Welcome back, friends and foes, to our coverage of Star Wars: The Clone Wars! Since the first four episodes were already reviewed by yours truly a couple of years ago, we felt it was fine to clump these all together into one review, and start with weekly reviews next week, when the new episodes start. So, let’s dig right in!
1. Pretty, pretty, good looking
The biggest change between the original episodes and these new, Disney+ episodes, is the production value. No Star Wars animated series has ever looked this good before. The animation is smoother, the colors richer, and the overall presentation a little slicker. This isn’t just improvement for improvement’s sake, as the look of the show in this iteration better matches the visual look of the prequels in general. While that look is more sterile than many would have liked, it does match a little better now.
The biggest changes are in the, for lack of better terminology, cinematography of the episodes. There are more camera flourishes, more big pans and zooms, and generally more considered angles and blocking. Part of this is likely due to the technological improvements, but it is also likely due to the fact that there were 6+ years between production of the story reels and the finished product, allowing more time to consider things. Plus, there was a version to work off of, and it wasn’t started from a blank page, as it were.
2. Removal of the Padme pinup
One of the more memorable elements of the story reels was the revelation that the Bad Batch had painted a sexed up version of Padme on the nose of their ship. Well, thanks Disney, but that’s been removed. But I wanted to know the clones were horny on main!
Actually, I don’t care that it was removed, though I do wonder if this is a sign that Disney is going to be making these episodes a little more kid-friendly. It will be hard to know, as we only have these four to base the pre and post Disney eras on, and that’s the only change that seems to be based on an issue with the content.
3. Jedi and clone teamwork
Upon watching these episodes again, it is striking how much Mace Windu is willing to work with the clones. In the past, we’ve seen most Jedi treat them as nothing more than meat puppets (not the Meat Puppets), with the exception of Anakin and, to a lesser degree, Obi-Wan. But here, Windu is willing to not just fight alongside them, but risk his life for clones.
The Clone Wars puts a lot of meat on the prequel’s bones, and makes everything about the clones more tragic. When we see how they are essentially the cogs that keep the Republic afloat, and treated yet are pretty terribly. These episodes show multiple Jedi going to bat for them, and it’s a sad reminder of how things might have eventually progressed.
4. Frustrating from an expectation standpoint
When the series was announced as returning, we were promised lots of Ahsoka and the Fall of Mandalore. We are now 1/3 of the way through the season, and we’ve got neither. That’s both a problem of my expectations and of the marketing for the series. While many of us love the clones, especially key clones like Rex and Echo, it seems like people were most looking forward to seeing Ahsoka and Anakin interact again, for the last time before Anakin becomes Vader (Watch Rebels for that next encounter).
Add to that the fact that many of us watched these episodes in story reel format, and the first four episodes can feel a little disappointing.
5. A nice reintroduction
I think many of us thought the season would be a faux-5 hour film of essentially the Ahsoka/Mandalore story, and these episodes remind us that, nope, this show was never that narratively consistent. Jar-Jar, clones, droids, new Jedi, film characters, all of them had arcs on the show, and most of the time, once you got really invested in one character, perspective would shift and we’d get someone new.
But not only that, these episodes work really well as a reminder of what the series was like. If we jumped right into Ahsoka and Mandalore, two key parts of Rebels, it might not have felt like a true return to The Clone Wars. But this is a really sharp reminder of what the series has always been, and sets the stage for, hopefully, the stuff we all wanted.
