Customer Reviews

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - The Complete Season Two

5 star:		(75)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

-----------------------------------------EPISODES' REVIEW------------------------------------------
When a show says its pushing for 5 seasons, you generally tend to get very nervous, especially since an entire 1st season and a motion picture tanked your expectations, being "mediocre" at best. But now this new DVD release has really swept me off my feet! Star Wars never looked so good on TV! The acting is superb (with a few exceptions I'll roll out later), the story is never bland (although it suffers from unbelievably goofy premises) and each and every episode is able to hold the other up by its caliber in brilliance! It literally shoots the standards of the upcoming seasons by light-years!

The animation has made great strives and Season 2 is not shy when it comes to proving itself. The character models themselves interact with the environment, climate and other characters much more realistically. I can't even think of any particular technical hiccup off the top of my head -- not one -- from this season, which is a huge plus, in my opinion.

One technical issue I know the Clone Wars is suffering from though is that they haven't perfected the art of RAIN! I can't think of a single episode with a grey cloud in the sky, which is pretty unrealistic if you ask me. Its not a huge complaint, just a technical obstacle I'd like to see this show overcome.

The character's models could be as fantastic as they please: the characters 'themselves', however, could definitely use some tweaking. In a time-block of half an hour (22 minutes excluding commercial breaks), if amazing what both Seasons have been able to pull off. Sometimes the acting sounds forced, though, and dialogue is painfully rushed (I'm looking at you, Ahsoka and Anakin!). On the plus side, the voices fit well with the character's and their established personalities (with the exception of Grievous, who is just a miserable mess of inconsistency).

The story is outstanding, even for its constrained time-frame. Every episode acts and feels like it'd be at home playing on any big-screen cinema (which is, ironically, the exact opposite of how I felt about the feature-length film). The episodes' tone has gotten rather darker even, which I think compliments the kid's intelligence and the older viewer for watching a "kid's show" as well.

There's really not much else to say except the lack of legitimate villains. Count Dooku, General Grievous and Asajj Ventress get little to no action whatsoever(with the exception of Grievous getting his own 2 episode story arc... which was VERY disappointing). Some new adversaries are introduced, but they never really go anywhere (Cad Bane and Captain Honoka are the only exceptions) Instead, mercenaries, bounty hunters and even giant Godzilla wanna-bes get jammed into the show and really takes a lot away from the "Clone Wars"!!!

I understand that the Clone Wars can't shove battle droid and clone trooper clash in our face every episode, but it'd be a nice change of pace. Season 2 covered every genre you could think of: monster movie, murder mystery, kidnapping, extortion, revenge (the list goes on!), but the show needs to understand that it can't tread too far from its element.

------------------------------------------DVD'S REVIEW---------------------------------------------
Like the last season's collection, Season 2 offered 4 discs containing the 22 episodes and a very neat book that contains concept art relating to the season. The disc offers different language options and precise subtitles too (you know, the basics). Unfortunately, one REALLY disappointing thing about the package is its presentation and its lack of bonus material.

Last Season's DVD boxset offered interesting featurettes for every episode, explaining production, technical difficulties, etc. Instead, Season 2 has a new tab on its 'bland' menu labeled "Bonus Material" where you're lucky if you at least find ONE episode autopsy (there is also trailers for Star Wars games and other media, but they hardly count as worthy material). Season 1's 'main menu' even looks more impressive than Season 2's: Season 1 has a montage of clips from its episodes on each disc, where as Season 2 only has a still picture of Yoda on each disc ("Very disappointing, this is!")

Could it really have been that hard to stuff everything into those discs? Maybe the episodes' technical superiority made it relevant to take out good portions of bonus material, but that's no excuse: they could have just simply put another disc in the set dedicated to bonus material and be done with it! And its not like they weren't ever produced: even "StarWars.com" still has them in its video library, and its been -- what -- half-a-year, at most? To be honest, I smell a marketing tool to get Average Joes to get Blu-rays (which I assume are PACKED with bonus material) and with my limited budget, I guess I'll just have to stick to my guns and complain some more.

----------------------------------------------OVERALL----------------------------------------------
To write a lengthy review, it definitely required me to do extensive nit-picking. I still think, even with the few complaints I have, its a worthy buy. If you are willing to cough-up the extra bucks for Blu-Ray, you'll find a complete half of this review to be irrelevant. The episodes themselves are worth the buy, regardless of package and presentation.

I see Season 2 as the forerunner... and the seasons that follow it will be as marvelous, if not greater, than the last.

In this point of the series, Dave Filoni defiantly brought the content up a notch. Some of the episodes should've gotten a PG-13 rating like Legacy of Terror and Brain Invaders.

Anyway, Season Two was great, from the evil deeds of the bounty hunter Cad Bane to the revenge attempts by young Boba Fett, this season was a hit and I can't wait to get this boxed set after getting the Season One boxed set! This season was a lot of fun! My favorite episode is The Deserter.

