Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Seasons 1-3 (2008-2009-2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008, 2009, 2010
	Creator: George Lucas
	Actors (voices): Tom Kane, Dee Bradley Baker, Matt Lanter
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, SF, Action
	Conditions of visioning: March-July 2016, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: The 1000-year old Republic is at war with the separatists led by Count Dooku. Jedi knight are sent across the Galaxy as peacekeepers, leading legions of clone troopers.
Review: The story of this TV-series is set in the three years between Episode II - Attack of the Clones and Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, i.e. when Anakin Skywalker is adult but not yet turned to the Dark Side. This is a problem in itself because how to squeeze seven seasons of character evolution in this time period?! Putting that aside, George Lucas has successfully created this series to show more of the characters that people have come to like from the prequel trilogy: Anakin of course taught by Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda leading the war efforts with the help of Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson's character in the prequels). I liked to see Mace Windu in action and confirming as suggested in the movie that if Yoda is the wisest, Windu is the most powerful of the Jedi. We get to witness that in the S1E19 Storm Over Ryloth to E21 Liberty on Ryloth. More about all the characters in the series after the end of the post. Note that another animated series called Star Wars: Clone Wars (without 'The') was born in 2003 from the mind of Genndy Tartakovsky and takes place in the same time period. I have seen it and liked it, especially for the transition to Episode III but in 2008, George Lucas retroactively denied Clone Wars as a part of the official Star Wars canon, replacing it with this new series Star Wars: The Clone Wars which rebooted many elements of the original series. The episodes of this TV-series last 22 minutes and often a single story takes several episodes to be completed which gives some interesting bits like a kind of monster movie in S2E18 The Zillo Beast and S2E19 The Zillo Beast Strikes back, and the revelation of new elements about the nature of the Force in S3E15 Overlords, S3E16 Altar of Mortis and S3E17 Ghosts of Mortis. All episodes start with an energetic narrated introduction (by Tom Kane) which plays the role of the opening crawl in the movies (but much faster and with supporting footage), and tells in a similar fashion of events that have occurred in the near past and are not shown in another episode. This is for me a very characteristic trait of both the Star Wars movies and this TV-series: you sometimes wonder whether you have missed an episode, but in fact you remain with the feeling that a lot happens in this Universe even when you are not watching! I can conclude that I liked the first three seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars but am aware of their limitations. The TV-series is not only intended for kids as I first thought, and can also attract adults thanks to some darker stories, and fans of the Star Wars saga thanks to an extremely rich Universe: planets, aliens, weapons, societies, plans, animals and some very nice ships design that all seem to have been dug up from a bottomless well of ideas that has been filled by George Lucas and his graphic artists since the early days of the first movie. Let's see what the next seasons bring...
Rating: 6 /10

Other characters we get to see often are Padme and Jar Jar Binks, and there are even episodes in which they have leading roles like S1E8 Bombad Jedi, S1E18 Mystery of a Thousand Moons or S3E5 Corruption. Those apparitions are not too bad although I didn't like the way it was going in Season 2: more romance between Anakin and Padme in particular in S2E4 Senate Spy, and more political stories (the whole Mandalore story arc). Fortunately we almost don't see Padme and Jar Jar in season 3.
Another unavoidable character is the droid R2D2 which shows its personality in S1E6 Downfall of a Droid and S2E21 R2 Come Home. C3PO is more absent. We also see briefly Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson in Episode I), the Viceroy Nute Gunray, Jabba the Hut, Count Dooku, General Grievous, Aurra Sing glimpsed in Episode I, the Geonosians and their king, and many others.
We also get to see the early years of characters that will become important in the original trilogy, like Tarkin in S319 Counter Attack and S320 Citadel Rescue, future Grand Moff in Episode IV - A New Hope played by the great Peter Cushing. Some episodes are dedicated to the young Bobba Fett, son of Jango Fett, thirsty for revenge: S2E20 Death Trap to S2E22 Lethal Trackdown.
Still talking about characters, a strong emphasis is put on the Clones, giving them some presence and actually differentiating them (haircut and color, names, wounds...) to the point of making them the heroes of some episodes: S1E5 Rookies, S3E1 Clone Cadets and S3E2 ARC Troopers when the battle is taken to their home world of Kamino.
Among the new characters my favorites are Count Dooku's apprentice the merciless Asajj Ventress and the bounty hunter Cad Bane of whom I like the look (blue skin and large hat), the deep voice, the character and the style: he is the only non-Sith to dare taking on a Jedi. Many Jedi are also introduced and in particular Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's apprentice. I have some problems with that one, not because it is a poor character (actually the contrary) but because it hardly fits in the Star Wars Universe: Anakin is still a Padawan so how can he get an apprentice? We also know he is not mature enough for that. By the way his character is way too nice compared to what we see of him in Episode II - Attack of the Clones and barely shows a dark side (I have read that this changes in the following seasons). All leading to the question: what becomes of Ahsoka before Episode III? Will she be killed during the infamous Order 66 launched by the Emperor?