Star Wars - The Clone Wars: Clone Commandos

-



Before the November 2009 release of Star Wars - The Clone Wars: The Complete Season One Blu-ray and DVD sets, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm released two four-episode "volumes" of episodes of the Cartoon Network's animated anthology series set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

The first volume, A Galaxy Divided, is a no-frills presentation of the series' first four episodes (Ambush, Rising Malevolence, Shadow of Malevolence and Destroy Malevolence); the first of these is a Yoda versus Asajj Ventress battle of wits, while the others make up a complete story arc in which Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin's Padawan Ahsoka Tano are on a seek-and-destroy mission against a Separatist superbattleship commanded by General Grievous.

 Because Star Wars: The Clone Wars (like Lucasfilm's The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) doesn't have a well-defined chronology, Volume Two: Clone Commandos takes the series' fifth episode, Rookies, and combines it with a trio of interconnected stories from later in the show's first season, Storm Over Ryloth, Innocents of Rylothand Liberty on Ryloth, all of which are centered on the Republic's campaign to liberate the Twi'leks' home world from Count Dooku and his droid armies.

 Rookies, which was written by Steven Melching and Scott Murphy along with senior writer Henry Gilroy, tells the story of a small clone detachment assigned to a Republic communications post on Rishi, a planet which is located far from the front lines...a relatively safe (if rather boring) rear echelon assignment.

 But as they await an inspection tour by Commander Cody and Captain Rex, the clone troopers find themselves under Separatist attack; commando battle droids enter the outpost and ovewhelm the defenses.  Can the surviving "shinies" (new troopers) survive?

 In Storm Over Ryloth, the focus isn't so much on clone ground-pounders but on Anakin and Ahsoka as the two Jedi lead Republic fighter squadrons against yet another enemy battleship, this one commanded by General Mar Tuuk.  As written by George Krstic, this one highlights the relationship between Anakin and his Padawan as he teaches her how to deal with the burdens of command.

 Clone action is back to the fore in Innocents of Ryloth, in which two troopers (Waxer and Boil) befriend Nala, a Twi'lek youngling in one of those stories that are reminiscent of movies about World War II GIs interacting with children in countries that they're liberating.   Written by senior writer Henry Gilroy, Innocents of Ryloth show that the forerunners of the Imperial stormtroopers aren't just mindless drones that kill and destroy the Republic's enemies.

 The final episode, Liberty on Ryloth, was also written by Gilroy and focuses on Mace Windu's attempts to liberate the capital city of Ryloth from the Separatists by enlisting the aid of a Twi'lek resistance leader.  A more political episode than the others in this arc, it, too, bears a strong resemblance to World War II cloak and dagger films about the underground movements that helped the Allies defeat the Axis.

 My Opinion: Though I have no qualms about the quality of the content, I do have reservations about getting this DVD instead of the 22-episode multi-disc Complete Season One set.  

 Sure, for those of us who like - even love - the Cartoon Network series (now in its third season), the animation and stories are pretty good for a Star Wars series aimed at fans of all ages, and I like the fact that George Lucas doesn't strip the Clone Wars of the ugliness of combat, yet keeps the violence quotient to a tolerable level that is age-appropriate for pre-teen kids.

 And maybe these "volumes" are somewhat useful for new viewers who missed the series' first season and want to see if the more expensive Complete Season sets are worth the hard coin they cost.

 For me, though, I find that simply getting the bigger (if more expensive) set is more worthwhile.  The Complete Season One contains a slightly longer cut of Storm Over Ryloth, and each episode has a behind-the-scenes featurette as an optional viewing experience.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's 'It'?

-
Image
How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's It ? It  has been adapted twice for filmed audio-visual media. The first filmed version of  It was a TV limited series; the second was a duology of theatrically-released movies.  The first adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 doorstop of a novel was a 1990 adaptation made as a two-part ABC miniseries for television. Among the cast members: Tim Reid, Harry Anderson, Annette O’Toole, John Ritter, and Richard Thomas. The miniseries also featured Tim Curry as the evil Pennywise the Clown. Adapted for television by director Tommy Lee Wallace and Lawrence D. Cohen (who also adapted King’s  Carrie  for director Brian De Palma in 1976),  It  was okay but a watered-down take on the scary novel about a group of friends who must face off against a monstrous entity known as “It” twice. Once as kids in 1960, then again as adults in 1990. (Like  11,22.63,  the TV version of It avoids the year 1958, which is where parts of  11/22/63 
Read more

Talking About 'Band of Brothers' (HBO Miniseries): Why were there no black soldiers in the Band of Brothers TV miniseries?

-
Image
Band of Brothers,  sadly, reflects one of the sad realities of American society in the 1940s - racial segregation in the armed forces. Although there  were  a few all-Negro (as blacks were referred to in those days) units in the U.S. Army and the Army Air Forces that served with distinction in the European Theater of Operations, most black servicemen were assigned to non-combat units in Supply of Services and other support forces. Most of these soldiers were truck drivers, anti-aircraft gunners, barrage balloon handlers, engineers, stevedores, clerks, cooks, corpsmen, and so on. Only late in the war (fall of 1944 and winter/spring 1945) did large numbers of black infantrymen see combat against German forces, and even then they served in all-black units commanded by white officers. © 2001 Home Box Office, Dreamworks SKG, and Play-Tone Pictures The 101st Airborne Division was an all-American unit made up of individuals from many different groups - Easy Company’s first C.O.,
Read more

Bolero: The One Movie I Have Seen That I Wish Could Be Erased From My Memory

-
Image
If you could have 1 movie that you’ve seen in the past erased from your memory, what movie would that be and why? That’s easy.  Bolero. © 1984 Cannon Film Group Now, I have seen more than my fair share of movies that, for one reason or another, I don’t enjoy at all or once liked but have changed my mind about as I have grown older.  Me Before You  is an example of the former;  Avatar  and  Midway  are exemplars of the latter. But writer-director John Derek’s softcore porn movie disguised as an “adventure in ecstasy” is still the dumbest, most boring film I ever paid a movie ticket to go see in an actual multiplex. It’s so bad, in fact, that my friends (yes, I went with a coed group of buds from college) and I decided, collectively, that as spectacular as Bo Derek looks naked, she was way too old to play a nubile if naive girl in her 20s. The story was just a barely-there plot woven together around a series of nude scenes (including the obligatory girl-girl scene) that
Read more