Back to the (first) Clone Wars
Nov. 5th, 2018 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAfter commenting on the beginning of an annual trip back through the movies of the Star Wars saga with the admission I wasn't thinking about extending it with anything produced in the last few years (no matter what particular film it was supposed to follow), all of a sudden I did start thinking there was something I could try and fit in between two movies after all. It's been more than a few years since I'd last watched the "drawn animation" Clone Wars "micro-series" produced in two blocks between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Back then, I'd come to think that in starting off only able to follow Attack of the Clones they had cast too ominous and unappealing a shadow over their Anakin Skywalker. Even though I understand some people seem able to enjoy more than a few of the movies without having a very positive view of his character, the interpretation I've been able to stick with and feel satisfied by wants to allow him the uncomplicated, enjoying-himself heroism of the beginning of Revenge of the Sith before "tragic protagonist" takes over altogether. That some people in the time since then hadn't stopped using the drawn animation as a stick against the movies themselves and the computer-animated Clone Wars series that had been able to work with a complete saga didn't appeal to me either. There was finally too much Clone Wars computer animation to just casually view it "in between," though, and I suppose I also got to thinking I couldn't turn down every chance to take another look at something and perhaps even pick up on something fixed opinions might hide from me. I've seen a few positive takes quite lately on the older drawn animation that might not have pushed me away. As I started watching my DVD compiling the first block of very short episodes, though, the strongest "new insight" I was feeling was that the ersatz Anakin voice, in trying to sound like Hayden Christensen's, just had me thinking that was a hard voice to imitate. While I could remember seeing comments about the computer-animated Clone Wars (not simply intending to put it down, I believe) that its Anakin voice didn't quite seem to get the character's complexities either, I don't remember it sounding quite as "off" to me; that Obi-Wan sounded the same as in the computer-animated series didn't help either.
At the same time, one thing that's long been said about this animated series is that it goes a long way with comparatively little dialogue. The way a media that would seem by definition to be "created movement" can come to depend a great deal on spoken words can be something to think about. I got to thinking, too, that this series was able to at least imply "great masses" were in action without having to entirely resort to computer animation. It also seems worth considering that since I wasn't reading the Clone Wars comics or novels at the time, without having seen this series I wouldn't have been up to speed with recognizing the Dark Side acolyte Asajj Ventress in the computer-animated Clone Wars; that its computer animation kept trying to reduce the amount of "cloth" in costumes that had to be animated sometimes stood out to me noticing what the drawn animation could do.
In the midst of the action, one craft zipping suddenly away from above a besieged city had me thinking of a moment in Rogue One that has started causing problems for me, when the protagonists cut short a moment of crisis by jumping to lightspeed still in a planet's atmosphere. Five of the six movies of the saga could be argued to make a greater or lesser point of "ships trying to get well clear of a planet to then escape into hyperspace." The Rogue One protagonists crash their ship on the next planet they get to, but this seems to have more to do with weather and terrain than to damage from "breaking the expected rules." Where some toss "the jump to lightspeed has suddenly become a weapon" into their grab-bag of complaints about The Last Jedi (it's at least not quite as nasty as some attacks are), I can begin to "hand-wave" an explanation this would only work with a very specific range of ships and targets, even if it doesn't seem air-tight against "eliminating every chance of it happening before." However, this doesn't seem the only thing raising reluctance in me to go back to either of those movies. I suppose, too, that where the second DVD was able to start drawing on ideas from Revenge of the Sith, including showing at least some brotherly camaraderie between Anakin and Obi-Wan (before sort of surprising me with some aliens it was awfully tempting to see an anticipation of Avatar), in leading up to the opening moments of that movie it had me thinking that like Rogue One it now seems a bit like "things could have happened that way, but I can make up my own ideas too; there's a sense of these official works trying to answer criticisms that might in fact not be 'obvious,' too." While I found things in the first Clone Wars well beyond "refreshing a mere negative opinion" this time, I am thinking right now I might well stick with six movies the next time around.
At the same time, one thing that's long been said about this animated series is that it goes a long way with comparatively little dialogue. The way a media that would seem by definition to be "created movement" can come to depend a great deal on spoken words can be something to think about. I got to thinking, too, that this series was able to at least imply "great masses" were in action without having to entirely resort to computer animation. It also seems worth considering that since I wasn't reading the Clone Wars comics or novels at the time, without having seen this series I wouldn't have been up to speed with recognizing the Dark Side acolyte Asajj Ventress in the computer-animated Clone Wars; that its computer animation kept trying to reduce the amount of "cloth" in costumes that had to be animated sometimes stood out to me noticing what the drawn animation could do.
In the midst of the action, one craft zipping suddenly away from above a besieged city had me thinking of a moment in Rogue One that has started causing problems for me, when the protagonists cut short a moment of crisis by jumping to lightspeed still in a planet's atmosphere. Five of the six movies of the saga could be argued to make a greater or lesser point of "ships trying to get well clear of a planet to then escape into hyperspace." The Rogue One protagonists crash their ship on the next planet they get to, but this seems to have more to do with weather and terrain than to damage from "breaking the expected rules." Where some toss "the jump to lightspeed has suddenly become a weapon" into their grab-bag of complaints about The Last Jedi (it's at least not quite as nasty as some attacks are), I can begin to "hand-wave" an explanation this would only work with a very specific range of ships and targets, even if it doesn't seem air-tight against "eliminating every chance of it happening before." However, this doesn't seem the only thing raising reluctance in me to go back to either of those movies. I suppose, too, that where the second DVD was able to start drawing on ideas from Revenge of the Sith, including showing at least some brotherly camaraderie between Anakin and Obi-Wan (before sort of surprising me with some aliens it was awfully tempting to see an anticipation of Avatar), in leading up to the opening moments of that movie it had me thinking that like Rogue One it now seems a bit like "things could have happened that way, but I can make up my own ideas too; there's a sense of these official works trying to answer criticisms that might in fact not be 'obvious,' too." While I found things in the first Clone Wars well beyond "refreshing a mere negative opinion" this time, I am thinking right now I might well stick with six movies the next time around.