Star Wars: Clone Wars

Star Wars: Clone Wars is an animated television series set in the Star Wars galaxy. The series chronicles the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic under Chancellor Palpatine and the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) under Count Dooku. The Clone Wars occurred, starting with the events of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and ending with Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Chronologically, the series takes place between the two movies, between 22 BBY and 19 BBY. That is, during the 3-year time period in which the Clone Wars occurred. The original television series was produced by Cartoon Network Studios, aired from 2003 to 2005, and ran for 25 chapters. The 3D version is expected to be produced by Lucasfilm Animation and debut in 2007.

Overview
The series consists of twenty-five episodes, or "chapters." Seasons 1 and 2 (Volume I) are made up of three-minute installments, while Season 3 (Volume 2) is made up of twelve-to-fiteen minute installments. The episodes are mostly comprised of energetic set-piece battles. Since much emphasis is placed on action, the story and plot is less developed than in the films. Despite this, it can be argued that the third season focused more on Anakin's story. In respect to the animation of the series, there are many examples of design errors, simplifications, exagerations, etc. present. This can be attributed to Genndy Tartakovsky's distinctive style, also evident in such shows as the Dexter's Laboratory and Samuri Jack series.

The series follows the Jedi, on the side of The Republic, on their exploits fighting Dooku's separatist confederation. Many characters in the series are also featured prominently in the films, such as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Mace Windu, Chancellor Palpatine, Count Dooku, General Grievous, C-3PO, R2-D2 and Padmé Amidala, but others such as Kit Fisto, Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura are seen briefly in the films.

Season I
The first season spent more time on various events of the war, occurring closer to the time of Attack of the Clones, while still focusing on Obi-Wan and Anakin's struggles.

Season II
The second season continued the first's style of showing multiple battles, while having a main story at the same time.

Season III
The third season was based on early plot outlines of the novel Labyrinth of Evil, by James Luceno. It closely follows the plot of the book. However, since it was made separately from the book, there were some initial continuity issues between the two. Season three delved deeply into, and focused mostly on, Anakin's story and the relationship between him and Obi-Wan Kenobi, while also showing their struggles during the war. It builds up many of the events leading to Revenge of the Sith, taking place closer to the timeframe of Revenge of the Sith, and is an immediate lead-in to Episode III, the opening scene of which takes place only minutes after the end of Episode 25.

Yoda

 * Yoda seeing a possible future with Qui-Gon taking Anakin to a trial in the tree
 * Strength of Yoda's force push ability in causing two heavy droid landing craft to crash into one another
 * Incredible speed of Yoda
 * Yoda's decision to promote Anakin to Jedi Knight

Obi-Wan Kenobi

 * Obi-Wan becomes a general and wins the war on Muunilinst
 * Obi-Wan perform his skills with his lightsaber against Durge
 * Resembling Obi-Wan from A New Hope, Obi-Wan starts to tell dry jokes
 * He asked the Jedi Council that his Padawan, Anakin, be promoted to Jedi Knight because of his outside trials
 * Obi-Wan becomes a translator for Anakin on Nelvaan

Anakin Skywalker

 * Anakin leading clone forces
 * Anakin showing his impressive skills flying a starfighter
 * Anakin showing his exceptional power with the force
 * Anakin disobeying Obi-Wan
 * Anakin chasing Asajj Ventress on a wild bantha chase
 * Failure of Anakin to control rage in beating Asajj Ventress until she falls
 * Anakin's promotion to Jedi Knight despite reservations of the council
 * Anakin's braid being cut off by Yoda when he becomes a Knight; later delivered to Padmé by C-3PO
 * Distraction of Obi-Wan and Anakin to a far off world; caused by Darth Sidious
 * Dream of Anakin about the effect of his mechanical hand and/or his alliance with the dark side
 * Failure of Anakin to recognize the mechanisms controlling warriors
 * Destruction of weather-altering machine and Anakin's gold arm
 * Anakin felt pain when gold arm was inside electric sphere
 * Failure of Anakin to control anger against Techno Union
 * Warriors' destruction of mechanical implants after seeing Anakin's vengeance
 * Replacement hand for Anakin, modified by Anakin with help from R2-D2

