Clone Wars

Paul and his girlfriend Ashley had us over tonight to watch the first season of the Clone Wars cartoon. I'd seen the one that introduced the Punisher-esque cyborg(?) on the speeder bike, but that was it, so this was a treat.

I have to say, for most of the beginning, I was laughing at everything. The exposition was very terse and to the point (which makes sense, as each episode was five minutes long), resulting in some hilarious moments between impatient teacher Obi-Wan and surly student Anakin. (And I must say, Anakin's pout-scowl is hysterical.)

The show is essentially a bunch of fighting (including a scene with the mostly ineffectual--and horribly cruel to poor Threepio--Padme Amidala), but it's stylized, and the voice acting is decent, and all the Jedi are badasses. It certainly explained why Paul's reaction to Revenge of the Sith was "They gimped so many people who were much bigger badasses." Mace Windu and General Grievous certainly stand out along this vein. I mean, you should have seen Windu singlehandedly taking on about a zillion fucking droids, plus a giant droid ship (that looked like something out of an anime) whose sole purpose was to smash everything in about a mile radius. (Seriously. Its stomper thingy covered that much ground. I told you it was huge.)

And where was Grievous' signature limping and wheezing? That sort of confused me. He was, in any event, definitely a badass.

There was all sorts of cheese in the series, and the dialogue really wasn't all that great. (After the DVD was over, we flipped on Cartoon Network and caught the last half of an episode of Justice League Unlimited. The dialogue in that show was leaps and bounds over Clone Wars. Man. I'm starting to wish we had cable, because that show was cool.) But anyway, it was neat overall. I liked the use of original Star Wars music and sound effects, mixed with new stuff. And I liked how every time the Jedi did something badass, they paused in a badass pose. It was hilarious.

So yeah, I recommend it :)