Star Wars The Clone Wars Season Five News and Discussion

[Mr. Adventure]

Well I guess I'm the only one thinking it's even a possibility for concern. Hopefully it fares better than Motorcity and Tron Uprising and finds a comfortable niche if it does indeed end up there.

[Set Harth]

Christopher wrote:

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Cartoon Network itself initially prefaced TCW with a content advisory about the violence, one of those "This program may not be suitable for all audiences" things, though they don't seem to do that anymore.

I haven't seen the show lately, but as I remember it they used it in specific places that seemed to call for it - for example, after coming back from a commercial break when Grievous is about to kill Ron Perlman's Trandoshan smuggler.

[Stephen!]

Maul gets a new toy

[Christopher]

For some reason, the character animation here seemed much worse than last week. The characters' movements seemed unnatural and awkward, with lots of unnecessary, kind of random movements. There was none of the subtlety I saw in Maul's character animation last week -- which is odd, since I would've expected the same key animator would stick with a given character. But maybe they assign different episodes in an arc to different animation teams working side by side in order to meet the schedule. They did that with shows like Batman: The Animated Series in the past, and you could often see a profound difference in animation quality between the halves of a 2-parter, say. In a case like this, everyone's using the same digital models, so the characters look consistent, but they may not be animated/performed with the same quality every week.

I also found the script rather weak in this one, the dialogue clunky and the story too quick to unfold.

[Mach5]

lennier1 wrote:

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It had such a huge effect in the movie because it was quite different from the usual fare, but showing it every other week simply turns it into yet another episode backdrop.

Huh?

According to Wookieepedia, Mustafar was only featured twice in Clone Wars so far, back in season 2 ("Children of the Force"), and in the "Mortis" trilogy (season 3), but only in a brief vision.

[Mr. Adventure]

Christopher wrote:

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For some reason, the character animation here seemed much worse than last week. The characters' movements seemed unnatural and awkward, with lots of unnecessary, kind of random movements. There was none of the subtlety I saw in Maul's character animation last week -- which is odd, since I would've expected the same key animator would stick with a given character. But maybe they assign different episodes in an arc to different animation teams working side by side in order to meet the schedule. They did that with shows like Batman: The Animated Series in the past, and you could often see a profound difference in animation quality between the halves of a 2-parter, say. In a case like this, everyone's using the same digital models, so the characters look consistent, but they may not be animated/performed with the same quality every week.

I also found the script rather weak in this one, the dialogue clunky and the story too quick to unfold.

Maybe just due to the scope? The open world of Mandalore(sp?) might be harder to pull of than the dark close quarters of the caves?

I agree it wasn't as strong as the last episode but it was all right. I liked that moment when Savage threw that woman at the edge, they did that pretty well. I'll miss that dark light knife though we might get to see(hear?) more of Katee Sackhoff's character now.

[Mach5]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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The open world of Mandalore(sp?) might be harder to pull of than the dark close quarters of the caves?

I don't see why that would be the case. They did Naboo in Season 2 (?, not sure), and it looked amazing. All these backdrops are just 2D digital matte paintings anyway.

[Christopher]

And the setting has nothing to do with how well characters' expressions, body language, and performance are animated. After all, things like background and lighting would be added later in the process.

[Mr. Adventure]

I'm no expert on CG animation, I thought maybe it'd be easier to animate and blend into a small environment than a more open one. I noticed for example that the Madalorians seemed to be quite a homogenous population maybe for ease of execution.

[Christopher]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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I'm no expert on CG animation, I thought maybe it'd be easier to animate and blend into a small environment than a more open one. I noticed for example that the Madalorians seemed to be quite a homogenous population maybe for ease of execution.

Again, that would have nothing to do with the kind of animated performance I'm talking about. Some of the character animation that bothered me the most was in the scene with Satine and the corrupt ex-prime minister in their prison cells -- hardly a large, open environment.

[CorporalCaptain]

SPOILERS:

Unfortunately, some of the major themes from this week's episode have already been explored in the SW universe: chiefly, to swoop in and rescue a population from a fake attack is really Darth Sidious's plan to take over the Republic, in microcosm. I'm assuming that knowledge of that plan helped Darth Maul concoct his scheme this week. Unfortunately also, it was a foregone conclusion that Maul would win the duel. Were it not for its predictability and its not having much new thematic ground to cover, this would have been a better episode.

I guess what I'm saying is, in isolation it wasn't bad at all, but in the context of the whole series, it's really nothing special. That's kind of a bummer.

[Marc]

haven't seen the earlier Mandalorian eps but they seem to be a fickle and gullible lot.

First they believe Vizlor when he claims to have the down the pirates and how Satine had fled and are chanting for him. NShe ext time it's corrupt former P.M and he's claiming that she murdered Vizlor. One minute she's a coward, next she's knocking of the leader of Death Watch.

[Marc]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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SPOILERS:

Unfortunately, some of the major themes from this week's episode have already been explored in the SW universe: chiefly, to swoop in and rescue a population from a fake attack is really Darth Sidious's plan to take over the Republic, in microcosm. I'm assuming that knowledge of that plan helped Darth Maul concoct his scheme this week. Unfortunately also, it was a foregone conclusion that Maul would win the duel. Were it not for its predictability and its not having much new thematic ground to cover, this would have been a better episode.

Well Darth Sidious might be pulling strings somewhere in the very depths but otherwise this is pretty much Maul.

Maul considers himself and Savage as the truth Sith and feels that Sidious has betrayed him and would probably be next on the block after Obi-wan if possible.

[CorporalCaptain]

Oh, I didn't mean that Sidious was involved. I'm sure it's exactly like you say.

I just meant that I suspect that Maul got some ideas from working for Sidious on how to pull it off, because it's such a similar idea to what Sidious was up to.

On the other hand, I suppose they both could have both learned the craft from Sith masters of lore. Maybe that sort of double-dealing is the sort of thing that the Sith have always been up to.

I'm probably reading too much into it anyway.

[DarKush]

I loved this week's episode. Granted it pushed along events very quickly and made the average Mandalorians a bit too gullible, but I still thought it was one of the best episodes this season.

I like seeing the cunning, calculating side of Maul. It really shows that he was more than just brute force. The fight with him and Vizla was pretty awesome.