The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars'

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

If you've been thinking about getting into 'Star Wars: Clone Wars,' here is your guide for diving in, even if you're not normally into animation. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Mallory Rubin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to TV concierge, a daily podcast where Ringer Staffers help you navigate the crowded TV landscape. I am Chris Ryan, and today I am joined by Mallory Rubin, who's going to tell me a little bit about Disney Plus's Clone Wars, which just wrapped up its series. What up, my Padawan? It's great to see you. It's great to see you, too, buddy. We are coming at this from two different sides of the Star Wars spectrum, I think. I am a passionate yet casual fan of Star Wars. I'm not in the novels. I'm not in the series. I'm not on the boards, but you, who, they don't even have it. You're way beyond Black Belt with Star Wars.

So give me the quick pitch as somebody who's obviously, I'm ready to love it. I'm ready to be down with whatever. Give me the quick pitch on Star Wars Clone Wars. Okay, I will go pretty big picture here. And then, Chris, if you want a little more, you just tell me, and I will take you into the caves, Villum, and we can find your Khyber Crystal

and construct your lightsaber right here. Okay? You just let me know. So a couple quick big picture notes here for anybody considering diving into Clone Wars, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It's great. One is that there are two things with similar names. So you need to be aware of that going in.

There's the 2003 cartoon Star Wars Clone Wars, the Gendie Tardikovsky Micro Series, which is also fantastic and really, really fun to watch. So I've already screwed up. decanonized. No, no. Just want to keep you on track moving forward. That's a fun way to spend some time. It's really a blast. The animation style is tremendous. But that has been decanonized. There is then another show called Star Wars, the Clone Wars. Okay. And this is still official Disney canon. George Lucas was involved with the initial launch, the creation. You might be familiar with the movie, which came out in 2008 and has a robust 18% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Okay? You know how we feel about Rotten Tomatoes on Ringer Podcasts? And then the series began from there and has evolved and had these many different iterations. So the early season, season one, season two, season three, season four, season five, they all had specific focus, specific theme. And you might have responded to a different theme, a different arc more fully. But in general, it was this incredibly rewarding experience because it really fleshed out a crucial part of the Star Wars canon that I think a lot of fans felt maybe the prequels didn't quite deliver on. So you're talking in essence about a key moment in Anakin Skywalker's arc leading up to the moments in Revenge of the Sith when he has his tragic fall and becomes Darth Vader. Now, how do you avoid just rehashing the same material?

You introduce new elemental characters. And one of the things that Clone Wars does so brilliantly is that it merges and blends those two things. So it allows you to see characters like Obi-1 Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, who you're already attached to in these really new, fully realized ways. And then it also allows you to see different aspects of their characters entirely through new characters. The most important is, of course, Asoketano. and she becomes a really crucial figure to focus on in this part of our conversation for this season, if you're thinking of just getting in at the end before maybe going back to the beginning. Without getting into too many plot spoilers, I will just note that Star Wars Rebels,

another animated Star Wars project, which is absolutely exceptional and definitely worth your time, Chris, when you're carving out your Disney Plus viewing hours here, was obviously the priority for Disney to create its own thing. But season six of Clone Wars ended up with this structural. called The Lost Missions, where it was about kind of closing the gap. It had been canceled on Cartoon Network, came back on Netflix for this, what people thought would be a final run. But this campaign, a rabid fan base, desire to bring back Clone Wars for a seven. Wait, you're saying Star Wars fans passionately weighed in?

I am. And a huge reason. On the execution of a storyline? I am indeed, Chris. And a huge reason is because people wanted Morisoka, okay? And I won't spoil for you why your left one. more Asoka, but you wanted more Asoka. And season seven, under the stewardship of Dave Faloni, who many people listening might be

familiar with from something more recent like The Mandalorian, Asoka is his baby. Asoka is Anakin's paddawan. You might not know if you would only see in the films that Anakin himself has a Padawan, and their relationship is really, really, really one of the most satisfying heartbeats in the entire Star Wars canon. So this most recent season, you get to return, especially in the final four episodes, to a very crucial moment in Asoka's arc, a very crucial moment that leads up to and then ultimately overlaps with Revenge of the Sith. You get to learn about who the clones are as people, this idea that they have individual personalities and identities, which I think is a really important message and a satisfying thing to think about. You get to see how hot Obi-1 looks as a cartoon, which I personally really enjoy. I have to. say. Save it for your therapist.

And Chris, you get some Darth mall. Not Darth anymore. You get mall. You get to go to Mandelor. You get all of these things that you're already interested in and you get to see them in a totally new way, visually arresting. I really think you'd enjoy it. I would recommend that you start from the beginning and watch it all.

