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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http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2008/08/what-to-make-of-george-lucas/5685/
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http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2008/08/what-to-make-of-george-lucas/5685/
