So, against my better judgement I’m starting to get pumped for the new SW movie. In preparation I plan on watching the Clone Wars cartoons. I thought the general consensus was that the '03 series is better than the '08 series. However, by accident I started watching '08. When I realized my mistake I started watching '03 but the style is much worse IMO and I’m wavering.
What says the Dopers? If I limit myself to just one series, which one should I watch? Is it worth watching both? If I watch both does it matter which one I watch first?
Tough comparison. Genndy Tartakovsky is a legitimate genius in animation, and his CW cartoon was just about perfect. I vastly preferred his style to wood-block aesthetic of the CGI version. On the other hand, he was limited by both the “micro-series” format, and by his cartoons being a bridge between two contemporary movies.
The longer Clone Wars series took much longer to find its feet - the first season has some good bits, but also a lot of filler. But when it finds its stride, it digs much deeper into the moral aspects of what’s going on in the Star Wars universe in a way that’s both compelling and accessible without getting moralistic or didactic. And the longer format of a regular TV series allows them to do bigger and broader story arcs than Tartakovsky could fit in his shorter format miniseries.
I’d give the edge to the CGI version, but only just, and largely because they had more room and freedom to play with the setting.
The 2008 Clone Wars is better by a long shot. Oh, the Jedi are more awesome in the 2003 cartoon, but the politics and morality of the CGI version are more complex and interesting. It’s honest about the fact that the Jedi are morally compromised by their use of the Clone Troopers, that the Republic is corrupt, and that while Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and Padme (and to a lesser extent Yoda, Anakin, and the like) are on the side of the angels, there ain’t no good guys in this story.
The 2003 series was brilliant. I felt it gave me more insight into Jedi and Sith then all 6 of the movies.
The 2008 series had many seasons. At the start I would rate Ahsoka as less annoying then Jar-Jar but not as good as the one wheeled droid at the diner that waited on Ewan McGregor. Yet, by the end some people were saying she was a great character.
I can’t really say since this is the show that made me say just because it’s Star Wars I don’t have to watch it. Every time I gave it another chance it seemed as bad as I remember.
And I’m young enough to have been excited by the Holiday Special.
I much preferred the '03 series. Good stories, and just amazing visuals.
The '08 series had its moments, but suffered by comparison. The stormtrooper redshirt syndrome was pretty bad. And I forget (but am forever grateful to) the TV critic who described Ahsoka as “Inappropriately Dressed Jedi Intern.”
I love the 08 series (though the theatrical movie that preceded it wasn’t so good), though I’ve only seen the first three of six seasons. I’ll catch up on Netflix in the summer, I hope.
The 03 series I just find “bleh”. So much style over substance, and I don’t even care for Tartakovsky’s style anyway (at least when applied to Star Wars).
Rebels is good show, too, set between the 08 series and the original Star Wars. Not as complex as the 08 show, but a lot of nice touches that appeal to me as a fan.
The 08 show took a while to find its feet, too. Rebels, I think, is showing signs of similar growth, and doing so a lot earlier in its run than Clone Wars did.
Yeah, it’s not fair to judge Rebels just yet–it’s just had one season so far. It’s had some clunkers, but when it gets it right, it really gets the feel of classic Star Wars.
I watched some of the 2008- Clone Wars series, and all of 2003, and as pretty much everyone else has said, they’re not easily compared. My thoughts: 1) You don’t need to watch either series. I suspect SW7 on won’t really ask you be familiar w/ the prequels, much less their spin-off CGI cartoon series. 2) Tartakovsky’s series’s visual style may take some getting used to. It did for me. 3) If I was going to watch one or the other, and I wanted to get excited for Star Wars, I’d watch the 2003. It’s not very long, and it’s really good. 4) If you still wanna watch 2008 after that, go for it. I enjoyed what I saw, though I never watched enough to stop wanting to punch Ahsoka, but the overwhelming consensus seems to be that it got pretty good in later seasons.
The 08 series is an anthology, loosely connected overall with some multi episode arcs.
Some highlights are the arc of the Geonosis invasion, the Umbara arc(think Band Of Brothers mixed with Blade Runner) and the clone chip arc in the last season.
The early episodes on Boba Fett’s planet were cool too.
All of these were the show at its best, morally ambiguous with some hard questions posed.
