*Official* Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 1 Retrospective

Well, the first season of The Clone Wars is over. From Ambush to Hostage Crisis, we've had 22 total episodes(not including the movie). This thread is for discussion about the first season. What did you like about it? What did you dislike? What could they do better for Season 2? What should they keep?

Personally, I enjoyed the first season immensely. I really liked the animation style, and just the quality of the show in general, I was taken aback with. The voice acting was very nicely done, with all the characters having their own styles and whatnot. The stories ranged from jaw dropping awesome to meh, but that's expected for a TV show. The writing was quite good also, for a child's cartoon show. But it could of course be argued that this show isn't totally for kids. Overall, this is a great venture, and if this is an indication of what's to come for the next four seasons, then I'm definitely on board.

 

I have really enjoyed this season. I want to go back and watch the earlier episodes because I was way more into it at the end of the season than the beginning, and I feel like I don't remember a lot from the beginning. But I like how they have brought SW into a new-ish medium and how it has done really well. Like I said in another thread, I think that it has found that balance between making older SW fans happy, and letting it be enjoyable for kids. If they keep this up it will be awesome. I hope to see more of Cad Bane, Aurra Sing, Aayla Secura, and Obi wan. Overall I like the direction it has taken SW thus far. Good Job!!!!

 

I too liked Season 1 alot.Id probaly give it a B+ Grade.With about 10 great episodes,9 good ones and about 3 alright ones.
I think Lucasfilm is starting to understand what the fans want and are giving it to them.Battle Droid humor is almost non existent now {which was the main problem with The Movie and Ambush} and they are bringing it to a Level thats beyond normal TV.
I also loved all the characters who got their own episodes.I loved Plo Koon at the beggining,Luminara,Kit Fisto,Aayla,Mace Windu and seeing Aurra Sing was the best surprise at the end.
I just hope Ki-Adi Mundi,Shaak Ti,Oppo Rancisis,Saesee Tin and Quinlan Vos all get episodes in the future.
I also hope that the series goes way beyond 100 episodes or 5 seasons because 22 episodes went by so fast im not even getting close to being tired of this series.

 

Overall, I think season one was a success. There were a lot of strong episodes. Plo Koon, Luminara Unduli, and Aayla Secura all got awesome intro episodes. Kit Fisto and Mace Windu had decent intros as well.

Some of the episodes, I don't think I gave enough credit to when I first saw them...but as time as passed and I look back on them more fondly. I'm talking episodes like Trespass, Defenders of the Peace, and The Hidden Enemy. All very good episodes that I wouldn't mind seeing again. (I no longer have them DVR'd and I just noticed that the official site doesn't have them up anymore. Darn.)

The biggest pause for concern is the Ryloth trilogy. It wasn't altogether awful, but it sent up so many red flags. The producers all hyped it up like it was really something special, and the whole thng just fell flat. Lucas shot down the whole EU concept of the planet Ryloth, which was a mistake even to a "Lucas > EU" guy like myself. We all wanted a grown-up, serious, multilayered epic story...and instead we just got three relatively simple stories that just happened to take place one right after the other. I sensed a lot of burnout from other fans on this board after the trilogy was over, and a lot of misplaced hostility over what was overall an impressive first season.

I am encouraged that three of the strongest episodes(The Hidden Enemy, 1000 Moons, and Hostage Crisis) were produced in season 2, although I know that not all fans liked those episodes as much as I did.

What do I want from season 2? I know everybody wants other major jedi to have their own episode, but I'd like to see the show develop Plo Koon and the other already-introduced jedi some more. They seem really interesting and I would like to get to know them beyond just one episode. I can hold off on seeing a meaningless "Jedi X fights for 22 minutes with no story" intro episode if it means seeing a real story with an established character instead.

I would also like to see some more cohesion when it comes to the multi-parters. Don't be afraid to make an epic three-episode arc! You don't have to write separate stories linked by a common setting or theme. Write one big story.

 

I'd like to see Shaak Ti come in and help defend Filla, Togrutans home planet, with Ahsoka. But the problems with that is that some people might have enough problems with telling Ahsoka and Shaak Ti apart that they might not do it. Positives are they already know how to do a togruta, they just need t make the head tails bigger.

Considering togrutas are hunters I wouldn't mind something like the Ryloth trilogy, but with less captured togrutas and more guerilla tactics.

