Reviewed by Matthew Highton
Stars Matt Lanter, James Arnold Taylor, Matthew Wood, Ashley Eckstein, Corey Burton,
Ian Abercrombie, Terrence Carson, Catherine Taber, Anthony Daniels | Written by George Lucas
UK certification PG | UK RRP £12.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 84 minutes | Directed by Dave Filoni
Clone Commandos picks up directly from the last series of Clone Wars set after Attack of the Clones and breaks down into four separate episodes. The first surrounding a group of Rookie Clones defending a moon base near their home world of Kamino (under the command of Commander Cody), feels almost like a stand alone episode with the subsequent three following three separate parts of a campaign to stop a Separatist invasion of Ryloth individually led by, Anakin Skywalker, Obi -Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu (each character in charge of their own squadron and their own episode), but concentrating on giving audiences the perspective of the Clones themselves opposed to focussing on the familiar characters.
The series is a great extension for Star Wars fans with enough recognisable characters, technology and creatures to open up the Star Wars Universe even further without compromising continuity of the films or feeling like its drifted too far away from them. That being said it has to be noted that this is clearly aimed at a younger audience. The voice casting means there are a lot of stereotypical over macho Clone Troopers and comically sounding bad guys you would expect in any children’s programme often plodding through generic scripting. But with Samuel Jackson on board as Mace Windu and some decent Jedi voicing there is a nice sense of authenticity to it. Luckily though, despite this being a series for the younger audience, there have only been a few things lost that only die hard fans will really care about. The most interesting and apparent of these losses is the replacement of the scrolling text as seen at the beginning of the rest of the Star Wars franchise by a Starship Troopers style voice over recapping and filling in viewers at the beginning of episodes.
It’s a slick looking programme, the action scenes fluid, enhanced by all the regular Star War sound effects and the most impressive aspect of all the animation with beautiful flowing CGI tying the whole thing together. There is the occasional distracting over gesturing and comic release from characters but as I said this is aimed towards children and therefore helps the appeal turning the familiar into a caricatured version of an already defined universe. All in all it’s a nice little add on to an ever expanding and loved franchise and only the die hard fans could really pull it apart. Though truth be told, the story isn’t the most in depth and the dialogue not the greatest. If you’re a fan you’ll no doubt enjoy it, but perhaps not be compelled to go back in any rush for a re-watch.
EXTRAS None