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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

What to make of George Lucas

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Aug 20 2008, 10:00 AM ET Comment

I was just reading Matt's take on Clone Wars when it occurred to me that the worst thing about this new flick is that it will obscure the beautifully surreal 2003-2005 series of animated shorts by the same name. That first series, which ran on Cartoon Network, was simply the most original thing to come out of Star Wars since the original trilogy. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky of Samurai Jack fame, the Clone Wars were almost an anti-Star Wars--the art is minimalist, the dialouge sparse, and its power comes story and not from spectacle. I actually found the action scenes in the CN shorts to be much more compelling than anything I saw in the films. The whole series is entertaining refutation to the "more is more" theory of the world.

UPDATE: Because Kevdog mentioned it, I went and dug up the incredible chase scene at the end. SPOILER-ALERT: Don't watch these if you don't want to know how it ends, I'm so tempted to post Anakin's fight at the end, which was--uhm--deep. He achieved more humanity and tragedy there then in anything Lucas has ever done.




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