Ten years ago, George Lucas and Cartoon Network conspired to tell stories from the fabled Clone Wars, taking place between the recently-released Episode II and the in-production Episode III.
They tapped Genndy Tartakovsky (of "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack" fame) to make a traditionally animated micro-series. The result was simply "Star Wars: Clone Wars."
Now, I'll admit to only having seen bits and pieces of this special over the years, but its lasting legacy is felt. Asajj Ventress, one of the more popular EU characters, made her debut here inspired by rejected concepts of what would become Count Dooku. General Grievous also made an early bird cameo, and became more of a player as events lead up to the Battle of Coruscant. And though I find its CGI spiritual successor a far better show overall, it's obvious that the character designs were greatly inspired by Tartakovsky's (and they work better in traditional animation as well).
Like any expanded universe story, much of it is not quite canon and from what I understand some of it was contradicted in the later series. While this is probably for the best, one must pay homage to this first and pretty decent attempt to tell of this legendary time.
Me and my older brother ate this series up when we were kids. When Sith rolled around and SW mania was big again, Genndy's long haired Anakin swept me off my feet and got me watching all the films (save for Sith as it was PG-13 and I was ten when it came out). When the 2008 TV series rolled around I knocked it for being in CGI and accused the graphics of being "ugly." I was a stupid fourteen year old. While 2003 CW tells stories more in a visual manner using animation, 2008 is more arc based and fills in a 30 min timeslot. Idk how fair it would be to compare them based on that, but I kick myself in the butt for my shallow dislike of 2008 CW. (I went through an animation snob phase in early high school.).
ReplyDeleteI still think the CG Clone Wars is ugly, but the great writing saved it for me in the end (well...with a few exceptions)
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