I received this from Amazon the day before its release. Yay USPS! It looks really good on my PS3. I immediately noticed a difference from the TV version, aside from the sharper image; there's letterboxing (2.4:1) that was removed from the Cartoon Network presentation of the show. It now has a more cinematic feel on the Blu-ray (as well as a bit more image on the left and the right). The packaging is similar to the first season, though the book can now be removed from a sleeve. Strangely, the cover of the book reads: "le GUERRE dei CLONI". I thought for a moment that I had the Italian version of the book, but the cover art and the artist's note inside the front cover made it clear that it was an homage to the spaghetti western. Thankfully, there are no games among the extras. There are several different language options, but no commentaries that I could find. Good package overall.

I loved season one! We got that for our 5 year old to watch and it was appropriate for him...no real scary parts and the animation was great! He also "got" the story lines.

We got season two and it is much more dark, scary and violent. The 2-4th or 5th episodes are all about jedi kids being kidnapped and potentially killed...Of course the jedi prevail but it's way too scary for a kid younger than 9 or 10....maybe even 13!

We'll watch it eventually with him but just not now...so parents take notice.

There have been many analyzes already about plot lines of the series, so I won't waste your time. I have season one on standard dvd, and season two on Blu-ray. The difference I believe is dramatic. These toons I believe are best experienced on Blu-ray. I plan on replaciing my first season with the Blu-ray version. It is definitely worth your while.

As much as I liked season one, I like this so much more. The series grew up some. It isn't as "childish" as the first season. We get deeper into the every day of the war. Not that I am into uber-violence, but, it is war-time. Even though it is geared towards a younger audience, there are certain things one expects in a series dealing with a war. Hard decisions must be made; characters must be tested in harsh circumstances. And to that end, it succeeds. A reviewer or two has stated the characters seem detached about the death around them. I would think that would be a normal knee-jerk reaction. One has to deal with the violence, the death, the destruction, the intensity, somehow. So I think it is natural that one would detach and seem cold and emotionless. But, I digress. This is a great season of a great show. For what it is worth, my younger brother who has heard of it, but never watched it, recently tuned into Cartoon Network and started watching season three and has decided he likes the show. He's 27, I'm 37. He got interested enough to check it out after, for whatever reason, thinking it would not be necessarily a good show. Like myself, he is impressed by the overall story, the production, and by just being a fan. Haven't seen any of the third season, but I fully intend on purchasing it when it's available.

A very fun pre-movies story about the Old Republic. These short stories provide a great deal of background to the films themselves. Many of these stories have morals too them that are focused towards the pre-teen crowd but are pertinent to everyone. I don't know how faithful these stories are to the original vision of Lucas and others but they are very good stories none the less. Beisdes, how can you go wrong with Star Wars?!

Season two of the Clone Wars series comes out with a bang. I really like this series, even though it is targeted at kids, it really adds to the Star Wars Saga. Like I said in my review of season one, they could use this tech to make a series of the adventures of Luke and the gang after the Battle of Endor. To show what happened on screen and not just in our emagination or in print. There are tons of stories they could use this type of animation for. I'm just glad they are at least telling this story. I look forward to watching all the episodes this fall on DVD without comercials.

I'm too old for this stuff - NOT!! It's high time they turned the second season loose. One other reviewer said they should use this tech to continue Luke Skywalker's further adventures after "Return of the Jedi", ergo, the destruction of the Death Star. I agree 235%. That would be Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" book trilogy, which I found to be no less than awesome reading. So much of that stuff would have to be CG'd or animated. I'd get a huge kick out of it myself. This Clone Wars series is for kids and for big kids like me. My wife is resigned to the fact that I'll never grow up no matter how old I get. I have all Star Wars movies and all the animated movies and Clone Wars series and movies that have come out so far. I have them arranged in the proper order that the legend takes them. I'm a sci-fi nut. I've also got everything Star Trek and the complete Babylon-5 series and lots of old 1950s movies. For this, the second Clone Wars series to be coming out, and having watched all the episodes on Cartoon Network, it will be great to run straight through it without ads or those highly irritating (SHOULD BE OUTLAWED!!!!) POP-UPS that tell me what I'm watching and what's coming up next. I don't need to be told, and I'll bet a belly button to a doughnut hole that no one else does either. I enjoy the animation and the style of the series, and I think they are pretty well told even if they are "downed" a little bit for kids. If I can handle Jar-Jar Binks without a whimper, this is no problem.

I just got done watching season two and I loved it.
The episodes seem a lot more mature without losing the enjoy ability of season one.
All the characters are back and just as good.
The voices are all done well.
The episodes flow perfectly.
All in all, a must watch for "Wars" fans.
Recommended.