely new story.

I'm enjoying it so far.  Its nothing mind blowing, but its pretty good.

And the show before it rocks all kinds of ways.

If nothing else, they will both tide me over till Spectacular Spider Man starts up again.

I like parts of it.  The visuals are first rate.  I don't know how much I like the character style but it's done well, and the overall effects and settings are excellently presented.  I geeked out a little when I saw Anakin leading a strike force of Y-wings, and they were shiny new, with engine covers and everything!  I always wondered what a non-stripped one would look like.

Unfortunately, it seems that the writers feel that in order to capture that authentic "Star Wars Experience," they need to write the most cringe-worthy, awful-horrible-fuck-me-in-the-earhole dialogue.  I guess they want it to be as much like the prequels as possible, for better or for worse.

I attribute that to the younger target audience, along with crazy antics of those whacky droids. Except they clearly show people dying. Sort of a contradiction that.

They're not people. They're clones.. kill all you want we'll make more!

It IS an interesting distinction from the old "You must show a parachute from every downed aircraft" of G.I. Joe.

Actually, they're making a point of dispelling that, what with the personalities they're giving the clones. Which kinda feeds back into the question of age appropriateness in a show where Grevious' "battle hardened troops of the Federation(tm)" age like a bunch of 6 year olds on chocolate.

Now that episode blew me away. Maybe because I wasn't expecting more than silly kids fare, but I have to say that was pretty bad ass. Holy crap commando droids!  :drill:

WTF with the confusing name overlap?

This is the good one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAKqnIc4eI

I have to agree with this.

I'm not a star wars fans by any definition of the word. I'm 23 and saw the entire trilogy for the first time about 3 years ago.

But I saw the Genndy Tartokovsky cartoon after that. Until that point, I never quite understood what my friends were talking about. They did it right and they did it right for the generation that it was released in. Animation is such a perfect and natural form for the imagination of what jedi could be to flourish in.

Old series, amazing. CG new series... why? If you strike gold, finish mining the fucking vein.

We're sorry, this video is no longer available.

Wow, that was quick.

Worked for me.

Works for me too.

I've only seen two episodes but I am enjoying it I was hoping my son would get it to it so I could have an excuse to watch it during the day.  He does not so I will probably only see a few more episodes.

Caught the first 4 episodes and the show is actually pretty decent.

Lasta episodie was Jar Jar! Mesa like!  :grin:

It wasn't as bad as it could have been. I just don't like too much whacky antics in general, but for this episode the droids were toned down enough to offset Jar Jar.

Me an Sly cracked up when they killed Jar Jar... twice. After "Goldie" I don't like to underestimate the show.

Necroed, a TV show is at steak!

I don't know how many of you are watching the CGI Clone Wars (though if you've got the time to watch that vile new Stargate shit you should), but this week's episode was pretty good as far as showing Anakin's slide to the dark side. The CGI movie and the show in general have been doing a decent enough job, but this episode really illustrated why he would choose to do it and why he would keep going down it. I will say I look forward to Asohka's death at some point in the timeline before movie 3. Or alternately, becoming Darth Vader's apprentice.

Guaranteed that's not gonna happen and she'll be one of the ultimate survivors of Order 66.

I would normally say that her death would be the perfect, final catalyst that would set up Anakin to be willing to betray the Jedi and slaughter a room full of children to keep Padme safe, but with Lucas having the final say it probably won't happen. I mean if she were to die - especially if he could have saved her if only he'd been there - that would set up a whole recurring theme of women who are important to him dying because he couldn't protect them. Palpatine's manipulation was nowhere near enough to drive him over the edge, but if all the women he'd felt responsible for had been killed and he developed some sort of complex about it, it would make a lot more sense. Sort of like all the Naboo scenes that got cut from the second movie that helped explain the jump in his and Padme's relationship.

Considering this is a cartoon Anakin and Asohka relationship can't help but give off the "young man in his twenties hanging out with 16 year old girl" vibe.

I have no problem with that.

