Revisiting a Classic:

“Star Wars Vintage: Clone Wars 2D Micro-Series”

(2003 - 2005)

Volume 2

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Hey fellow Hivers! I’m back again for another review of 2003’s 2D Clone Wars mini series, or as it’s currently called—now that TWENTY YEARS have passed since its premiere— Star Wars Vintage: Clone Wars 2D Micro-Series due to that there’s the Disney-Plus CGI Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels, The Bad Batch, and many other animated Star Wars universe-related shows and live action ones—The Mandalorian , Book of Bobba Fett, Andor, and the upcoming Ahsoka.

It’s hard to explain how epic 2D Vintage Clone Wars was back in 2003 for a much younger me and other Star Wars fans. Gendy Tartakovsky and George Lucas were bringing the popular Star Wars prequel story to a new audience on Cartoon Network.

And if there was anyone to deliver the massive prequel stories in quick, action-packed chunks of space-opera glory—it was the man responsible for other popular animated hits like Dexter’s Lab, Power Puff Girls, and Samurai Jack: Gendy Tartakovsky.

Gendy Tartakovsky drawing for Hotel Transylvania

Dexter’s Laboratory — A series about a genius boy and his secret laboratory which his parents don’t know about but that his sister Deedee regularly trespasses into.

Power Puff Girls - A series about girl superheroes accidentally created in a lab by their professor-father via the ingredients of sugar, spice, everything nice … but also Chemical X.

Samurai Jack - A series about a samurai who gets magically flung into the future by a shapeshifting demon he failed to defeat.

Long story short, the man does good stuff snd continues to make great series, like his most recent prehistoric epic Primal about the bond betwen a caveman and his T-Rex best friend.

Anyway, back to TV episode Volume Two of Star Wars Vintage: Clone Wars 2D Micro-Series!

Episode one’s Volume was covered in my previous post which followed Anakin’s final adventure as a Padawan and had him meeting and beating Count Dooku’s dark apprentice Asaj Ventress. Last we saw her, she was falling off a cliff but I’m pretty sure she’s still alive: in Star Wars nobody important’s usually dead unless we actually see them get struck down. Other than Asaj, we got to see Obi-Wan battle a mercenary named Durge with incredible regenerating abilities and Jedi Master Kit Fisto battle droids underwater.

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Obi-Wan vs the Durge the Mercenary

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Count Dooku taming Asaj Ventress

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Asaj fighting Anakin

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Windu fighting battle-droids

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Luminara and her apprentice Barriss fighting stealth-droids

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Kit diving down to battle aqua-droids

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General Grievous confronting a group of Jedi.

(Phone Screenshots)

Volume Two starts where Volume One left off, with the introduction of Star Wars villain General Grievous who is way more intimidating in 2D Clone Wars than in the movies.

Volume Two’s appeara to have three main stories with different developments:

1. Anakin’s spiritual trial after being promoted from Padawan to Jedi Knight by the Jedi Council.

2. General Grievous’s continued hunting of the Jedi, while under the tutelage of Separatist leader Count Dooku.

3. Shaak Ti’s impending rematch against General Grievous after her nearly fatal first encounter.

Something I’m preparing myself for, is the oddly huge amount of events that will transpire in the CGI <Star War: Clone Wars and Rebels show. I’ve seen plenty Tik Toks, Youtube Shorts, and Youtube videos about those series but it still amazes me that they were able to cram so much between the cinematic prequel movies <Episode 2: Clone Wars and Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith without effectively breaking those movies story-wise to my knowledge. There’s just so many characters, sub-plots, and new faces added along the way in those in-between journeys but also we get the fleshing out of some big main characters like Count Dooku, General Grievous, and other Jedi Masters (to a lesser degree). I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure Asaj Ventress may have debuted in the 2D Vintage Clone Wars series and Admiral Thrawn from Rebels was originally a book character from the Extended Universe that became non-canon Star Wars Legends before Disney decided to pick him back up. This just really shows that Star Wars may be just as as big as the Marvel Cinematic Universe one day.