General Grievous

 * Introduction of Grievous
 * Death of many Jedi from Grievous
 * Collection of lightsabers from defeated Jedi
 * Grievous being trained by Count Dooku
 * Grievous's inability to defend against force push
 * Grievous storming Coruscant in order to capture Palpatine
 * Grievous's abilities to clamp with toes plus ability to run down outsides of buildings
 * Grievous's dividing arms, to be used to wield four lightsabers at once
 * In the series, and thus, the official explanation in continuity, the cause of Grievous's cough is: Mace Windu uses the force to damage Grievous's internal organ sack (brought up again in Episode III). However, the real reason behind Grievous's cough is because George Lucas wanted to make sure the audience knew Grievous wasn't a droid.
 * Introduction of Magna Guards, electric-staff-swinging droids that act as Grievous's bodyguards

Shaak Ti

 * Fought against General Grievous
 * Rescued by Jedi and Clone Troopers
 * Assigned to guard Supreme Chancellor Palpatine with Roron Corobb & Foul Moudama
 * Acted as lead Jedi
 * Helped Palpatine to escape from Grievous
 * Fear of Grievous during the kidnapping
 * Ability to defeat Magna Guards - various means - very effectively
 * Inability to stop Grievous from kidnapping Supreme Chancellor Palpatine



Ki-Adi-Mundi

 * Able to survive against Grievous on Hypori for the longest time (though still defeated)
 * Rescued by Fordo and his ARC troopers
 * Agreed with Anakin's ascension to knighthood

Aayla Secura

 * Fights against General Grievous
 * Rescued by Jedi with Troopers

C-3PO

 * Is refurbished with shiny gold plating, due to his appointment as Padmé Amidala's senatorial protocol droid

Clone Troopers

 * Introduction of clone ARC troopers
 * Introduction of commander Cody

Darth Vader



 * Anakin sees a fleeting image of a strange being in a vision during a rite-of-passage ceremony on Nelvaan, who is in fact Darth Vader, his future self.

The Republic

 * Mat Lucas .... Anakin Skywalker
 * James Arnold Taylor .... Obi-Wan Kenobi
 * Tom Kane .... Yoda
 * Terrence Carson .... Mace Windu and Saesee Tiin
 * Daran Norris .... Ki-Adi-Mundi and Daakman Barrek
 * Kevin Michael Richardson .... K'Kruhk
 * Cree Summer .... Luminara Unduli
 * Tatyana Yassukovich .... Barriss Offee
 * Grey DeLisle .... Padmé Amidala and Shaak Ti
 * André Sogliuzzo .... Captain Typho, Commander Cody, Captain Fordo, ARC Troopers and Clone Troopers.
 * Nick Jameson .... Chancellor Palpatine
 * Anthony Daniels .... C-3PO

The Confederacy of Independent Systems

 * Corey Burton .... Count Dooku and San Hill
 * John Di Maggio .... General Grievous (Chapter 20)
 * Richard McGonagle .... General Grievous (Chapters 21-25)
 * Grey DeLisle .... Asajj Ventress
 * Daran Norris .... Durge
 * Terrence Carson .... Oro Dassyne
 * André Sogliuzzo .... Battle Droids

Crew

 * George Lucas .... Characters, story, and executive producer
 * Genndy Tartakovsky .... Director, story, and producer
 * Paul Rudish .... Co-art director and story
 * Scott Wills ....Co-art director
 * Bryan Andrews .... story
 * Mark Andrews .... story
 * Darrick Bachman .... story
 * Claudia Katz .... executive producer
 * Rick McCallum .... executive producer
 * Brian A. Miller .... executive producer
 * Jennifer Pelphrey .... supervising producer
 * Geraldine Symon .... producer

Production
The series was produced by Genndy Tartakovsky and employs a similar animation style to Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack and Dexter's Laboratory.

Release
(November 7, 2003 - March 25, 2005)

The pilot series, produced in 2-D animation, ran on the kid-friendly (and adult-friendly at times) Cartoon Network during its entire run. In addition to being shown on television, the 25 episodes of the 2-D series were released online simultaneously, in the vein of Strong Bad's E-mail, What The Muffins?, and other similar online shows. On TV, the show was heavily advertised by Cartoon Network, and was shown, usually, in five-minute slots immediately before many of their other popular cartoons aired. Comprehensive DVD releases (one for each season) were also later produced.