My dvr randomly decided to stop recording this show which is a shame because it really seems to be getting pretty damned good for what it is.

Isn't this Ashoka, at around 1 min 15 secs in? I always figured they modeled Ashoka after the Random Jedi Chick from Ep 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6DOnOTtiI

No,wrong color skin. Also looks like aTwi'lek and Ahsoka is not a Twi'lek she is a torgruta or something like that I think. If she is any of those I would guess the jedi on the speeder around 2 minutes in.

Ah ok, I thought Ashoka was a twi'lek. I doubt she'd be the one on the speeder cause it was over so quick. Ohcrap Ashoka's alive out there somewhere!

I've really enjoyed this series, moreso than I thought I would.  And put me in the camp that thought Ashoka was a twi'lek.

She's a Togruta.. which looks like a twilek, but they all appear to be red skinned with dual horns AND head tails.  The Jedi Master Shaak Ti (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shaak_Ti) and one of the younglings were the two that you saw in the movies.  (Shaak was one of the few survivors of Genosis, you see her in the Arena battle somewhere.)

I agree that Asoka needs to die, but I also agree that it simply won't happen because Clone Wars is aimed at kids.  Perhaps if she were a major factor of the Adult-oriented show that was supposed to be released it would have happened.  As part of Clone Wars she'll live and be yet another incongruity with the abomination of the EU.

Yeah, the blue-skinned twilek is Ayala Secura, who for whatever reason speaks with a thick french accent and dresses like a dance club whore in the tv show. The jedi on the speeder bike was Stass Allie, who despite looking like an alien because of her stupid hat was a human from a planet colonized by Corellians. Asohka is 14, which would make the whole 20-something hanging out with a teenager even more creepy if it weren't for the complete lack of any sort of sexual or romantic overtones, the fact that Anakin is boning the hell out of Padme and doing the worst job ever of hiding it, and they have an assigned, mandatory master/apprentice relationship. Anyway, as far as I can find her life/death is completely unaddressed one way or another.

I will say that the whole Jedi=Automatic General of a clone legion is horrible. When your general officer corps most cunning and often used stategy is charging across an open area into a hail of heavy gunfile so they can hit some robots with a sword... ugh. Nevermind.

Another thing, my 3 year old loves this show and actually sits still the whole time it's on. I'm thinking of playing the movies for him over this break. You guys think I should start with Phantom menace or show them in the order released? Unfortunately, my wife has forbid that we do the Lord of the Rings movies.

Uh, you do realize that charging across an open area into a hail of heavy gunfire is a valid tactic when you can deflect that gunfire, right?

That said, start with Phantom Menace, that way the movies will seem to get better as they progress.

Phantom Menace was actually the best of the three new movies.  It wasn't apparent at the time, but watch them all now and you'll see it. 

Unfortunatly, Tri is right.  The weakest part of TPM is Jake Lloyd, the rest was pretty good.

I'd show them with the older ones first.  In fact, that's all I'd show for a while, since the newer ones are flashier and have a slicker modern look.  I quickly found that my son enjoys them more than the classics because he's a kid.  His favorite is Revenge of the Sith, and it didn't leave the DVD player for a month once it was released, despite my attempts to get him to watch ANY of the others.  Even now it takes a little work to get him to watch Empire (his 2nd favorite, he likes Vader and Yoda) over Sith.

Doesn't do much for the troops to your left and right I'd imagine.

Maybe I just caught a bad episode, I'm a big Star Wars fan and when I watched the new Clone Wars I thought it was terrible.  I remember the episode had little Togruta girl facing off against Grevious, which in and of itself was a big laugh.  That fight should of lasted about 2 seconds before she was chopped into bits.  In fact, the more I think about it almost everything I hated about the show revolved mostly around her.

Jedi "Guns up LETS DO THIS!! LEROYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY JINKINS!!!!"

Midichlorians & Jar Jar.

0% Hayden Christiansen.

Your move. 

