So I've just read that the new episode brings back Darth Maul, looking for revenge, with his missing lower body replaced with that of a kind of robot spider.
I've never had any interest in the Clone Wars before but a little bit scarily, this is exactly what I've been saying the films should done with the character since I saw the first prequel. It's not that I think it was particularly inventive of me to think of independently - Maul was cut clean horizontally in half in the film, cybernetic replacements are all over Star Wars and his face tattoos look sort of like a spider web pattern anyway - but now that they've done precisely this thing I thought I wanted I sort of feel that maybe I should start watching the Clone Wars now, because maybe there'll be other things in there that I like and possibly I might enjoy it?
Thing is it's five seasons deep now and, well, I really hated all the new films, and all the crappy character designs and shoddy worldbuilding and multicoloured lightsabers are likely going to be in there too. Can anyone tell me for reasonably certain it's worth or not worth bothering with?
I pretty much hated every minute of the prequels, but I've watched and enjoyed all the Clone Wars series to date. I'm not a particular SW geek, but that hasn't hampered my enjoyment at all. There are high points and low points and a seemingly interminable run of episodes about banking reform in the middle of series three (I think), but overall Clone Wars has much more of a sense fun than all the prequel movies put together.
Cheers
Jim
Well, it's only 4 seasons so far (first episode of Season 5 debuted last weekend), and Maul comes back in the last few episodes at the end of the 4th. His wince-inducingly named brother Savage Oppress (known to all of online fandom simply as 'Randy') was initially introduced as a very enjoyable Maul substitute in Season 3 and then relegated to a support role when Lucas decided to do a little cross-marketing with the Episode I 3D release and flog a dead Sith.
I'm a huge SW fan, in decreasing order of Eps V, IV, VI, I, III, II, and I greatly enjoy most of the CW cartoon.
Season 1 has a brilliant set of episodes in its first half but some dodgier ones in the second half.
Season 2 is pretty much all fantastic, barring a handful of overly talky Senate episodes making up its third quarter.
Season 3 is very up and down in quality but has an amazingly trippy Force-centric middle section including the first appearance of the spirit of Qui-Gon, and a really nice finale with Chewbacca.
Season 4 relies far too heavily on multi-part stories, including a horribly slow underwater opener, but has a fantastically dark Apocalypse Now-style segment in the middle, a brilliant 2-part homage to the Droids cartoon, and a fun Obi-Wan undercover adventure, before (to my mind) grinding to a halt with the aforementioned Maul rebirth at the end.
It's by no means perfect, and there a couple of stinkers hidden in the middle of most seasons, but at its best it retains a sense of fun and adventure which is way beyond the dull grind of the later Prequels. Where it really shines for me are the frequent episodes which are explicit homages to Lucas and Filoni's favourite movies and directors (which is of course what the original Star Wars was). Season 2 is particularly good for these, with Seven Samurai and Godzilla delivering great episodes, and Season 3's Most Dangerous Game homage.
Overall I prefer the single or two part stories to the 3 or 4 part pieces that dominate later seasons, and I don't think it has really delivered on its early promise to showcase a wide range of characters (essentially we still have Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme at the heart of most episodes, with Ahsoka, Plo Koon and a dwindling cast of named Clones making up the bulk of the rest, trailed by a trio of baddies in Assaj Ventress and the Maul brothers. Oh, and various celebrity-voiced Mandalorians, all of whom make me snore.
I'd certainly recommend giving it a go - see what you think of the first 6 episodes of Season 1, or just go for Season 2. Don't start with the movie though, it's a poorly structured mash-up of three episodes and isn't very representative.
I vaguely remember the underwater multi-parter, but mainly for the dodgy science. Normally this would be the last thing in the world that would impact upon a story set in a universe with the Force in it, but there were bits where characters were seen to fall off somewhere high and go "noooooo" and all I could think was "THEY ARE FISH AND THEY ARE UNDERWATER WHY DO THEY FEAR FALLING?" Or characters having to take a "shortcut" through a big tube to get somewhere rather than just SWIMMING THERE DIRECTLY THROUGH WATER, or that bit where characters are tortured with electricity WHILE IMMERSED IN WATER.
Oh I think you must have forgotten the bit where Jar Jar gobs on Padme's helmet to seal a leak. Underwater.
Or the bit where Anakin destroys one sensor array, and it turns out to be the only sensor (or telescope periscope) of any kind on the entire space-ship-building planet of Dac Mon Calamari, so nobody knows that Republic reinforcements are about to land water.
Awful, interminable stuff. After that poor start, Season 4 improves immeasurably towards the middle and then slumps a bit at the end.
The underwater stuff didn't break it for me, it was just stupid and brought me out of the story, which is actually pretty hard to do when you're watching something in the gym.
The Randy stuff broke it.
The underwater battle had a cool shark baddie. Too long drawn out those episodes though. Quite liked the massacre of the bounty hunters in what I presume was the "cube" inspired undercover episode. Clone Wars is fun. Frankly alot of them I find are better than one or two of the movies.
Quote from: Professah Byah on 01 October, 2012, 04:50:35 PM
The Randy stuff broke it.
The Savage stuff annoyed me too, but I did like the way it started, with the rather good betrayal of, and re-jigged backstory for, Ventress, and something different from the SW norm in Mother Talzin and her magics, which had a nice old Marvel comics feel. Randy's five minutes of Sith training were fun, and even the closing hint that Maul survived in
some form was... okay.
Sadly the decision to bring Maul back and place him centre stage,
sans Serafinowicz, was a backwards and unnecessary one, taking attention away from the new characters where the real interest of the series should lie. It broke my 4-year addiction, such that I haven't even bothered trying to see the 5th Season opener.
The promise of more and more Maul episodes, and more and more Mandalorians, and Maul and Mandalorians together - with jetpacks! - just makes me tired. 'Fans love that Maul, huh? And those Boba Fett guys? More of them, so!'. That said, it shouldn't take away from the largely fun stuff there has been, and the hope that more good stuff lies ahead.