I'm a massive Star Wars fan, I mean I grew up watching the original trilogy, playing with every type of toy I could get my hands on and seeing the new trilogy the day they came out at the cinema yet I realised I haven't written any blogs about this great cultural phenomena. Well, luckily over the weekend I have been given cause to write about it for two particular reasons. Firstly I watched the first two Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV show DVDs. Now on Amazon there is a fair bit of annoyance from fans about the fact that each DVD, whilst costing around AUS$20, only contains 4 episodes. It's more like buying a movie than it is buying a TV series and one would have to wonder why, after the first season was completed a while ago, they didn't just release the entire first season of the show. Anyway episode grievances aside the TV show, majority of the time, is quite spectacular. Filling in the gap between the end of Episode II: Attack of the Clones and the start of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith it focuses around the actual Clone War, as the name implies. This isn't the Star Wars universes first foray into both the Clone Wars timeline and animation with the highly popular and successful mini-sode series (they were about 5-10 minutes an episode) Star Wars: Clone Wars airing from 2003-2005. I loved this series with it's Samurai Jack inspired cartoon design and awesome Jedi superpowers, see Mace Windu fighting on Dantooine in Series 2, but being mini-sodes there wasn't as much character and plot development I mean things have to get done quickly in 5 minutes. The new series goes for a completley different design scheme, taking on a more 3D marionette feel which really pushes the enevelope as far as TV cartoons go. It's scaled back the Jedi so they are more like the films, which is actually kind of disappointing after seeing the earlier series but the fight scenes are rather intense and brutal sometimes, really hitting home the fact that this is a war and pushing it's largely child focus. Oh did I mention that the explosions look fantastic? Well they do and luckily there are lots of them with good smoke and debris effects to boot. What I really like about this series is the fact that in certain episodes, like Rookies, it focuses solely on the clone troopers. I was always a fan of the stormtroopers from the original trilogy and the clone troopers from the new one so to find out more about these guys and the fact that even though they are clones they each have a different personality was really good. It's probably been said before but if you were to watch this series and then go on to watch the Order 66 scene in Episode III it would have an even greater impact after seeing the bonds these clones build with the Jedi. Some of the new characters are great like Captain Rex the leader of Anakin's 501st and Ahsoka, Anakin's apprentice does grow on you. Sometimes the writing is amazing, like the episode Rookies and the Malevolence arc, but it's not without it's flaws, for instance Bombad Jedi an episode focused around Jar Jar Binks which is just dumb and purely focused at children resulting in a skip from this blogger. This series is a must see, even if you don't buy it just yet you have to get it when it comes out because it really is a good addition to the Star Wars universe and generally a good cartoon.