Natalie Portman's nipples and six pack.  :why_so_serious:

I think Sith was better than TPM but TPM was miles ahead of AotC. If I had to rank all six movies it'd be:

Star Wars/Empire (I flip flop on which one I like best), Sith, TPM, Return of the Jedi, AOTC.

For those of you wondering how I put two prequels ahead of one of the original trilogy I only have one word. Ewoks. Jar Jar was annoying but I can imagine him as sort of the Forest Gump of his race. Ewoks? They're all bad.

Finally, I actually have grown to like Ahsoka. I hated the idea of Anakin having a Padawan but it has given him an interesting new dynamic and Ahsoka is actually kind of an interesting character though it really depends on the writer for that episode. Watch the episode sometime where her whole squad gets wiped out. They did a good job of showing how someone as young as she is would react.

I'd have a hard time picking TPM as the best of the new ones given that it contains the single worst sequence in any of the movies (kid Anakin derp derp derps his way into blowing up the star base thing.) So awful.

No, the worst sequence of the new ones was that god fucking awful picnic or whatever with Anakin and Padme. It was beyond stilted and awkward. They had anti-chemistry. They made me question if Lucas had ever known love.

Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo.

Annnnnd it's back. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6WcmKRvHpk&t=1s)

Whenever the hell Disney releases their streaming service, that is....

Why ?

Because it got pointlessly canceled in its last season even though it was good and popular just because of the Disney acquisition?

I'm kind of surprised it took this long.  I expected them to do it as part of Rebels - to wrap up the unfinished stories.

It didn't feel unfinished by the time they finished.


Because Disney are pumping out everything they can that they think will attract a few extra subs for their Disney-flix platform.

And ahsoka is really popular.

I wouldn't be shocked if this is partly a test run for a 'fulcrum' series covering the time from aotc to rebels.

But my point is they put out Rebels, which was fucking awesome and actually capped it all off and finished it well.

WHY?

I do agree ahsoka should not meet Anakin again until rebels. And plainly that isn't going to be the case now.

But I'd happily watch the cgi-clone wars do the the build up to RotS that we got in samurai-jack-clone-wars. Also the last episodes of clone wars where the Republic got darker and darker could be explored more.

They had the ending already set up when they canceled CW and everything they planned they took it as cannon when making Rebels.

Yeah - basically, they're just wrapping up what they had in progress. 

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong but I don't remember there being much to wrap up?

There were a few foreshadowed things that never resolved and there are some small elements of planned stories that impacted what we've seen in Rebels ... and perhaps even films.  They're likely going to be working from the scripts and outlines for the episodes that they had planned to do before they were terminated early.

Basically what happens in Mandalore and with Ashoka.

So, this was great.

The last 4 episodes are better than Mandalorian.

I had the same reaction which genuinely shocked me. So good. I've felt for years now that the Clone Wars series adds much needed depth to Revenge of the Sith and those 4 episodes nail that home.

Fuck.  Now I have to watch these.  Thanks.

If you guys were going to start watching these, how much would you watch/rewatch?  The entire series?  Or just the last X episodes?  just this season?  I stopped at about season 4 (not due to lack of interest - due to lack of time at the time).

Hmmm...it really depends. A major event takes place at the end of Season 5 that informs Ahsoka's arc in this last season. You won't get the emotional beats that happen if you haven't seen those events. I think they're the last 2 or 3 episodes of Season 5. Also, in Season 6 there is a very important event with a trooper called fives that also is important though you can get the gist of it from context. Still, seeing what happened will make episode 10 have more emotion behind it in my opinion.

Thanks.  I apparently watched deeper than I remembered, now that I try to find where to pick up, but I still have some watching to do.

I would recommend...

S3 ep1
S1 ep5
S2 ep10
S3 ep2
S2 ep12-14
S3 ep12-14
S3 ep10
S3 ep18-20
S3 ep5-6
S4 ep7-10
S4 ep19-22
S5 ep1
S5 ep14-20
S6 ep1-4
S6 ep10
All of S7.