I saw a scene on youtube where someone is stalking Anakin as he walks through the crowd on Coruscant. The music and slightly tense atmosphere works really well. I always dismissed the initial Clone Wars cartoon as having primitive looking animation but now I’m seeing that the stylistic choice helps focus attention to important subtleties. I just now saw a brief scene where the clone troopers are protecting, I think Coruscant or Naboo from a droid army that has taken over. There’s no talking as the clone troopers are silently ordered by their commander to take position. The overall tone and seriousness of this series is so so much better executed than the actual big budget film prequels. All the ideas that were brought about in the prequels actually come across good in the 2003 cartoon.
Thanks for the poster who recommended this series in the other thread and thanks OP for posting this. I’m going to buy this on DVD when I get a chance.
The '03 series is just pure fun. No deep plots, mostly non-stop action, to a degree that would be ridiculous in the films, but lots and lots of fun. (at least for the first 2 seasons. The 3rd had longer episodes that went a little deeper into characters but were still fun).
The '08 series… well, I’m trying to like it. I’ve just started season 5 and I’d heard it gets better toward the end, but I haven’t seen a huge improvement. There have been some decent to good episodes, but lots of painful or just plain boring ones. The voice acting is stilted and wooden. The plots are a straightforward tromp through the path of least resistance. I can’t remember a single real twist or surprise. they set up a task that needs to be done. then they do it. end credits. Occasionally they raise some question of right or wrong, but it’s usually one with an obvious answer, or they just raise the question and let it sit there.
Are the clones independent people who should have rights? … I guess so.
Is it wrong to enslave them to fight a war? … sure, I suppose.
Do the separatists have legitimate beef with the republic? … maybe.
But to me, SW has never been about moral questions anyway, so that falls a bit flat too. SW has been about the Hero’s Journey, and about character building, and world building, and fun action. There is quite a lot of world building, which is nice. Seeing worlds fleshed out that we barely touched on in the movies is cool. But character-wise… a resounding meh. I don’t feel like I’ve learned much of anything about Asoka, for example, let alone the main characters from the films. Obiwan goes on a mission… do we learn anything about his past? or his thoughts? not much. Do we see anything of Anakin’s fall to the darkside? eh… not much. Do I know anything about any of the dozens of background Jedi from the movies? (Kit, Saesee, Luminara, etc.) not much.
OK, didn’t mean to rant this long, but on the whole the series feels like a missed opportunity. It’s OK. but it should be better than just OK.
Yeah, the order was deliberately anachronic. That only bothered me a little, as it acknowledged a built-in weakness of the series: a certain lack of suspense. Of the important characters, only Ahsoka’s fate was unknown from the start. You know that Anakin, Obi-wan, Padme, the droids, and so forth are going to survive; that they’ll never succeed in defeating Count Dooku or Grievous; that the Chancellor’s machinations will never be exposed; and so forth. Thus for most of them it doesn’t matter what order you tell their stories. I’ll check your link later, but I suspect the only characters whose story progresses linerally is the inappropriately dressed intern.
Obiwan himself broke the jedi code and had an old flame, it made it seem like the whole jedi order views the no attachments thing with a nudge nudge wink wink mindset. They don’t take it seriously, which explains why Anakin and Padme were overlooked.
The show did a lot more to show Anakin slipping than the prequels, we see how he learns to love the force choke. Remember the episode he kills the villain from behind?
Obiwan:“ANAKIN!”
Anakin:“Oh come on! He was gonna blow up the ship!”
The episode where he kicks Padme’s old boyfriend out of the ship knowing he faces certain death?(Such a good scene they went and ruined later).
The show was clearly showing fatigue near the end, but it seemed better than it was in comparison to the prequels. Anakin in the series was a likable guy believable as a tragedy, Anakin in the prequels was an annoying whiney teen.
Well said. It’s significant that the majority of Anakin’s questionable actions seem entirely reasonable in isolation; it is their cumulative effect that matters.
I also liked the episodes with Tarkin, and the friendship that develops between him and Anakin. It’s background information that casts the events of the movie in a different light, without ruining them. When Tarkin tells Vader to back down, Vader does it because he actually likes Tarkin. He’s literally his only friend left in the galaxy.