 The early 2000s were both a good and a bad time for Star Wars fans. On the one hand, we were finally getting new movies. On the other hand, we got dialogue like this. I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating. And it gets everywhere. However, one good thing that did come out of the early 2000s for Star Wars fans was Star Wars Clone Wars, an animated series that was made to bridge the gap between episodes 2 and 3. Now, the making of this forgives most of the sins of the original trilogy. I don't like sand. Most. That will never be forgiven. But today, let's look back at the Clone Wars and see if it is truly as good as a lot of people remember it to be. Or if it's fallen apart and doesn't hold up after all these years. Clone Wars was released in 2003 and comprised of three seasons. The first two seasons comprised of short two to three minute episodes that would later be released on DVD as Clone Wars Vol. 1. With the third season being five 15 minute episodes that would later be released on DVD as Clone Wars Vol. 2. At least that's what I read on Wikipedia. I was five when this show first came out and wouldn't become a huge Star Wars fan for another three years. So I didn't see this show when it originally aired. I've seen it since then and I do think that it's a very good series. It led to one of my favorite shows on Cartoon Network when I was younger, The Clone Wars in 2008. That show quickly became one of my favorites when it aired, but that's not what we're talking about right now. The show was drawn and animated like other popular shows at the time. Like Samurai Jack, Powerpuff Girls, and Dexter's Laboratory. And while this is a good art style and the animation is solid, some of the characters just don't look right. Oh God, kill it with fire! Other than some of the characters looking like they should be burned to death with the world's hottest flamethrower. Ahhhhh! The character designs all look pretty solid. Another thing about the show is the voices for the characters. Most of them fit, but others just sound wrong. The voice of Anakin doesn't sound right to me. Coming off is too scratchy and high-pitched. And as much as I like the character of Azula from The Last Airbender, her voice doesn't sound right coming from Padme. They did use the same voice actor for Obi-Wan as the Clone Wars, but it's probably more accurate to say that the Clone Wars use the same voice actor, whatever. Now, I'm not saying that the voice acting is bad. It is really good. As I mentioned before, the show bridges the gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, or it at least tries to. There is a time jump at some point during Volume 2 to the end of the war, but we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Let's start with Volume 1. As mentioned earlier, Volume 1 is the first two seasons combined into one hour-long movie. The result is an oddly confusing plot that revolves around the earlier stages of the Clone Wars. We have different plots, like the Battle on a Sea planet we see led by Kit Fisto, an attack on the Jedi Templon Illum as Lumair's apprentice is finishing her lightsaber. And the one that takes up the most time, Anakin's first time as a leader in the war and his first encounter with Asajj Ventress. This is the best part of Volume 1 in my opinion, as it leads to one of the best fight scenes in both volumes. It takes place on a jungle planet with the characters jumping around the trees and using acrobatics across the landscape. It's really visually impressive and is very similar to some of the fights from Samurai Jack. Actually, pretty much every fight in the show is done like this, with almost no talking in just the action. It's really fun to watch and it's always entertaining. Anyway, the way that the fight with Ventress ends is with Anakin almost giving in to the dark side to defeat her. With a bunch of really cool imagery of Qui-Gon Yoda and Obi-Wan flashing as he strikes at Ventress. She falls down a cliff after Anakin's rage causes it to break, he screams in rage and then throws Ventress' saber down the cliff after her. And Volume 1 ends with the introduction of General Grievous. We see a number of Jedi surrounded by a droid army, with them freaking out and talking about what they're going to do. We hear the sound of footsteps and Padawan Shaggy decides that he can't take it anymore and runs out. Grievous then crushes him and proceeds to wipe the floor with the rest of the Jedi there, leaving only Ki-Adi Moondi alive. The two of them charge each other and the volume cuts there, leaving us to wonder what happened to the combatants. Volume 2 then picks up right where Volume 1 left off. We see a clone squadron flying over the battlefield dropping grenades on the battle droids to take them out, as well as flying into them to get to the Jedi. The clones manage to separate the fighting Grievous and Moondi. Grievous runs off and Moondi tries to chase after him. The clones stop him from doing anything incredibly stupid and the Jedi forces retreat so that they can save the wounded. We then see Anakin get promoted to Jedi Knight because he needed to be before the third movie, and then we get a jump to another fight in the war where we see Anakin and Obi-Wan kick the ass of their opponents. From then on it's pretty standard war. Anakin and Obi-Wan blow up a separate space so their troops can take it, they end up on a planet where Anakin kills Mazur, which angers the local natives because apparently he interrupted some kind of warrior test that they were trying to do. He gets roped into doing the trial himself and goes to help the natives of the planet. On his way Anakin finds himself in a cave where he has a vision that is actually a quick telling of a story throughout the prequels. It is a fantastic scene once again completely told with visuals and only the musical cues to help tell the scene. Anyway, Anakin makes his way into a factory that he found on the cave, somehow finds out what the bad guys are doing, puts an end to it after freeing the captured natives that had been mutated. He uses his robotic arm in the process and then uses the force to kill every separatist there. Getting the support of the natives because of his apparent ghost hand. He leads them back to the village and talks with Obi-Wan who says that this was Anakin's most important trial. Anakin builds himself a new arm and they get called back to Coruscantel with a separate siege. While Anakin is doing his thing on the random planet, we see the beginnings of the Battle of Coruscant. We see Shakti and three other Jedi trying to protect Palpatine by getting him to a bunker. On the run, they are fighting off Grievous and a final fight we see them in is really cool. Grievous takes up all the Jedi and captures Palpatine while stating that he would prefer to just kill him, which I support because then we wouldn't get Rise of Skywalker, which would be fine. Mace Windu then fucks up Grievous' chest leading to the cough that he has in the movie. Windu then finds Shakti's body and the series end. That got a lot more summarizing than I'm into, sorry guys. So, is the show as good as a lot of fans say it is? Kind of. Clone Wars is a very good cartoon and a lot of fun if you are a Star Wars fan. But I don't think that it's going to change anyone who isn't a fan of the material already. The animation and art style are really good and especially if you like Samurai Jack like me, you're gonna enjoy them. But I don't think that it works super well with Star Wars. Especially with the fact that certain characters, looking at you Palpatine, fucking kill that. Don't look right, at least to me. It comes off as odd and kind of disjointed. However, with certain characters that it introduced to the lore, overall, Grievous being one of the greatest villains from the Clone Wars cartoon and Asajj Ventress, whose story I enjoy just overall and think is amazing, I would say that I recommend this show if you're a fan of Star Wars. If you're a fan of Star Wars, you will probably enjoy this. With the way that the Star Wars universe is now, with Disney and all that, this is no longer canon. To be fair, it kind of wasn't canon when the Clone Wars was nearing its end anyway. But with that aside, if you're a fan of Star Wars, you'll probably enjoy this. And if you haven't seen it, I would say give it a watch and strap in for a damn good ride. If you enjoyed the video, hit the like button. All that jazz, you know, as every YouTuber says. If you'd like to follow me on social media, links to both my Twitter and my Instagram are going to be in the description down below. I hope that all of you guys have a great day. Don't forget to love each other and as always, peace out guys.