This mashes up the clones, maul, and mandalore viewing recommendations you can find elsewhere, and reorders stuff to play more chronologically, but also help pacing.  There is other good stuff, and this list is light on ahsoka given she is main character of the series, but you know who ahsoka is so nbd.

I watched all of this list again to avoid the temptation of watching the latest episode each week (the episodes are too damn short). I was glad I did.

The last four episodes are amazing, the other eight are about par for the series with some ups and downs.

Just to say something in favour of the maligned middle arc.

It made me realise that clone wars, despite regularly hitting the 'why are we fighting?' theme, hadn't really managed to show the war's impact on civilians.

It was also a good reminder of what assholes the Jedi council were. It really was three episodes too long though.

That's such a clear narrative theme now that it's kind of fascinating how much of that view was likely not really what Lucas intended us to get out of the prequels. Intended or not, it adds a lot to the SW universe--that the Jedi had become isolated, unaware of the world around them, arrogant, inflexible, dogmatic. If they really do that Kenobi show, that's a great theme to keep working with--that over time Obi-Wan finds his exile useful as a chance to fully process and reflect about what the Jedi did wrong.

I think it was intended in Lucas clumsy way. Windu's last words are literally a mirror of what Sidius tells Anakin early in the movie about Dooku "he's too dangerous to keep alive".

And Anakin's reply is the same. "It's not the Jedi way." It was very conscious mirroring.

And Lucas clearly intended to show the Jedi out of touch with two exceptions. Yoda and Qui Gon. Qui Gon especially was ahead of the curve and knew the Jedi were too embroiled in politics. And watch Yoda everytime something comes up that ties the Jedi further to the war or to politics. He looks super uncomfortable every single time.

Do you hate us so as to ask us to rewatch those movies?

There was other stuff too like forcing Anakin to spy on Palpatine, WE knew he was Sidius but they didn't. They were just spying on the head of the Republic on basically a hunch.

This is all in Revenge of the Sith which isn't a bad movie in my opinion. Especially when ranked among other Star Wars movies.

Not a bad movie.  I even put it above Return of the Jedi.  However, it is far from a good movie.

It's better now because of the clone wars.

It was definintely intended, and often clumsy.  The entirety of the prequels is about how the Jedi got it all wrong.  The most obvious example to me is about love and attachments.  Their dogmatic stance on attachments is the undercurrent of what pushes Anakin to the dark side.  Obi Wan and Yoda continue to fail to learn the lesson with Luke Skywalker, who told them to go fuck themselves and obliterated that bullshit once and for all.  While also saving the universe.  The Jedi are basically exactly wrong about most things up to that point.

Cept for Qui Gon and a couple others from the Clone Wars (Plo Koon was a bro). Anakin needed a father figure that realized the Jedi were mostly full of crap, not someone "like a brother" who completely bought into their nonsense.

Among many things I hate about the sequels is that they had a chance to really bring the entire arc of the Jedi to a smart close. You might hate TLJ, but at least it tried to push that part of the whole saga into view, maybe with out any ideas about what to do with it. By the end, I really wish Rey had ended up saying, "If you use the Force to protect and guide, you have to be deeply attached to life, to people, to love, to justice--you can't be a monk living up in a temple, you can't be living apart" and that her story arc had given that sentiment some grounding in her adventures.

That's for some future SW creator, I guess. If ever.

Going one better, now imagine Ahsoka was a main character and she'd said that at the end of the sequels.

On the one hand you're not wrong. On the other though, in the OT details about what the Jedi order actually was or did were largely glossed over. What we know about them from those original movies is essentially that they were an order of peacekeepers who used the Force and had lightsabers, and they were hunted down and killed by Vader.

What we eventually get filled in by the prequels seems almost out of place because they're portrayed as a fairly major force in galactic politics. In the OT they seem to be considered almost myth, fairy tale, or rumor ("hokey religions and ancient weapons", "sad devotion to that ancient religion") or something to not entirely be taken seriously, whereas with how they are depicted in the prequels most people a little older than Luke should be able to remember when these guys were the arbiters of intergalactic policy disputes.

