Sunday, October 05, 2008

Fake liveblogging The Clone Wars

Kinda like what I did with Heroes here. When I'm watching a show and it inspires me to snark at it more than enjoy it, that's a good sign I won't be watching it for long.

The Clone Wars inspired snark about a minute in. As with Heroes Season Three, I watched the first episode and started writing down increasingly sarcastic observations. I was going to Twitter them, but didn't want to spoil anyone who was going to watch the show. So here they are, if you're interested.

Every time I see the goofy droids, I cringe. Every time they talk, I cringe even more.

Aussie accented Clone Troopers - not so cool

Yoda - always cool. Smart enough to know he's headed for another trap, confident enough to not give a damn.

This animation blows. Asaj Ventress looks pretty much like a shitty Rock Band character.

Is this a Doctor Seuss planet? What's up with the purple spiky foliage?

I mean, it's good that Paul Hogan is getting some voice-over work, but... jeez, the Clone Troopers sound goofy.

Do you think the clones assigned to Yoda ever want to say "Jesus, can you just learn proper grammar and sentence structure already? How old are you, and you haven't mastered fucking English?"

Oh God, more droid schtick. Nasally voice, totally ineffective... they're a personification of every bad storytelling and humor instinct George Lucas has. Seriously, worse than Jar Jar.

You know how to suck any dramatic tension out of a fight? Make the opponents completely and totally ineffective. Does *anyone* think the comedy 'bots pose a threat to anyone?

Ah, there we go... Super Battle Droids. They're cooler, mostly because they don't talk.

Can't help but think how much cooler Yoda and the clones were in the Tartakovsky series.

Never mind. They talk. But they don't joke. So Super Battle Droids still slightly better than joke 'bots.

Damn it, they joke too. Just as badly.

In Tartakovsky's cartoons, Yoda uses the force to slam droid ships together and force them back off the planet. In the new cartoon, he lifts one battle droid and uses it to shoot all the others. That lack of scale, lack of imagination and love of slapstick says everything about why these new Clone Wars cartoons *suck* compared to the earlier ones.

And in this scene, Yoda teaches the clones... how to love.

Jedi faces off brigade of tanks and droids... better use of scale.

Admittedly, Yoda's action sequence here is pretty cool.

Count Dooku looks like something out of Rankin-Bass.

Yoda punks out Ventress. OK, I like that.

Wow, they set up a base on a random planet! How epic! How exciting! It's just like when they blew up the Death Star, or Han got taken by a bounty hunter! Christ. The stakes aren't even as exciting as Ewoks beating up Stormtroopers.

Overall: Bleh. I'll give it a couple more episodes, but I think my initial plan to avoid was probably the right one. Glad I didn't pay to see the first three episodes in the theater.

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