Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season One Blu-ray Review

Well, I might be a year late, but I’ve finally watched the new Clone Wars TV series. Since we don’t have TV (we have a tv, but we just use it for movies, digital files, and games), I haven’t been able to watch more than a few minutes of this show until now. The complete first season was just released on Blu-ray by Warner Bros, and I got my hands on a copy.

The Blu-ray is a three disc box set that includes a pretty cool “art of” booklet inside the case. There are all kinds of conceptual sketches, photos of models, and notes. There’s a grand total of 22 episodes, and 7 of them are presented as director’s cuts. They don’t have the original cuts on the discs, so I don’t really know what they changed.

There is a behind the scenes featurette for each episode, and a ton of 3D and 2D art to scan through. Besides that there are a few promos, one for season two, another for the new Clone Wars game, and the last about StarWars.com (in case you’ve been living under a rock or in an Amish community for the last 12 years).

The Verdict

I like this show a heck of a lot more than I thought I was going to. I’m a huge fan of the original 2D Clone Wars series by Genndy Tartakovsky, so I didn’t know what I would think of this new Genndy-less series. Beyond the typical prequel-universe annoyances (droids, droids, Anakin, droids), the series has a strong grasp of the Star Wars Universe, and benefits from its short episodic stories.

I like how they took risks like centering whole episodes on Clone troopers or an obscure character. While not as over-the-top and stylized as the Genndy Tartakovsky series, The Clone Wars is a fun show.

The Season One set is also available on standard-def DVD. It’s available now.