Maybe have some type of coming of age thing with Ahsoka that only togrutas can attend and Shaak Ti brings her to Filla for it. While they're on it the Seperatists find out that a council member is there, and with the help of locals, they turn it back.

 

My favourite episodes were "Hostage Crisis," "Cloak of Darkness" and "Hidden Enemy", but the entire "Malevolence" and "Ryloth" sagas were outstanding. The "Ryloth" episodes should have been written like a 3 part movie, but what was there was really good. I?m amazed that we only had 4 stand alone episodes in the entire season.

I think its very interesting that Ashoka who is the character that was created for the kids sake, was only prominent in 11 of the 22 episodes. I expected her to be in every single episode.

I?m glad that David Fillioni said in his commentary that GG shouldn?t return unless he actually wins. It really hurts the characters integrity when he loses every single battle."Lair of Grievous" makes it acceptable though, since Dooku actually takes action because of this in the story. I hope the reason we haven?t seen the character for 12 episodes straight is that the guy is training or something like that.

I hope we will get more focus on the other Jedi in s2. 50% "Team Anakin" and 50% other Jedi would be preferable. Dooku needs a lot more focus.

 

I loved Season 1. It was awesome, epic, adventurous. But, I never say anything bad about anything Star Wars so...

I like all episodes equally, but if I had to choose it would be "The Hidden Enemy", "Blue Shadow Virus", "Innocents Of Ryloth", "Hostage Crisis" and "Duel Of The Droids". But once again, love all the episodes.

Season 2 will be EPIC as well.

 

I'm going to go back to rewatch possibly the entire season before I can give a legitimate response to how I feel the first season went.

At this point, I'm not convinced they should keep having 2-part or 3-part story arcs, or if they do, they can split them up over several months.

Some of the best episodes, IMHO, have been the "single" episodes this season.

 

I loved it. Really, I went into it after having seen the movie expecting Star Wars to be officially over, but I was really surprised. Sure I lost a bit of interest towards the end but that was not because the series got worse, but because I had other things to think about.

To sum it up. The thing I admired mostly was how they made a kids show that still very much appealed to fans. While a lot of things were obviously there as a result of the young target group (Ashoka, child-safe battledroids among other) it still manages to appeal to Star Wars fans with cameos, excellent voice acting, interesting plots, awesome animation a feel that is without doubt from the good ol' galaxy far far away.

The show has not been without it's problems so far though. The most obvious is that most episodes could use another 5-10 minutes to live out to their full potential. Even the storyarcs divided over two or three episodes have felt rushed. To pull a few examples: Jedi Crash was rounded up really quickly, Lair of Grievous left little time to explore Nahdar's character, Blue shadow virus kicked off before you understood what was happening etc. Naturally you cannot expect the show to exceed normal TV-series runtime, but it's still a shame good stories get toned down. Also some people seem to have problem with consistency (Obi's conjure lightsaber anyone?).

On a sidenote one thing that annoyed me personally was that the interesting characters got too little screentime. While exploring Anakin's character and his relationships to the persons around him further, I would have loved to see more of Kit, Plo, Aayla and company.

One of the things I am looking forward to in season two is the fact that there won't be as much limitation by character models. So hopefully we'll be hearing less of "We wanted to do this awesome thing but this model was not ready at the time ".

Overall though the new wave of Star Wars is a worth successor to it's predecessors. Hopefully Star Wars will keep on bringing awesome to young and old alike.

 

Loved it!

Sure it had episodes that stood out from others, for good reasons (e.g. Trespass) and not so good ones, (e.g. Gungan General). But, if this first season doesn't win awards I'll eat Cad Bane's hat!

 

One thing I really thought they failed at in s1 was the lightsaber battles.

Both Ashoka and Kitts fight with GG were awesome to look at, all 10 seconds they lasted.

Both Luminara and Ashoka, and Anakin and Obi-Wan vs Ventress were fantastic, to bad they had to cut away from them every 2 seconds.

A Lightsaber duel used to be a huge event whenever it occurred, but the creators of this series doesn?t seem interested. They obviously love putting Jar Jar in our face, but one of the things Star Wars is really remembered fondly for seems almost brushed over. Weird.

I doubt I?m the only one out there that rewatched every single duel again and again as a kid. Every thing about this series is so good, so I really don?t understand why this has been so downplayed.