It's one of the many instances where the insistence on trying to fill in the details of the setting after the fact just serve to make everything less interesting, so in that case I'm not really interested in the arc of the Jedi Order as a thing. If I have one concern about the Mandalorian going into the second season after really liking the first is that we started with something that was largely self contained and now we're getting this Boba Fett, Ahsoka, Darksaber stuff that's ties into things I haven't and likely will never watch or read. I'm sure it will still be a good show and won't require extra knowledge but it's just getting back to a mindset of making the universe smaller by connecting everything.

They will have to find a way to give just enough explanation for the dramatic punch of a given episode with the rest implied or left to fan interpretation.

They did that pretty well with the Ugnaut character--you don't get endless unspooling background on the Ugnauts, most people probably don't realize they've seen them before in the movies, etc.

So it will be super-fine if Ahsoka's post-ROTJ status gives them a chance to show (rather than tell) what a Force-using person who isn't a Jedi and isn't a Sith but who was dedicated to doing the right thing and fighting for the right cause looks like, and has that create a template going forward. For all we know, there's a bunch of trained Force users running around in the sequels who want nothing to do with Luke or Palpatine/Kylo/Snoke, who are strictly local operators. Maybe people who don't use lightsabers or have the esoteric powers Jedi and Sith have developed, even. I could do with some low-level Force using criminals, con men, pilots, detectives, healers, do-gooders, eccentric professors, archaeologists, etc. who pointedly don't care about galactic-level conflicts but who are in touch with some kind of deeper mystery. The Mandalorian is a lot more likely to sketch out a SW universe with that element in it than any movie might.

Clone Wars did enough additions to the canon, some from the EU, that could also be used in that work.

You should watch Dave Filoni's recent comments on this. It's all over Youtube or in the Mandalorian documentary on Disney+. He basically says that the single most important battle in the prequels is the Duel of the Fates because if Qui Gon had won he'd have been a father figure to Anakin and would have been able to keep him from going down the dark path he did. It's really fascinating stuff and more proof Dave Filoni needs to be Star Wars Kevin Feige yesterday.

There was a few thousand Jedi in a galaxy of trillions, what's more out of place is that anyone outside political circles even knew about them.

They're Legends.  Most people in that universe have heard the tales of Jedi like we've heard tales of Samurai, Knights, and Ethical Politicians.  Plus, they play pivotal roles in some of the most significant wars in the history of the Republic/Empire.

Samurai and Knights were hundreds of years ago for us. Around the time of ANH, Jedi had only been gone for just under 20 years. In theory the majority of people in the SW galaxy at the time of the OT were alive when the Jedi were around (especially since Yoda's race isn't likely the only one that can live for hundreds of years).

There are still Knights and Sumurai today.  But putting that aside, the history makes them a legend.  Whether they were living legends or defunct legends, their legend stretched the universe over the eras in which they were present.  That is why they were so well known.

There are still knights today? Feudal nobility who suit up in armor to go to war over land claims? Society for Creative Anachronism doesn't count--by that standard there are still everything cosplayed at your average SF convention.

But I think with SW and the attitude we see in ANH, I think the only plausible way to spin it, even given Darth Vader's Jedi hunting operations and the Empire's propaganda, is that Jedi weren't so active and so numerous that they made much of a difference in most things, and that for most people pre-Clone Wars they were already kind of a myth or legend or even just plain not known. I mean, look at the ordinary courtiers and so on at Naboo--they weren't all that "Oh yeah Jedi" like an FBI agent or a SWAT Team had just shown up. The Gungans had plain never really heard of them. The Jedi had accepted that in non-Republic areas they had no real authority (hence Qui-Gonn not just busting Anakin out of slavery on the grounds that slavery is simply unacceptable) and I think generally just did not get involved with nearly all that. Their presence at the Trade Federation blockade felt almost ceremonial until Sideous rang up and said "attack them". Etc.--it's all consistent with the Jedi being already kind of irrelevant and defanged and remote and stultified hence being easy for most people to just forget about or regard as "fake news".