I saw the film (of which there was all of five people in the theater - a first for a SW film) and was prepared for the worst. As that film was frighteningly aimed squarely at the eleven-year old (there are far better things for younger children to watch and adults are presumably/hopefully not so easily entertained) I was wondering what this show would be like.
Well I've seen all five episodes and, it's basically more of the same in smaller increments and with commercial breaks. First of all why they would consciously base the head/faces of the characters in the animation on Thunderbirds (the unintentionally funny marionette puppet show from the mid-60's) is beyond all comprehension. The characters heads on that show were foolish/creepy looking because that was the best they could do at the time. Not so nowadays, so the inspiration of the look alone is entirely questionable.
As for the show itself there's a constant sameness to it that's a bit unnerving - there's a constant lack of scope, everything blends together visually and there's just a basic flat look to it. It sometimes looks like a PS2 game or an old PC game which were silly looking to begin with. This would lead some to believe that this as far as we've come in terms of computer animation and they wouldn't be too far off the mark. The writing is campy, embarrassing and leaves zero elements of surprise. The narration at the start of each show is pretty unnecessary and should be perhaps replaced with a mini-title crawl. The dialog is also a shade campy, pretty cringe-worthy (i.e. virtually anything the Battle Droids - "Roger Roger" and Ahsoka Tano (aka Snips) - "Sky Guy", "Artooey" happen to say) and sometimes the dialog is just moronic. The somnambulist-like story lines are generally pretty rote.
Cartoon Channel has a lot to gain from this show. The ratings will be good as it already has a zombie-like built-in audience of SW fans/blind followers (or clones if you will). But you have to wonder/realize the real point of something like this. This is not something anyone can truly rave about as it being the second coming or any such nonsense as it is barely, if at all, entertaining. Seeing how basically empty the stories are all you can really see this as is a rather transparent exercise in merchandising opportunities. Hasbro has unleashed an entire line of action figures, toys and play sets. Penguin has just released a series of books (children and adult). DVD releases are just around the corner. That's a fairly good, in not just an honest summation of the series: merchandising (and what do you know just in time for the Holidays).
Well I've seen all five episodes and, it's basically more of the same in smaller increments and with commercial breaks. First of all why they would consciously base the head/faces of the characters in the animation on Thunderbirds (the unintentionally funny marionette puppet show from the mid-60's) is beyond all comprehension. The characters heads on that show were foolish/creepy looking because that was the best they could do at the time. Not so nowadays, so the inspiration of the look alone is entirely questionable.
As for the show itself there's a constant sameness to it that's a bit unnerving - there's a constant lack of scope, everything blends together visually and there's just a basic flat look to it. It sometimes looks like a PS2 game or an old PC game which were silly looking to begin with. This would lead some to believe that this as far as we've come in terms of computer animation and they wouldn't be too far off the mark. The writing is campy, embarrassing and leaves zero elements of surprise. The narration at the start of each show is pretty unnecessary and should be perhaps replaced with a mini-title crawl. The dialog is also a shade campy, pretty cringe-worthy (i.e. virtually anything the Battle Droids - "Roger Roger" and Ahsoka Tano (aka Snips) - "Sky Guy", "Artooey" happen to say) and sometimes the dialog is just moronic. The somnambulist-like story lines are generally pretty rote.
Cartoon Channel has a lot to gain from this show. The ratings will be good as it already has a zombie-like built-in audience of SW fans/blind followers (or clones if you will). But you have to wonder/realize the real point of something like this. This is not something anyone can truly rave about as it being the second coming or any such nonsense as it is barely, if at all, entertaining. Seeing how basically empty the stories are all you can really see this as is a rather transparent exercise in merchandising opportunities. Hasbro has unleashed an entire line of action figures, toys and play sets. Penguin has just released a series of books (children and adult). DVD releases are just around the corner. That's a fairly good, in not just an honest summation of the series: merchandising (and what do you know just in time for the Holidays).