 

I thought that was awesome and it definitely lived up to my expectations. My favorite episodes were Rookiees, Liberty on Ryloth, and Hostage Crisis. There weren't many episodes that I disliked, the only one that I can think of off the top of my head is Gungan General, but that's mainly due to Jar Jar's aweful voice in that one. The Droids duology was meh and Lair of Grievous, though it was still awesome, didn't live up to the hype that it was given.

What they should change/keep for for season two
*They should still have trilogies, but they should be where the each episode picks up where the last one leaves off, "To be continued..." style.
*Keep Rookiees style exclusively clone episodes
*Keep episodes about other Jedi, especially Shaak Ti, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Saesee Tiin
*If the use Jar Jar, use the voice from Bombad Jedi. The one from Gungan General was aweful.

All in all, it was a great season, and I can only foresee it getting better.

 

To be honest, I was thrilled by the first few episodes of the season... Looking back at everything now, I still think Rising Malevolence & Ambush were the best episodes. There is something about those two that really makes my blood rush.

I love the Malevolence arc best, and to be honest, I feel that everything that came after somehow didn't quite excite me so much like the first four episodes did. All episodes had their awesome moments though, like Kit duelling Grievous, Ventress vs. Luminara, Cad Bane, the droid spy etc. And as much as I loved seeing Aayla Secura, I didn't like the story she was in ... I'd have preferred to see her in a total war zone / all out serious combat situation.

I liked all of it, but the start of the season was the best part, i.m.o.

And if you ask me what my favourite part is out of everything from The Clone Wars that has been released, I'm afraid I'll have to say it's from the movie. The whole battle on Christophsis was simply awesome. I especially love the part where Anakin and Ahsoka are going on their first mission together, to take out the shield generator.

The worst thing about season 1 is the music. I think I'm going mental if I hear one more panflute tune.

 

First, in retrospect, Jar Jar was featured in a little below a fifth of the episodes (four episodes out of 22), two of which made him the main focus. Whether it's too much or too little is up to you. I'm just pointing it out. XD

I really liked Season 1. There were a lot of episodes which made me mentally go 'WOW THAT WAS AWESOME' or something to that effect (Ambush, Malevolence, Maridun, Rookies, Cloak, Lair of Grievous, and overall he Ryloth arc too), and other episodes to which I nodded in approval at being great stories, if not my style or as good as the others (Hostage, Jar Jar, droids, and Dooku), and others which I admittedly didn't think were very exciting (Blue Shadow Virus arc, though it was entertaining and I dig Iego).

Overall, very good entertainment. It's got flaws, but I think that the team genuinely wants to improve upon it. I'm not saying they'll iron out the kinks right away or even completely by the end of their run, but this looks like it'll be one of the most promising Star Wars shows yet! I definitely greatly enjoyed it all!

Things I loved:
-Voice acting got great
-Action and adventure in various shapes and sizes
-Great graphics, especially with the locales
-Witnessing character personalities bounce off each other.
-PLO KOON

Things they could work on:
-Improve writing to distinguish certain characters
-Evenly spread focus between the core cast and the supporting cast, and give Obi-Wan more prominence
-Boost the running time by a few minutes, if that's possible. Would greatly benefit various stories, and I don't see how a few minutes would ruin pacing in others.
-A friend of mine complained that Anakin and Ahsoka don't actually change after the end of the episodes, which is kinda true, as they learn but don't seem to retain, so I'll bring up 'write in natural character changes'
-Work on episode production numbers and orders. This isn't so big a problem with me, as I take what comes my way, but it really helps to have a cohesive flow of stories so that people can tell what goes on when the episodes connected to each other make sense in their positioning. It would help ensure the flow of quality if they can work on the story order in relation to episode production order
-MOAR PLO KOON

Things I didn't mind:
-Jar Jar and the droids were alright. Jar Jar is probably a riot with most kids (or at least, George ) but is admittedly not featured THAT much and the droids are a constant presence. I do think that they made the droid humour a bit more witty. Humour is fine in my book.
-Ahsoka is fine by me so far, and I guess she is kind of growing, but I'd like to see her mature more. Otherwise, she's a cool character to have around, and she brings out various good points in Anakin. Now if they'd just phase out the nicknames...
-Lack of Plo Koon. I know it's the Clone Wars, not the Koon Wars. XD

So yeah, there it is. What I loved, what I think could be improved, and what I didn't mind. Here's hoping that season 2 makes for one sweet ride!

