My son, Ben, and I watched all six seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars years ago. As a whole, the animated series was really well done, giving personalities and pathos to the clones, created as a ruse to fight for the Republic in an engineered conflict, while also adding layers to the many characters from the prequel Star Wars movies, like Anakin. The Clone Wars also created the great Jedi character, Ahsoka Tano. Yes, there were some really bad, childish episodes, but there were also many great ones. If you're a Star Wars fan, the show really is something you should watch.
In February, Disney brought back the series for a final, 12 episode seventh season. Fans greeted it with great anticipation and Ben and I watched it each week until it was done. So how was it? Despite having years to think about it, and a tight 12 episode season to bring the events of the series up to the events of Revenge of the Sith, the seventh season ended up having the same strengths and weaknesses of the series as a whole; some good, some bad, and some really, really great.
There are minor spoilers below. Nothing that will ruin the show for you.
The 12 episodes were broken into four, three episode story arcs. The first arc dealt with a unique group of elite clone troopers, called the "Bad Batch". This arc was pretty good but nothing great, dealing mostly with new characters, although touching on some of the major Clone Wars characters. In the original series, it would have been considered a good, maybe great, story, but with a limited season to tie up all the dangling storylines, I would rather have spent more time with characters we already knew.
The 12 episodes were broken into four, three episode story arcs. The first arc dealt with a unique group of elite clone troopers, called the "Bad Batch". This arc was pretty good but nothing great, dealing mostly with new characters, although touching on some of the major Clone Wars characters. In the original series, it would have been considered a good, maybe great, story, but with a limited season to tie up all the dangling storylines, I would rather have spent more time with characters we already knew.
The second arc involved Ahsoka, starting moments after her last appearance in season six. This arc was, unfortunately, not good. She meets and has adventures with two new characters, down on their luck sisters, and the story spun its wheels for at least two entire episodes. Had it been limited to two episodes rather than four, this would have been fine. But with a limited number of final episodes, wasting time on this story was not the best decision.
The final story arc, mostly focused on Ahsoka dealing with the siege of Mandalore and events leading up to and beyond Revenge of the Sith, was fantastic. Seriously, the last four episodes were among the best Star Wars content ever made; cinematic, sweeping, tense, emotional, laden with a sense of dread, and impending doom. To be sure, the story isn't the main event of the fall of the Republic and the extermination of the Jedi, that's what the prequel movies were for, but it involves characters we love and actually adds depth to Revenge of the Sith.
They even went to the expense and trouble of motion-capturing martial artists to create one of the best lightsaber duels in Star Wars history. (I won't spoil the details.) I also LOVED the quick cameo by a young Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars: Rebels. Ben and I have watched those last four episodes several times -- they are that great.
The final season may have been a mixed bag, but The Clone Wars absolutely stuck the landing.
2 comments:
I've only watched a few of the Clone Wars episodes, but Rebels was amazing.
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