Awards and acclaim

 * Nominated in 2004 for the Saturn Award for "Best Television Presentation" in the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA (Vol I)
 * 2004 Emmy Award for "Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More)" (Vol I)
 * 2005 Emmy Award for "Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More)" (Vol II)
 * 2005 Emmy Award to background key designer Justin Thompson for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation" (Vol II)
 * 2006 Annie Award for "Best Animated Television Production" (Vol II)

Seasons 1 and 2 won an Emmy award for "Outstanding Animated Program" in 2004. In 2005, Season 3 also won an Emmy award in the same category. The series received some positive critical reviews, some reviewers even believing the show to be better than the first two prequels of the film series.

The cartoons were successful enough for Dark Horse to release a comics series, Clone Wars Adventures, based on the artwork and atmosphere of the show, in some cases with direct plot tie-ins.

Criticism
However, many fans and critics even went as far as to despise the cartoon for its style of animation, the over-exagerrated and sometimes ludicrous action, and Vol II's contradiction of Labyrinth of Evil. The inconsistent tone of the episodes (sometimes dark, others juvenile) also drew flak from purists. Some critics also dismissed the voice acting, as only a few voice actors played the characters in the films.

Differences in the series and the novel
The third season of the series is loosely based on the novel Labyrinth of Evil. However, it was only based on early plot outlines, therefore, there are several inconsistancies between the series and the novel:


 * Cartoon: A trio of Jedi Masters made up by the Togruta Shaak Ti, the Ithorian Roron Corobb and the Talz Foul Moudama attempt to rescue Palpatine.
 * Book: Several different Jedi, led by Shaak Ti and Stass Allie, attempt to rescue the Supreme Chancellor.


 * Cartoon: Mace Windu fights alongside Yoda against droids.
 * Book: Mace fights on a train against Grievous.
 * Cartoon: Anakin and Obi-Wan investigate a possible base for Grievous on frigid Nelvaan, and Anakin goes on a spiritual journey.
 * Book: Anakin and Obi-Wan search for Darth Sidious; Dooku only briefly pauses at Nelvaan.

Trivia

 * Series producer, Gendy Tartakovsky revealed in his Hyperspace commentary on starwars.com and on the Volume I DVD that he purposely animated C-3PO with eyes that sort of move around to pay homage to the animators of and the animation style of Nelvana. He talked of how they had produced the animation for C-3PO for the animated segment of The Star Wars Holiday Special, and how he made his version of the character similar. Nelvaan is the name of a planet in the second volume of the show.
 * Chapter 20 on the Volume 1 DVD introduces General Grievous, and Chapter 25 attempted to give an explanation on why he wheezes when he talks. On the film commentary for the DVD of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, John Knoll noted the reason for Grievous' cough in Revenge of the Sith was due to the Force Crush Mace Windu gave him in this series. Canonically, this should be combined with George Lucas's explanation that the General's body didn't adapt well with the cybernetics as he was an experiment for the technology perfected with Darth Vader's armor, to give the reason of Grievous's cough. The Grievous in Clone Wars is depicted as larger, far more aggressive and acrobatic than his movie counterpart. While the Grievous of the film is described as a coward and repeatedly flees until cornered, the Grievous of Star Wars: Clone Wars appears anything but, repeatedly taking on numerous Jedi singlehandedly.
 * The show has the unique position of being the only show released on the Internet to win an Emmy Award, due to the fact that it was released on TV and the Internet at the same time. On the Internet, it was released the same day episodes aired on starwars.com's Hyperspace section, which is for subscribers only, and was released the next day to Cartoon Network's website and starwars.com for non-Hyperspace members.
 * It is hinted in Chapter 22 that the encounter of Anakin with Padmé, following the battles of that episode, was the time at which Luke and Leia are conceived. This is evidenced by the fact that immediately before the scene cuts away from their ecounter on Coruscant, a room light flashes out in the building they are in. This is also suggested in the DVD commentary by Paul Rudish.
 * This was the first Star Wars television production to be created in a widescreen aspect ratio.
 * Although Eeth Koth remained canonically dead after the Battle of Geonosis, a Zabrak Jedi High Council member that appears in two scenes of Star Wars: Clone Wars vol. 2 who is officially credited as Agen Kolar was animated instead with the unmistakable likeness of Eeth Koth. It is unknown if the character was originally intended to be Eeth Koth (in ignorance of his canonical death) and then retroactively credited as Agen Kolar to avoid a continuity problem, or if the Zabrak was always intended to be Kolar and the animators accidentally used the wrong reference photographs. Although the character is canonically identified as Agen Kolar, the discrepancy of his appearance has confused some fans into believing that the character actually was Koth, coupled with the fact that Eeth Koth's death has as yet not been depicted or even directly referenced in any in-universe sources. Although some fans cite this would-be appearance as superceeding proof of Koth's survival of Geonosis, his death there remains canon.
 * If you go to the options menu and key in 11, 3, 8 on your remote control, credits will play of everyone who worked on the DVD.
 * Homages to other science fiction shows include an original Battlestar Galactica Cylon Centurion hidden in a crowd on Coruscant. Also noticeable in this same scene is a "Woolie" from Tartakovky's series Samurai Jack.
 * Durge's look was designed by the Skywalker Ranch art department, the same artists that developed the concepts that appear in the feature films.
 * In Chapter 22 Obi-Wan and Anakin lead an assault on a rebel city. Anakin leads Obi-Wan through a secret passage to the city that goes through a sewer and Obi-Wan quips, "What an incredible smell you've discovered," which is identical to a line said by Han Solo to Leia in A New Hope during the scene in the garbage masher. This is only one of many references that are made to the original trilogy.  Another is in episode 21, where C-3PO shows off his gold plating.  An astonished Anakin remarks, "Impressive...most impressive...," a line he would later use as Vader in Empire Strikes Back. Another is in episode 11, while in pursuit of Asajj Ventress, Anakin upon locking her in target alludes to the Darth Vader "I have you now!" line.

