Blu-ray Movie Reviews

George Lucas did his best to alienate me and other fans from the Star Wars universe with the critically panned feature film The Clone Wars, which felt more like an overlong pilot—as it turned out to be—than a worthy contender for our cinematic dollar. Fortunately for us Star Wars fans, the weekly TV series is much better as we follow Anakin Skywalker (voiced by Matt Lanter), his new padawan Ashoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), and his former master Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor) on their trials and tribulations during the Clone Wars. With the help of the countless clone troopers (Dee Bradley Baker) and the Jedi council, they fight against the evil separatists led by Count Dooku (Corey Burton) and General Grievous (Matthew Wood).

With supervising director Dave Filoni at the helm, the TV series recaptures the heart and spirit of the original trilogy. The intended audience is young boys and girls, but there's enough action and humor to make this a family affair. As the season progresses, the characters evolve, especially Ashoka, whose tutelage under the future Sith Lord is predestined for an unhappy ending, and the relationship between the Jedi and the clones is ironic considering what happens when Order 66 is executed in Revenge of the Sith.

Technically speaking, the animation is amazing, and it translates well to Blu-ray, even with a low-bitrate VC-1 encode. The image has stable contrast, deep hues, and inky blacks. Unfortunately, the paltry Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is mostly pedestrian and lacks the first-class frequency range expected from a product with Star Wars in the title. The bass response is nowhere near as strong as it could be, but the dialog is intelligible, and the surround experience has some decent ambience with crisscrossing pans.

The 3-disc set includes all 22 first-season episodes—with seven extended directors cuts—and all of the episodes have their own "making-of" featurette about the story and any technical details involved. Exclusive to Blu-ray is "The Jedi Temple Archives," an extensive database of the characters and objects seen in the show. The finishing touch is a 64-page production journal that has early sketches, artist notes, and concept art from the series.

I know many people felt ripped-off by The Clone Wars feature film, but don't let that dissuade you from giving the series a look. It has a lot of action, decent writing, and amazingly good picture quality on Blu-ray, although the exclusion of a lossless audio track is a head scratcher. Recommended.

Release Date: November 3, 2009
Studio: Warner/Lucasfilm

Movie: 8/10
Picture: 9/10
Sound: 7/10

Review System

Source
Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player

Display
JVC DLA-RS1 projector
Stewart FireHawk screen (76.5" wide, 16:9)

Electronics
Onkyo Pro PR-SC885 pre/pro
Anthem PVA-7 power amplifier
Belkin PF60 power conditioner

Speakers
M&K S-150s (L, C, R)
M&K SS-150s (LS, RS, SBL, SBR)
SVS PC-Ultra subwoofer

Cables
Monoprice HDMI cables (source to pre/pro)
Best Deal analog-audio cables
PureLink HDC Fiber Optic HDMI Cable System (15 meters) from pre/pro to projector

Acoustical treatments from GIK Acoustics