Anyway, back to 2D Vintage Clone Wars’s Volume Two: let’s start with Anakin.

I remember people criticizing Hayden Christenson for his performance as Anakin Skywalker but after rewatching the prequels I think he did a great job—and even though the voice sounds a little funny, the Anakin in Cartoon Network’s 2003 mini-series was pretty good too at capturing the essence of the character—smart, passionate, quick to anger and retribution. This depiction really connects the dots for the character development the movies couldn’t show.

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There’s all these sides to Anakin Skywalker—there’s the desert slave boy who was told he was special by a famous Jedi.

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Then there’s Anakin the tech-savy creator of C-3PO. The two of them have come along way from their dusty rock slavequarters on Tattooine.

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And then there’s Anakin—the young man in love. This screenshot is also poetic in that his unactivated lightsaber is there and ready, just like his passion’s pension for violence.

So much changes for Anakin in this episode: he graduates from Padawan to Jedi Knight, he gets a scar on his face, he undergoes a spiritual trial while saving the natives of Nelvan, but he also murders a Separatist scientist in cold blood which shows he’s dabbled further into the Dark Side.

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This is a beautiful scene, almost Arthurian drama-wise like Anakin is joining Camelot’s Roundtable. It is especially touching because he’s just secretly met up with Padme and had an argument with Obi-Wan about the difficulty of his training as a Padawan without Qui-Gon Jin’s guidance.

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Anakin’s first apearance as a Jedi Knight, alongside his Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

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I’m not at all sure where Anakin received this scar but it’s romantic of him to visit Padme during the war—as if he’s saying, “I’m going through hard stuff but still thinking of you.” There’s also an interesting far away scene where we see the light to Padme’s house go out … maybe that’s when Luke entered the galaxy.

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Anakin leaving on his spiritual trial to save the natives of Nelvan.

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Anakin force-choking and killing the last of the Separatist scientists on Nelvan. This was especially badass but Jedi are supposed to be galactic cops and what Anakin did here did not look like an arrest.

General Grievous had some real good scenes in this episode. We get to see the background work behind his tyranny and terror, tutelage under Dooku and Sidious. It also felt like Grievous was just terorizing Jedi Master Shaak Ti while she struggles to keep Palpatine away from but failed.

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The Clone Shock Troopers appearance was a great show of the balance of power. While a lightsaber-wielding opponent like Grievous could be deadly, he could still be overwhelmed by sheer numbers or large machinery.

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Sometimes when we see menacing villains, we think their evil and skill is innate—but here we get to see it the result of strenuos training. I like that Dooku is his teacher since he’s famous for being a legendary lightsaber duelist.

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The chain of command in the Sith: Sidiois then Dooku, then Grievous … or Asaj Ventress.

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One of the lessons Dooku imparts to Grievous is that the secret to defeating the Jedi is surprise, fear, and intimidation which he uses very well when he ambushes Palpatine and Shaak Ti.

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There’s not much more surprising than learning the guy you couldnt beat with two arms has secretly had four arms all along.

Jedi Master Shaak Ti might’ve had the toughest time this episode: not only does Grievous nearly kill her and slay her fellow Jedi, but later while trying to protect Palpatine during the Separatist ambush on Coruscant, Grievous hunts her and her fellow Jedi once again.

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It probably doesn’t matter but among the few Jedi who survived Grievous’s first attack—Shaak Ti is the only one whose hand Ki-Adi-Mundi holds.

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Poor Shaak Ti, always put in the worse scenarios. After watching him slaughter her friends, Grievous is probably the stuff of nightmares to her.

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Just when she thought they got away, Grievous seems to defy the laws of gravity and chase down their elevator.

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But Shaak Ti is not exactly helpless, she’s a trained Jedi Master able to easily hold her own against a couple staff droids.

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Even when battling a large group of staff-wielding droids, Shaak Ti shows superior speed and turna their weapons against them.

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Finding more of her friends slain by General Grievous once again, Shaak Ti rushes him in anger.