Volume I (seasons 1 and 2)



 * Chapters 1-20 of the micro-series were released on DVD as "Star Wars Clone Wars: Volume I", as an edited together compilation of the 20 chapters.
 * Released by: Lucasfilm Ltd.
 * Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
 * Language: English
 * Release Date: March 22, 2005
 * Features:
 * Available subtitles: English
 * Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
 * Chapters 1-20 of the animated series
 * Exclusive featurette: "Bridging the Saga: From Clone Wars to Revenge of the Sith," including new interviews with George Lucas, Genny Tartakovsky, and the Clone Wars production crew; also featuring a glimpse of Star Wars: Clone Wars Volume Two
 * Behind the scenes featurette
 * Director commentary
 * Hyperspace commentary
 * Two galleries of concept art, storyboards, sketches & more!
 * Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith teaser trailer
 * Episode III video game trailer
 * An Xbox playable game level of Star Wars: Republic Commando

Volume II (season 3)



 * Chapters 21-25 of the micro-series were released on DVD as "Star Wars Clone Wars: Volume I".
 * Released by Lucasfilm Ltd.
 * Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
 * Language: English
 * Release Date: December 6, 2005
 * Features:
 * Available subtitles: English
 * Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
 * Commentary by Genndy Tartakovsky and his band of artists
 * Exclusive "Connecting the Dots" featurette takes you inside the creative process that Genndy Tartakovsky and his team used to link Clone Wars to Revenge of the Sith.
 * Two galleries of concept art, storyboards, sketches & more!
 * Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith launch trailer
 * Star Wars: Battlefront II video game trailer
 * Star Wars: Empire at War video game trailer
 * Revenge of the Brick short film from LEGO
 * Access a special Xbox-playable demo with two entire levels from the new Star Wars: Battlefront II video game


 * Note: The second volume of the Clone Wars series is being released significantly later than the DVD release of Revenge of the Sith. According to the producer of both DVDs, Van Ling, the Clone Wars Volume II disc is to be released at such a late date due to an extremely tight schedule in producing the DVDs. According to starwars.com, both DVDs were produced at exactly the same time, but apparently, Clone Wars DVD couldn't be finished in time for the DVD of Revenge of the Sith. Ling apologized to fans for this. Evidence of the release date originally being earlier, before the Revenge of the Sith DVD release date is shown in one of the features in the new Clone Wars disc. The new disc has a feature allowing disc owners to play a demo game of the video game, "Star Wars: Battlefront II." The actual game itself is being released over a month before the Clone Wars disc, along with the Revenge of the Sith DVD.