It's 2013! Time to get this year's first Star Wars Wednesday off to a great start...three days late. Actually, technically four days, given this will go up after midnight Friday. As it happens, I'm actually glad I was...delayed a bit. Tuesday was spent recovering from New Year's Eve. Wednesday I got distracted assembling new furniture and rearranging the living room, and slowed further while relocating our over complicated, over wired, TV/surround sound/stereo setup. Thursday turned out to be a bit more on track - I caught up on the Clone Wars, while assembling another furniture piece (flatpacks are fun! Right?). With the 100th episode broadcasting this Saturday (OK - LATER THIS MORNING), I wanted to be back on track.
A few random observations:
- Watching the episodes all together makes it much easier to remember and follow the various story arcs, since they are now commonly spanning more than one episode.
- I know from Star Wars Celebration VI, that there was a specific directive to use music other than John Williams' score in the Clone Wars. I'm a huge Star Wars soundtrack fan, and I own the Clone Wars movie soundtrack. It occurred to me that Star Wars has some very specific character and situational themes. Clone Wars probably has something similar, but I'm not keying on it. Maybe it's not distinctive enough, or maybe I need to listen to the music separately more often to better pick up on it.
- Zilkins make for some interesting RPG opportunities. They may be the smallest intelligent species.
- The Jedi kids episodes proved more interesting than I expected, especially the trip to Illum.
- David Tennant (Dr. Who) is entertaining as a droid. I suspect he might be able to pull off a decent C-3P0 impersonation.
- As recounted at Celebration VI, the comet trails in the droid arc are fantastic. The animation advances throughout the series are something that are easily taken for granted or just unknown to the average fan.
But by far, the most striking new planetary/setting visual is the planet Abafar, in "A Sunny Day in the Void." The orange sky against the white desert/plain is evocative and iconic. The orange sky reminds me of an older concept art painting of an early version of the AT-AT, and I'd be surprised if it was a coincidence. The city of Pons Ora (slide 17 or so) is equally striking. The entire droids arc has been fun so far. It is interesting to hear the initial concept work, which is posted on starwars.com.
Looking forward to number 100.