That was going to be my follow-up question. So it sounds like what you're saying is that throughout its ups and downs and throughout the many networks and platforms it's existed on, that what Clone Wars really does is it scratches an itch for the Star Wars fan to almost have the world be investigated in more depth with more nuance and with more of a consideration for like the canonical history of Star Wars. So that's how right? Yeah, I think that there's a case and this is absolutely not a knock against the primary films in any way, which obviously we absolutely adore. But there's a cap on what you can do in that amount of time in space, right? By definition. And what is at the heart of so much of

of Star Wars storytelling. It's about this vast galaxy and the the unfolding events that... The breadth of it, yeah. Yes, maybe you see it through one character's eyes, but what's the impact on someone else? What's the impact someplace else? And Clone Wars and Rebels really, I think,

honor the central mission of Star Wars storytelling in a way that will appeal to and satisfy anybody who loves the heartbeat of Star Wars and wants more of that specifically. To be able to better understand a character's motivations, to see the ripple effects play out after whatever battle you witness, you know, how does life go on for the people who were on the ground there? Who else had an impact on why a decision was made beyond just maybe the holograms you see around Yoda at a given Jedi Temple Council meeting? And it's just really fun to remember that there are all these different bits of connective tissue.

If you like Rogue One, for example, I do. And you do. Ask yourself why you like Rogue One. And there are a lot of reasons you like Rogue One. But one of the reasons is because you get to think about how this other thing was happening in concert, in parallel to this thing you already knew existed in your mind. It has just been this reality, this certainty in your life. And then all of the picture just expanded, right? The horizon grew. The binary sunset was it was suddenly two instead of just one. on. This is like that. Okay. Except you can have 120 plus episodes of it if you want. I'm going to ask some follow-up questions now. Hit me. Okay, so we can wrap up with a couple of quick hit questions. These are the kind of questions I hate getting as a host of the watch, but I'm going to ask you anyway. Great. Love it. Do I have to watch it all? So, you know that I'm a... You're a completist. Complice by nature. It's hard for me to even consider saying no to that. However, I would say that if that is a non-starter for you, that's okay

and you don't have to avoid Clone Wars entirely. It's very often structured around contained arcs. So what you can do is check out something, for example, like when we talked about Clone Wars on Vindgen Mode Star Wars, we talked about the eight most essential Clone Wars arcs. That's a great starting point for somebody like you who's considering dipping your toe in. Across the whole series, the chunks of episodes that you absolutely have to see to really heighten your understanding of all of these aspects of the story. And I would definitely say that the concluding arc of season seven and the entire series, which just aired on Disney Plus, the final four episodes, I would put that in a list of absolutely essential viewing. What do you say to somebody

like me who has some issues getting over the hump with animation at times? Would you say that the animation is part of the appeal, that the animation is something that you get used to and never really notice. And if you're a Star Wars fan, you'll feel like you're watching one of the movies. What's the sell on the animation? It's a good question. It evolves pretty considerably over time. I think if you watched season seven right now on Disney Plus, even somebody as narrow-minded and stubborn as you, Chris, would say, this looks tremendous. I just don't see how that wouldn't be your reaction. I think at one point I did say to you that I thought Clone Wars looked like that Tom Kaufflin video where like the guy made the animation of Tom Kaufland and Steve Weatherford talking.

You did say that, though, to be fair, you said that after I showed you a clip of Obi-Wan from a season two episode. So the animation has evolved considerably since then. I think that, again, if that's a barrier to entry to you, it's probably going to feel a little bit alienating or strange initially. And then you'll just get used to it because the story is so compelling. The voice acting is really, really, really exceptional. I personally really enjoy the animation. I think the way that they're able to stage battles in animated form is is kind of revelatory and there's a video game quality to it, but you never feel like you're in a video game. You still feel like you're watching something very cinematic, which of course, I don't mean to imply that video games can't do that the best

often do. But there's this kind of like hybrid approach where you could feel like you're watching a sequence in any Star Wars movie that's unfolding on the big screen, the signature sounds. You're going to recognize pieces of the score, the visual palette. And then there's also this quality of falling into the story and having like a hands-on relationship to it because of the breadth of it that you don't always get into our bursts. If I was mixed, to say the least, on the rise of Skywalker, will Clone Wars make me feel better about Star Wars on the whole? Absolutely. Okay. It's almost, it's like an advil. Yeah, the medicinal remedy for whatever or might be ailing you after that experience.

That's the perfect way to end. Give it a try, man. Give it a try. I'll pod with you any day. That's Star Wars Clone Wars. It's on Disney Plus. You can watch the entire series. Now, are the Cartoon Network and Netflix ones on Disney Plus as well?

It's all there, man. All of it. The whole kit and caboodle. So check that out. And we will be back with more TV concierge tomorrow.