I’ve gotten a bit behind in my reviews of The Clone Wars. Since I’m pretty jazzed about the most recent episode, I figured I’d get caught up by reviewing all the episodes leading up to it in one giant post. Read the rest of this entry »
Clone Wars - Reviews - Episodes 2.07-2.11
February 1st, 2010Clone Wars - Review - “Weapons Factory”
January 27th, 2010
Weapons Factory
Luminara & Anakin act as decoys to divert new enemy super-tanks - while Padawans Barriss Offee & Ahsoka attempt to destroy a Separatist droid factory.
I wasn’t a big fan of this one. It’s not a bad episode, but it kind of felt like two episodes put into a single episode time frame. As if the entire third act - the search for the Padawans - could have been it’s own thing.
Apart from that rushed ending, the rest of the episode was decent. It was nice to see Luminara again and her padawan, Barriss, is a welcome new character to the show. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind more Barriss and Ahsoka team-up episodes (there’s another in “Brain Invaders”), as they make for a good duo.
There’s some good action scenes throughout and I particularly liked the destruction of the droid factory.
As far as the rushed ending was concerned, there were some decent elements to it. Not knowing Ahsoka’s fate in the Star Wars lore, I did have a bit of a genuine concern for here well-being. I didn’t honestly expect her to die (she doesn’t), but there was a part of me that thought it’d be awfully ballsy of the creative team to just kill her off this early on in the second season.
Despite that one setback, the rest of it’s entertaining enough. There have been very few bad episodes of the show, and this keeps the good episode trend going.
My Problem with a Lot of Fantasy Lit
January 23rd, 2010As I’ve been spending the better part of three days working on the “bible” (which is a compilation of notes, back story, history, etc.) for the fantasy adventure novel I’m in the process of revising (I needed a break from it, but wanted to remain within that “world”), it has occurred to me, “Hey, Jesse. You’re writing a serial-style adventure story that is largely sword and sorcery fantasy*. But you don’t even really like fantasy literature. What gives?”
Thoughts on Restarting the Spider-Man Films
January 22nd, 2010Okay, for those that don’t know, they’re rebooting the “Spider-Man” film franchise. Apparently, there was a big power struggle between previous series director Sam Raimi, the studio, Marvel Comics, and the actors, and no agreement could be reached in which direction to take the franchise.
Clone Wars - Landing at Point Rain - Review
November 27th, 2009
Anakin, Ahsoka and Ki-Adi-Mundi lead a landing party to destroy a droid factory on Geonosis.
When this episode was initially previewed, I thought, “Geez, they’re going back to Geonosis? Lame…” Man was I ever wrong.
This episode is light on story and character development. But wow, if it isn’t one of the best action sequences ever done for Star Wars in any medium.
The whole thing is essentially a D-Day invasion by the Republic forces against the newly rebuilt droid factories of Geonosis. As such, it’s 100 times bigger than the previous invasion episodes in the Ryloth Trilogy. The imagery is striking and the sequences well done and amazing.
And by the time Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi utters, “Bring in the flame throwers!” I was blown away.
The Cranberries - Chicago 11.25.09 - Review
November 26th, 2009I’m a 90s alt-rock fan. Most people that get to know me realize this and if you’ve read any of my music reviews on this site, you’ve probably come to know that too. Oddly enough, I missed out on the 90s. Being home-schooled in an ultra-conservative, uber-religious household, I didn’t really get to see many of the movies or listen to much of the music from that era and have only really begun doing so in the last ten years or such.
So it stands that a lot of the bands of that time-frame, I missed out on. In the last couple of years, I’ve been making attempts to catch some of them if the chance arose, as I did when the Smashing Pumpkins played my hometown in August of 2008 and I intend to do when Alice in Chains plays St. Louis in February. And with the reunited Cranberries hitting Chicago, I knew it would be a show I wouldn’t want to miss.