 

That's something that I forgot to mention. I really want to see character development, especially Ahsoka, seeing as we see how more other characters turn out. We didn't see too much of that thus far, but I have hope that they'll include that in the coming seasons.

 

I agree 100% with everything "Humble_Jedi" said....so yea, ditto for me.

My favorite episodes of this whole season were at the beginning (with the exception of ep. 22 witch i loved) as specially the Malevolence trilogy witch is IMO as perfect as it ever got in this season.


If there is 3 things that DESPERATELY need to be changed for season 2 it is....

1.)make there be actual character development with quiet scenes where the characters talk more and we learn more about them and what they want, how they feel, where they are going exc.

2.)make the episodes actually lead up to something instead of EVERY SINGLE EPISODE being about something totally different that has nothing to do with anything that came before or after it. i mean this is ok once in a while to have a special "side episode" about something random but not how it is now. the way it is now if i told you that the last episode was really the first you would believe me. even the original GT clone wars show had a formula that LED UP TO SOMETHING.

3.) DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE GOD AWFUL MUSIC! make it sound like a normal classical score to a movie not a lazer rock show >_>.

These 3 things were and still are my biggest problems about the show and if they changed them then i will be very, VERY happy with it but if not then i just don't know.

 

Great First Season. I am not going to repeat what was basically said already. The only thing I am looking for is

More:
CIS Victories
TARKIN
The Jedi eventually trying to find Sidious
More Space Battles
Jedi Council Scenes
FLashbacks to before the War: Qui-Gon, Young Anakin and Obi, Dooku as a Jedi

 

I'm just waiting for Garth Maul's Top __ episodes poll.

 

Yeah, we're going to do one for "Best 2nd Half Episode" in the next couple of days, and we've got ideas for a few other fun polls as well.

 

It was decent. I thought it was far too one sided, almost like Republic propaganda they were feeding us. Then again, the Republic is 'cool' because they have the clones and jedi. But the 'Protestors against the War' was a bit of insight that all is not well in our Star Destroyer-weilding soon-to-be Empire. I'd like to see that eleborated.

MORE CIS VICTORIES. Make this feel like war, not a rout.

I can bear Grievous not showing up alot if he at least wins when he does. If you're gonna have him be in a couple episodes and lose lose lose, I don't want that Grievous on the show. I'll go watch the 2003 cartoon to refresh me memory of him pwning. Heck, I'll even watch him Abandon Ship.

Bring back Lok Durd, Mar Tuk, and Loathsom. Jailbreak episode, with Grievous and Ventress working together to get them out. With commando droids too. And magnagaurds doing something other than being killed. That would be epic.

Tri-fighters, Recusants, Providences, Lucrehulk Battleships (not droid control ships), where are you? I saw what looks like the Providence class gun deck in the season 2 preview, so I hope that means something.

More Plo Koon, Obi-wan, and just about any other jedi but Anakin and Ashoka. Even more Captain Rex, he's the one "Hero" that I actually like see to win.

And this might be too much to ask, but I'd like to see the series gradually, and I mean gradually, get darker and more serious. End this stupid battle droid humor now. If you want to keep it, get some one who actually can write comedy. Same goes for everything else.

 

I would love to see Republic Commandos(Alpha Squad)

 

Filoni and Gilroy have said that the series does get gradually darker as we go along, and we start to see more of Anakin's "dark" side as well.

 

Where I think the first season has really delivered is in bringing to the screen a really diverse range of new worlds and characters. The galaxy far, far away that George Lucas created all those years ago always had massive potential for storytelling and I think the producers have made a good start with the first 22 episodes.

 

Good season, left me wanting more. However, it was lacking in certan area's and needs improvmentsin:

-Lightsaber duels. The animation is too stiff right now and camera keeps curtting away.
-More force power use. Also, is it just me or are the Jedi actually weaker in the force in the cartoons than in the movies?
-Badguys winning once in a while, like in the last episode.
-More battledroid humor!
-Why don Jedi use the force on gievous when fighting him? He should be defenceless against that like he was against Obi Wans mega force push in epIII.
-Sidious fighting! I kept hoping he would destroy the bountyhunter in the last episode but did nothing. (probably was in on it ofcourse)

 

I would say no, but impressions vary depending on the scene. In the cartoon, we have Obi-Wan fleeing from Grievous (Destroy Malevolence) but we also have Mace demolishing a group of several droidekas, SBDs, and regular battle droids with one Force blast (Liberty on Ryloth).