Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars is back and it is back with a vengeance. After the recent prequels including the earlier Clone Wars cartoons, the enthusiasm that I had for all things Star Wars kinda' faded due to disappointment. Don't get me wrong, a Jedi Starfighter will take out the USS Enterprise (Star Trek) anytime... even on a bad day... (Hope I don't get flamed for this) but I had very high expectations of Star Wars. After watching the prequels, one can't help feel that instead of bringing the Star Wars legend to a higher level, all it achieved was plug in some of the holes in the whole saga. Needless to say I left the cinemas without the 'high' I was hoping to get.

But anyway, that's in the past. After watching the first three episodes of The Clone Wars (TCW), I'd have to say that it has yet to disappoint. Part of this I feel is attributed to the focus on the battles rather than the relationships between the various characters which pretty much screwed up the prequels. This in turn can probably be attributed to the lack of chemistry between the stars.

TCW pretty much follows the events of Episode II and the previous Clone Wars cartoons back in 2003. For the uninitiated, the Clone Wars is the significant event in Star Wars history that led to the rise of Emperor Palpatine ending with the outlawing and subsequent extermination of the Jedi order.

TCW pretty much picks up from the the previous cartoons and centers on the adventures of Yoda, Obi Wan, Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's new padawan (Jedi disciple). Yoda was back to his former comedic self and this brought back memories of him in The Empire Strikes Back (TESB) which coincidentally is my favourite Star Wars movie of all time.

There's sufficient action to keep us on the edge of our seats and battle droids are providing much welcome comedic relief as well.

The graphics is also much better than the 2003 cartoons and this is a big relief. What I think is interesting is also the way it has embedded messages into each episode such as "Great leaders inspire greatness in others" and "Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction" which I felt was good.

The force is definitely strong in this one.