My buddies Andy, Craig and I made the normally 3-hour trek to Chicago in a little over 4 hours thanks to traffic and weather, took a wrong turn off of Lake Shore Dr., ended up having to traverse back alleys and cemeteries to find a parking spot, and made it to the Riviera Theatre half an hour late. Luckily, there were still people streaming in and so the show hadn’t started yet. Unfortunately, it was standing room only and our spot initially wasn’t the greatest (until the fat guy in front of us moved after the fourth or fifth song and we suddenly had a fantastic view of the stage).
The show itself was okay. Don’t get me wrong: they’re the Cranberries and their music in concert is as good as it is on the CD. But for at least the first few songs, something seemed off, as if the band just wasn’t clicking. That changed however and they eventually found a rhythm and pumped out some life into the crowd. Still, the only two performers that seemed like they wanted to be there were singer Dolores O’Riordan and drummer Fergal Lawler, both of whom were much more fun to watch than the rest of the band.
My other problem was, despite doing some new material and some of O’Riordan’s solo stuff, the concert seemed more like a meeting of fan’s expectations than a true show, with the band hitting each of their hits and not straying too far off the beaten path. That kind of bothered me as I would have liked a bit more depth to their set list, much as the Smashing Pumpkins injected into their when they did their 2008 mini-tour (however, “Zombie” right before the encore and “Dreams” as the final song still killed).
Still, despite those slight criticisms and the fact that it was a billion degrees inside the Riviera, the show was still enjoyable. It may not have been the same quasi-religious experience that the Pumpkins produced, but it was still better than some shows I’ve attended (I’m looking squarely at you, Nugent). And based on the new stuff they played, I look forward to them returning to the music scene, should they decide to release a new album.
Clone Wars - Senate Spy - Review
November 21st, 2009
At the Jedi Council’s request - Padmé investigates a Separatist conspiracy in the Senate.
I don’t know what it was about this episode, but it really failed to connect with me on a storytelling level. The set up was believable enough, but about mid-way through, all the tension that the CW crew seemed to be building to just dropped out and I just didn’t care about the plot anymore.
That’s not to say that the episode is bad; it just seemed like the second half of it needed to be fleshed out - as if they had a rough draft, animated it and just let it go.
There’s a lot of good though too. Banking Clan member Rush Clovis has an interesting design and seems like a character that could create an interesting antagonist, provided they decide to bring him back.
There’s actually a lot of pretty design work at display here, and the episode seems to be a showcase for locations.
But overall, it just didn’t do anything for me and seemed to be the first episode in awhile that was truly forgettable.
Clone Wars - Children of the Force - Review
October 11th, 2009
Darth Sidious has a new dark assignment: kidnap Force-sensitive children from across the galaxy and bring them to Mustafar.
Okay, this is pretty much what I’ve been waiting for on this show: the Jedi being Jedi! Holy crap! Need to get information? Use the Force! Need to crack the mind of a strong-willed bounty hunter? Use the Force! Really, this use of the Jedi doing Jedi-things only serves to make early instances of the Jedi not using the Force more annoying to me. Like I keep saying: the Jedi are only as strong as the writers want them to be and it’s been wildly inconsistent. At least here I can’t complain about their use of powers.
In fact, there’s not much I can complain about. It was a pretty good story giving more depth into both the Jedi and Darth Sidious. There are a ton of locations in this one, making it feel much more epic than in some episodes. And of course, Cad Bane is becoming an interesting character in his own right.
The only downside is that the action sequences - something this series has been solid in - feel a bit rushed. The episode could have stood to have been ten minutes longer, just to flesh out the fighting scenes. But otherwise, so far, this is the best episode of Season Two in my book and one of my top three favorite episodes so far.