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And yet once again, the young Jedi Master is no match for the superior Grievous.

One of the ways in which 2D Clone Wars excels where the prequel movies fall short—other than the advantage of a 5 hour runtime versus the prequel trilogies six-hours—is just the wide cast of characters we get to see. Other than Padme, I can’t think of very many formidable female fighters in those movies, where as 2D Clone Wars has shown us three exceptional female Jedi in its first two episodes.

Speaking of exceptional Jedi—Masters Mace Windu and Saesi Tan (they named a guy with horns, “Say Satan”?) show their seemingly godly Jedi skills in Volume Two. I’ve seen criticism online saying that Mace Windu and Yoda were portrayed as too powerful in this series, which may have played into its dismissal from Star Wars canon. To be fair, there’s badass and then there’s … Saesi Tan, Mace Windu, and Yoda defeating a city’s siege-worth of ground, aerial, and space droids.

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Never in the movies do we see Yoda this dramatic, he’s always much more reserved. Here it looks like he’s striking a pose and yelling, “Battle stations!”

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There’s a video of Samuel L. Jackson talking about his request to George Lucas for a purple lightsaber. Lucas asks why and Jackson says he wants to stand out in a sea of blue and green lightsabers. In an attempt to disuade Jackson, Lucas says a purple lightsaber would require changes to the Star Wars lore, to which Jackson tells him, “Well then somebody should probably tell the lore guy.” Funnily enough, Lucas reveals to Jackson, “I’m the lore guy,” and Jackson says, “Well then sounds like we’re done here then.” I don’t know if it’s a deepfake AI video but I found hilarious and very fitting of the two guys’ personalities … which is probably why Mace Windu’s ship is purple too.

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Yoda riding around like Jedi cavalry, swinging his lightsaber was amazing to see as a kid.

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Without a doubt, Mace Windu flying around cutting droid-ships in half is ultra-fantastic but …

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… Very few moments will be as badass as Master Saesi Tan putting on his helmet and literally jumping into space with his Clone Troopers to hijack a droid-ship.

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We need a movie or series just about the alien members of the Jedi all the ignored badasserg they’ve committed in the Star Wars universe.

2D Clone Wars shows that the Separatist droid army wasn’t just the Jedi’s enemy but an oppressing force against all worlds of the Republic and nearby. We get to see all sorts of different species waging war against an endless machine army … and sometimes losing, which adds a bit of realism to a very supernatural sci-fi dimension.

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Wookies watching an invading droid army.

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I don’t actually know what’s going on here — who’s fighting, where they are, but it’s a treat to watch skirmishes far from the Jedi.

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One of these days, I’ll have to look up the total number of worlds in the Star Wars galaxy.

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I really like this shot because despite the awesomeness of the Clone Army, it shows that some battles were lost, that groups had to surrender, that it wasn’t a sweeping victory all the time.

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After Grievous runs away with Palpatine, he turns to confront Mace Windu when he arrives — and Windu Force Crushes his rib-cage, resulting in the cough Grievous suffers in the films.

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They truly turned Windu into a Jedi God in this series: after Force-Crushing Grievous’s rib cage, he jumps into the air while deflecting aircraft blasts and only fails in reaching thanks to gravity. And just as it’s about to leave, Windu reaches towards it—as if he could grab the ship with the Force—but it hyperjumps out of reach.

And just like that, 2D Clone Wars is over. It starts as quickly as it ends but it was such a joy to watch for the first time and still a delightful rewatch after all these years. Gendy Tartakovsky and his team did a splendid job.

Hope you all enjoyed this post!

Feel free to leave comments or questions below!

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OBI-WAN: Are you still talking about Star Wars?

ANAKIN: What? No … Maybe. R2, end Hive Post.

Image Sources:
Cover Pic
Cartoon Network pic
Dexter’s Lab pic
Power Puff Girls
Samurai Jack pic
Primal
Pics after that are screenshots from my phone

Revisiting a Classic: “Star Wars Vintage: Clone Wars 2D Micro-Series” (2003-2005) - Volume Two Review