Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003 TV series)

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Star Wars: Clone Wars
Star Wars: Clone Wars intertitle
Format	Serial
Created by	Genndy Tartakovsky Henry Gilroy Characters: George Lucas
Voices of	James Arnold Taylor Mat Lucas Tom Kane TC Carson Corey Burton Richard McGonagle John Di Maggio Anthony Daniels
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	25
Production
Executive producer(s)	Claudia Katz George Lucas Rick McCallum Brian A. Miller Catherine Winder
Running time	Volume I: 3 min. (per episode) Volume II: 12 min. (per episode) Whole series: 127 min.
Broadcast
Original channel	Cartoon Network
Original run	November 7, 2003 – March 25, 2005
Chronology
Followed by	Star Wars: The Clone Wars
External links
IMDb profile

Star Wars: Clone Wars is an American animated television miniseries set in the Star Wars galaxy. The series chronicles the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic under Chancellor Palpatine, and the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) under Count Dooku.

Chronologically, the series takes place during the three-year time period between the films Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The original television series was produced by Cartoon Network Studios, and aired in 25 chapters from 2003 to 2005. A 3D CGI series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars set during a time gap in the 22nd episode of the 2003 show^{[citation needed]} has been produced by Lucasfilm Animation and debuted in 2008.^[1]

[edit] Summary

The original series consists of 10 three-minute installments for Season 1 and 10 three-minute installments for Season 2 (later known as Volume 1), and five 12-to-15 minute installments for Season 3 (later called Volume 2). The 25 episodes are mostly comprised of energetic set-piece battles. Since much emphasis is placed on action, the story and plot is less developed than in the films. Despite this, it can be argued that the second season focused more on Anakin Skywalker's story.

The series follows the Jedi on their exploits fighting Dooku's separatist confederation. Many characters from the films are also featured prominently in the series, such as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Mace Windu, Chancellor Palpatine, Count Dooku, General Grievous, C-3PO, R2-D2 and Padmé Amidala. Other episodes feature minor players from the films, such as Taylor Kaat, Kit Fisto, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura.

[edit] Seasons

• Season One and Season Two/DVD Volume One - These seasons feature one major storyline, season 1 (episodes 1-10), surrounded by a series of many battles. Count Dooku holds auditions for a bounty hunter on the planet Rattatak by pitting them against each other in a battle arena. Asajj kills every one of the bounty hunters and is sent on a mission to assassinate Anakin Skywalker. She engages him in a space battle, season 2 (episodes 11-20), through the streets of Muunilinst and eventually leading him into Yavin 4, where the two engage in a lightsaber duel. Anakin emerges the victor, but by means of rage and fear, the path to the Dark Side of the Force.

Apart from the main storyline, many battles ensue, including Mace Windu's fight on Dantooine, Obi-Wan fighting against bounty hunter Durge and the Banking Clan, Kit Fisto's battle against the Quarren on Mon Calamari, the adventures on Ilum and the Battle of Hypori in which General Grevious makes his first appearance in Star Wars media.

• Season Three/DVD Volume Two - The third and last season of Star Wars: Clone Wars gives the audience a look at Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker's adventures in the Outer-Rim Territories as mentioned in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Anakin is made a Jedi Knight and Coruscant comes under attack by the Confederacy of Independent Systems, as a diversion for General Grevious to sneak in and capture Chancellor Palpatine, leaving the series where Episode III begins.

[edit] Voice cast

The Republic

The Confederacy of Independent Systems

[edit] Production

The series was produced by Genndy Tartakovsky and employs a similar animation style to Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack and Dexter's Laboratory. Tartakovksy revealed in his Hyperspace commentary tracks on the official Star Wars website and on the Volume I DVD that he purposely animated C-3PO with eyes that sort of move around to pay homage to the animators of and the animation style of Nelvana, the production company behind the animated segment from The Star Wars Holiday Special and the 1980s Star Wars cartoon series.

[edit] Release

(November 7, 2003 - March 25, 2005)

The pilot series, produced primarily with traditional animation, originally ran on Cartoon Network. In addition to being shown on television, the episodes were released online simultaneously at the Star Wars and Cartoon Network websites. The series was heavily advertised by Cartoon Network, and was originally shown immediately before their popular Friday night lineup. The show was also featured on kapow on teletoon.

[edit] DVD releases

Volume I/Season 1 & 2

• Chapters 1-20 of the series were released March 22, 2005, as "Star Wars Clone Wars: Volume I". The episodes were edited together into one continuous feature. The set featured English subtitles, and commentary tracks on all the episodes, as well as art galleries, behind the scenes information, and the featurette "Bridging the Saga: From Clone Wars to Revenge of the Sith", the Revenge of the Sith teaser tailer: with interviews of George Lucas, Genndy Tartakovsky, and the Clone Wars production crew. The disc also featured a glimpse of Star Wars: Clone Wars - Volume Two, an Episode III game trailer, and a playable level of the Xbox game Star Wars: Republic Commando.

Volume II/Season 3

• Chapters 21-25 of the micro-series were released on December 6, 2005. The release was an edited together compilation of the five chapters, similar to the Volume I release. The set featured English subtitles, and commentary tracks on all the episodes. Features included a Revenge of the Sith movie trailer, art galleries, trailers for the Star Wars games Battlefront II and Empire at War, an Xbox demo with two levels from Battlefront II, and the LEGO short film Revenge of the Brick. Also included was the featurette "Connecting the Dots", which highlighted the creative process that Genndy Tartakovsky and his team used to link Clone Wars to Revenge of the Sith.
  The second volume of Clone Wars series was released significantly later than the DVD release of Revenge of the Sith. According to Van Ling, the producer of both DVDs, the Volume II disc was released at such a late date due to an extremely tight schedule in producing the DVDs. According to http://starwars.com, both DVDs were produced at exactly the same time, but the Clone Wars DVD could not be finished in time for the DVD release of Revenge of the Sith. Ling apologized to fans for this.

• Both DVDs are now out of print.^[2]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Star Wars: Clone Wars at the Internet Movie Database
• Clone Wars at the Big Cartoon Database
• Star Wars: Clone Wars at TV.com
• Steve Sansweet Talks About the Upcoming Star Wars TV Shows