Kinda like Michael Jackson’s death made listening to his music acceptable again, George Lucas selling Lucasfilm made me immediately more enthusiastic about anything Star Wars (even if it’s something that came out long before).
So, inspired by the Disney buys LucasFilm thread, where it was recommended a couple of times, I decided to give the computer animated Clone Wars series, that I had previously shunned completely, a try.
I’ve just finished season one and so far, I don’t hate it (unlike the prequels). There were plenty of bad episodes, but also enough good episodes to make up for it. I’m not sure if it was just my low expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised and I think I’ll keep on watching, especially if it’s supposed to get better. As I didn’t find a thread for it, only one for the Tartakovsky animated series and one for the the computer animated movie, I decided to start this one. Frak Star Wars and all that!
A question that came up in the other thread was:
As I’d also have liked such a list, here is my suggestion, having watched season one, but not knowing what is yet to come (so maybe some characters introduced in one of the other episodes become important later on, making that episode less skippable). Start with the movie (not recommend it on its own, but necessary, I feel, for the characters it introduces) and then skip all the episodes except the following:
1x05 Rookies
1x09 Cloak of Darkness
1x10 The Lair of General Grievous
1x15 Trespass
1x16 The Hidden Enemy
1x19 Storm Over Ryloth
1x20 Innocents of Ryloth
1x21 Liberty on Ryloth
1x22 Hostage Crisis
9 out of 22 may not seem like a good cut, but now I don’t know how to finish this sentence. Discuss!
That thread prompted me to begin the series as well. I’m eight episodes in, and the only one I might consider skipping is the eighth. That’s not so much because the episode is bad (though they want too heavy on the slapstick, I think it’s fair to say) but because I seem to have an overpowering hatred of Jar-Jar, who featured in the episode. Which is odd because I haven’t seen the prequels in years and years and thought I’d gotten over being annoyed by that stuff. Apparently not. And anyway, the episode had Total Badass Padme, so that was fun.
I can’t imagine wanting to skip Jungle Warfare Yoda in episode 1 or the multi-episode arc dealing with the superweapon.
More generally, I’m surprised at how much I like the Battledroids Are The Dumbest Motherfuckers In The Universe conceit. Particularly in the Yoda episode, it’s quite amusing.
I like this series a lot. I was very skeptical when I started watching it, but it really won me over after some time. I’m surprised that there was no thread for the show until now!
Season 1 is the weakest one IMO, with too many Jar Jar-centric/silly episodes, but I still like it quite a bit. In later seasons the show gets MUCH better, with much more mature and interesting storylines. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in Star Wars.
I like your list of the best season 1 episodes, and if I were to make a personal list it would probably be very similar. I remember being particularly impressed by Rookies, Cloak of Darkness and the Ryloth arch when I watched them for the first time. The only difference for me is that I wouldn’t recommend people to watch the movie before the series since I consider it to be horrible (really, it’s very bad). I only watched the movie for the first time a few months ago and if I had watched it before the cartoon I imagine I would be put off of watching it. I also think it’s worthwhile to watch all of the episodes of every season, but I never like skipping episodes of any series so maybe that’s just me.
Your list is pretty similar to mine of recommended episodes to watch. (You’ll get to see the guys from Rookies again, in season 3, going back to when they are in training on Kamino).
It really is a good show, even with it’s off episodes, it manages to really do a lot of things right and make Star Wars fun again. They’ve even made me appreciate prequel era spaceships and vehicles quite a bit more now that I have actually seen them in action.
I’m still wondering why Captain Rex is still a only a captain after everything he’s done up to this point in the clone wars.
Yup. Season 5 is currently under way. Saturdays at 8:30 on Cartoon Network (and probably Disney/DisneyXD next season).
Some exciting times coming potentially this season. Republic Commandos. Darth Sidious battling the upstart and returned Darth Maul and apprentice. Obi-Wan in Mandalorian armor involved in some Madalorian civil war. Not that this has happened yet. Just things coming according to the trailers.
I’m actually a little disappointed at this season so far after the fantastic season 4. The first episode of this season was great, but after that it has been just a stream of mediocre episodes IMO. I’m still hopeful though since there seems to be a lot of cool stuff yet to come as you said.
True, I tried to find any mention of promotions, and the closest I’ve got is Fives and Echo getting become ARC troopers, which while it’s a more prestigious position, wasn’t strictly a promotion.
Watching these almost helps me forget about the prequels entirely.
I love the slope of Anakin and the introduction of people like Admiral Tarkan.
I like that it attempts to give more personality to the clones, however I’m still pissed that clone troopers just become storm troopers because that really breaks the world to me. Storm Troopers were much cooler when they were conscripted or volunteers from the empire, as graduated clones they are basically just battle droids with flesh instead of metal.
If it helps you feel any better, by the time of Luke and Han, they were mostly conscripted humans with clones (Fett based or otherwise) no longer being the majority.
Yea, I just spent some time reading about it. Good luck making sense of it. Some sort of manipulated by Palpatine plot to protest the taxation of trade routes on the mid to outer rim. Yea. Who knows.
So I picked up Republic Commando during the Steam sale, because my son had been bugging me to get it for ages when he first lay eyes on it at Target one time. Been a fun little game, not very long and with a decent challenge to it. How this ties back to the Clone Wars cartoon? Apparently next weeks episode is the one where the R2 and other droids are sent on a infiltration mission along with a Republic Commando. Gotta say I really like their armor as a separate but similar clone armor set. Maybe it’s the blue glow from their visors that does it but I like the look, and look forward to seeing one in action on the show.
