Review of the Jedi: Shades of Reason

Join the Serial Wordsmith every Monday as he recaps and reviews the new season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. 

Oooh, things are getting excited on Clone Wars. After gathering together a huge criminal army last week, Darth Maul and Pre Vizsla are ready to take over Mandalore. But they're not going in for a stright-up attack. No, they're going to play this smart. Maul will send out his criminals to attack different parts of Mandalore's capital which Duchess Satine's guards will be unable to deal with. These attacks will create an unease amongst the Mandalorian people, shaking faith in Satine's pacifist government. Then Vizsla and Death Watch will step in and "defeat" the criminals, getting support from the people. This will allow for Death Watch to take the reigns of government with little fuss. Good plan. But of course because this is a villain team-up, both Maul and Vizsla are going to try and screw the other over. They're both just using the other to take over Mandalore. And we get to sit back and wait to see who's going to betray the other one first.

More after the break,

JJ Abrams to direct Star Wars Episode 7

And I really don't care. Like, at all.

I mean, Abrams isn't a bad choice. All of his movies have been pretty good. His Star Trek was suitably exciting if not exactly Trek-ish and I thought Super 8 was a great Spielberg homage. Solid entertainment.

But that's just it. Abrams' work is just pretty good. It's not spectacular. It's not bad, it's just not great. So I'm left without any strong feelings on the matter. Eh, whatever. I'm sure he'll do a decent job, if nothing else.

Review of the Jedi: Eminence

Join the Serial Wordsmith every Monday as he recaps and reviews the new season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars

After 12 episodes of diversion, we finally return this week to Darth Maul. The intervening episodes weren't bad (ok, some of them were) but when you bring back one of the most popular and visually interesting villains in the franchise, naturally that's what we're going to be interested in. But boy, was the wait worth it.

Our episode begins with Darth Maul and his brother Savage re-enacting the beginning of Aliens, by which I mean frozen and floating through space. But things get interesting when they're found by Death Watch. Death Watch are the guys I mentioned Lux Bonteri used hang out with back in my War on Two Fronts review. They're nationalist Mandalorians who think the current government has betrayed their heritage by becoming pacifist, so they became terrorists in Boba Fett armor. Cause Boba is Mandalorian. Last time we saw these guys Duchess Satine, Mandalore's leader and Obi-Wan's ex, had exiled them so now they're looking for a way to take back Mandalore. Remember that, it'll be important.

More after the break,

Review of the Jedi: Missing in Action & Point of No Return

Join the Serial Wordsmith every Monday as he recaps and reviews the new season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Double Header this week!

Oh man this fucking arc. I know I criticized the Onderon arc for feeling dragged out, but you could make the argument that the story could cover multiple episodes. This D-squad bullshit? No, this didn't need to be a four episode arc. This should have been a one-off. You remember those Clone Wars? One off episodes? Because you've done ONE this entire season, AND IT WAS FOR THE PLOTLINE WE ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT YOU STUPID, STUPID SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ugh. Anyway, we return from Winter hiatus with Missing in Action, the 100th episode. Insert underwhelming "yay" here. Col. Gascon and his droid squad are still stranded on Abafar but have escaped the Void salt flat. They've made their way to a crappy little frontier town to find someway back to Coruscant. Gascon sends R2 and the other astromechs to scout the area while he and the pilot droid who's name I forget but who really cares find food. After some hijnks involving a Russian alien's diner and eating out of the trash, Gascon finds a clone trooper named Gregor. Except he's not a soldier, he's a dishwasher. And he doesn't know what a clone is. Why? Our old friend amnesia.

More after the break,

Bowie's back bitches!

Yes dear readers, the Thin White Duke David Bowie celebrated his 66th birthday today by announcing his first new album in ten years. This is a huge surprise and relief to Bowie fans like myself who had feared he had retired in recent years. The album, called The Next Day, is set for release this March.

Additionally, Bowie released the first single from the album "Where are we now?" and it's weird trippy video. It's not going to rank up with his classics, but I'm glad the man is back.



My favorite part is when Bowie shows up in the flesh and gives a look that just says, "What the hell is going on?"

Review of the Jedi: Delays

My first post of the new year and it's an apology. I know I post my Clone Wars reviews on Monday, but unfortunately I have to delay my review of the 100th episode. See I don't watch the episodes when they air on TV, I watch them online later. This is mostly because some jerk at Cartoon Network decided to move the show's airtime to Saturday morning and my day doesn't begin until about 11:30. Anyway, Lucasfilm hasn't put the new episode online yet so no review. But don't worry, it'll be up before the end of the week.

In the meantime, here's a wonderful compilation video Lucasfilm made to celebrate hitting 100 episodes. It's a nice reminder that as much as Clone Wars annoys me, it can still be pretty cool.