TV [REVIEW] Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) animated series (1 Viewer)

[Ashla_K]

Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers from the 2003 animated series, Star Wars: Clone Wars.

summary: This series portrays the events during the war between The Republic and the Separatists, commonly known as the clone Wars.

First of all, I wanted to talk about this series for a while now because it's one of the most underrated Star Wars related content out there, to the point most people don't even know this was released almost in the same time period as the prequel trilogy.
To make this review, I had to rewatch it again to refresh my memory and see if I wasn't being fooled by nostalgia but not only I felt the same as 17 years ago, I also noticed more aspects that I couldn't appreciate as a child.
Created by Genndy Tartakovsky, you can clearly see his fingerprint on the artstyle (which I'll discuss later on) but also on how action packed it is. This can be seen as a series, where a war was promised and that's exactly what it delivers, in a very over the top and almost dramatic way.
The characters are overpowered, super expressive, cool looking and badass. I'm not lying when I say they made everyone look good and to be honest, I'm here for every minute of it.
The main strength of the series for me it's not the story itself, because it doesn't follow a particular storyline, instead focuses more on the characters and their points of view. We get to see our main characters like Obi Wan and Anakin, which is the only one with clear storyline even if it's just to fill some gaps and reaffirm some of his dark tendencies but People like Kit Fisto (aquaman Jedi version), Shaak ti, Saesee Tii, Ki- Adi- Mundi and even general Grievous get to see more action than in the movies they appear.
In particular, Grievous is seen as a terrifying warrior capable of defeating several Jedi at the same time instead of the coughing mess we got in the movies and btw, in this series we get to know how he ended up like that. We also have Mace- mothafucking- windu appliying jedi kung fu to every droid he could find and Yoda teaching the children how it's done. Even Padme, C-3PO and Palpatine have their little moment to shine, although I must say I wasn't expecting Palpatine to be such a (unintentional?) comedic relief and his scenes are delicious to watch.
As I said above, Clone wars succeeded in showing us an actual war and something remarkable is that we get to see the tactics of the Clone army, how they attack and their effectiveness. These aren't your typical good for nothing troopers (the arc troopers are everything!), they can shoot, hard and accurately. They're not only support for the Jedi Commander but a very skilled army for the The Republic.

On the technical aspects, I have to say that the animation is very good. The character design is very clean but expressive, the landscape is very reminiscent of Genndy's work in Samurai Jack, in the way we can only see shapes but not the outlines. Most of the color scheme is monochromatic but the shapes are strong enough to be noticed without being distractive.
The musical score is very fast paced and thrilling, perfect for the action scenes but we also got something now rarely seen in any type of visual media: almost to not existent dialogue and purely visual story telling. I said before the characters are particularly expressive here and I think it was intentional, not only because the run-time it's very short (each episode has about 5 minutes long average) but to focus more on body language, in those things the characters don't say with their own words. This doesn't happen on every episode, as the lines of dialogue increase throughout the seasons but we get some moments of raw background sounds (lightsabers, shooting) and not a single word on key moments, like the fight between Anakin and Assajj Ventress (Dooku's apprentice). After a couple of words at the beginning between them, most of the fight doesn't involve any conversation and we get to see, through visual clues, how Anakin slowly turns to the dark side.


As final words, I want to recommend the series because it's genuinely good and entertaining. The only thing negative about it for me, is that is not considered canon anymore. 4.5/5​

 

[Ashla_K]

@notthatmarko @Ahsoka @TicTok_Togruta @perhapz @lexus

@Darth_Felflame

 

[Ahsoka]

I didn't even know it existed tbh

 

[Ashla_K]

I didn't even know it existed tbh

You see what I was talking about?

 

[blueberries]

I don't think i have even seen this around, there is also newer version with 3d models i think?

 

[blueberries]

That's the 2008 series. It has pretty much nothing to do with the 2003 series, and it's a lot longer and more expansive. It even kicked off with a movie.

So i thought, i was getting confused that if it was called sth else and this was the Clone wars plp were talking about xd

 

[Ashla_K]

I watched this when it originally aired, it was incredible. I love, as you said, the lack of dialogue and how it focused on visual storytelling. It was very intense because of that. Asajj Ventress is also one of the coolest characters ever, IMO.

I love Asajj too! She one of my favorite characters of the series.

 

[RainbowDevil]

In this particular series Asajj literally terrified me cause of how she looks, the other CW made her look kinda dark and evil but her non-existent pupils in this one just... I also watched it when I was little and the fact that it had no storyline made it actually watchable for me probably. I particularly remember the episode where Grievous defeats the Jedi, it was epic and unexpected too, just seeing the bad guy destroy the good guys.

Anyway I like your review and the points you made are well thought out, well done.

 

[Ashla_K]

In this particular series Asajj literally terrified me cause of how she looks, the other CW made her look kinda dark and evil but her non-existent pupils in this one just... I also watched it when I was little and the fact that it had no storyline made it actually watchable for me probably. I particularly remember the episode where Grievous defeats the Jedi, it was epic and unexpected too, just seeing the bad guy destroy the good guys.

Anyway I like your review and the points you made are well thought out, well done.