New Disc Reviews
October 6th, 2009The Resistance - Muse - Right off the bat, I’ll admit that this has been on a loop on my iPod in my car for the nearly two weeks that I’ve had it. Seriously, I dig this album a lot. I’m not an old school Muse fan, having only been introduced to them with their previous album, Black Holes and Revelations, so I can’t compare it to anything they did before that. However, when this album is mediocre, it is hitting at the best of BH&R; when it is good (tracks “The Uprising” and “United States of Eurasia”) it is superb. The whole thing is catchy and has a tendency to get stuck in my head. Highly recommended.
Black Gives Way to Blue - Alice in Chains - Wow. New Alice in Chains sounds more like regular Alice in Chains than any of the leading competitors. Which I’m not sure is good or bad at this point as I’ve only listened to it once all the way through. Sure enough, the album sounds exactly like Alice in Chains’ other albums, but at the same time, it sounds so much like them that I’ve yet to truly be able to differentiate it from their previous endeavors. There’s not enough that stands out to make me go “Oooh! Nice” and instead I feel more or less like I’m on a nostalgic flashback to the grunge-era. Not saying that it’s bad - it’s nice to know that these guys are at least performing at the same skill level that they were when they left us - but it’d be nice to hear their sound progress and evolve. I suspect that if they do another album it will, as my gut tells me that this album was more or less about getting back on their feet and reestablishing the identity of the band after Layne Staley’s death a few years back. Recommended for the heavy metal, grunge, or Alice in Chains enthusiast, but not to many others.
Clone Wars - “Holocron Heist” and “Cargo of Doom”
October 6th, 2009Well, The Clone Wars are back on Cartoon Network, with Season Two having premiered this last Friday. As I did during Season One, I’m going to be posting my thoughts on the episodes. So, let’s get started.
Holocron Heist
Cad Bane infiltrates the Jedi Temple and attempts steal an ancient Jedi Holocron. It’s up to Ahsoka, Anakin & Obi-Wan to stop the bounty hunter from escaping with the valuable Jedi artifact.
Right away, this episode is up there with the best of Season One, which I think is a good way for the season to start. Season One was rocky at first but progressively improved and by the end was pretty solid. It’s good to see Season Two starting off on that pace.
The introduction of the bounty hunters adds a nice area of gray into the show and I think helps round out the animated universe. It’d be nice to see more “normal” characters (i.e. not Jedi, not Sith, not Clones) introduced as I tend to believe it is easier to identify with a Han Solo-type than a character using the Force. The bounty hunters give a bit of that normality, though working for the bad guys it’s still not there 100%.
My big complaint with this episode in particular is that, once again, the Jedi are only as powerful or weak as what fits the story. I found it kind of hard to believe that while tracking down Cad Bane in the Jedi Temple that Obi-Wan and Anakin wouldn’t be relying on the Force more to sense where he was. Instead, they’re easily fooled by diversions, and I just didn’t buy it. They’re Jedi: it should be quite a bit more difficult to trick them. And frankly, it seemed like Bane had a harder time infiltrating the Senate in last seasons episode “Hostage Crisis” than he did the headquarters of the Jedi.
Still, despite its flaws, this is the kind of storytelling I’d like to see the Clone Wars go after. There was a bit more depth to it, and the introduction of the Holocrons added an extra little layer to the Jedi. I’m hoping that as the series progresses, they begin fleshing out the details of this world and give us more insight into things like the Jedi, the Sith, the Separatists, and so forth.
Cargo of Doom
Anakin & Ahsoka intercept Cad Bane’s warship hoping to recover the stolen Jedi Holocron - but the Jedi underestimate the bounty hunter’s cunning tactics.
This episode was more or less a straight forward mission episode. As such, it was well done and I don’t really have a lot to say about it as the episode description pretty much says it all. What you expect is what you get, with some great action sequences and great animation. The only thing that makes it stand out more than just one giant animated battle is the Anakin and Ahsoka interaction, which seems to be growing in complexity over the previous season. Which of course, needs to happen as for whatever reason Ahsoka isn’t in Revenge of the Sith, meaning she’s ultimately what this series is hinged upon.