Season 1 Episode 0 - Dark Force Rising - Review
Context:
The Tarkovsky Clone Wars series has always been something that has interested me however, I’ve always found myself
unable to enjoy my time watching it. I think this boils down to a few factors: 1. Binge watching the series is not
how the series was intended to be watched and 2. I never grew up watching it. Watching most sections here felt quite
fresh and new to me because of this.
Opening:
Unlike the rest of the series, we don’t have the blue text following the title crawl for context. Instead, we have a voice over sequence from Yoda. This acts similar to the blue text of subsequent episodes in this series, however it’s clear an important distinction has been made as this is the first we see of the clone wars in this series. Instead of the text, EddieDean has used a speech from Yoda about how the war has impacted the Jedi while showing battle scenes. It is extremely fitting. We get the ever-present themes within the clone wars explored and explained from the word go!
As with my last review the changes made to the title crawl and credits are fitting and welcomed.
The Edit:
The core idea of taking Tarkovsky’s series and attempting to integrate it as supplementary material for the 3d animated
series is genius. The 3d series lacks strong introductions for Ventress and Grevious and incorporating this into
the broader clone wars story helps to increase the stakes of the war and further improves upon the original 3d series.
The Tarkovsky series I imagine would take a great deal of thought and effort to edit, given it’s intense focus on action and it’s minimalist take on dialogue. The flow and pacing of this edit has been significantly improved for both single and binge viewing. Instead of a multitude of micro-series episodes, it feels like one congruent modern form tv show episode.
The core arch of Anakin becoming knighted is maintained and still comes across amazingly! Better then the original in my opinion! (But, that could just be because of the changed style of viewing here) In short, its great!
Impression:
Initially I was reluctant to view this episode, as stated in my context I never had much experience with the Tarkovsky
series due to my lack of enjoyment from it. As soon as I viewed episode 1 of this edit that all changed and I went right back and watched this episode and I’m glad I did.
EddieDean fantastic work here! For two experiences in a row you’ve taken star wars fans who didn’t necessarily enjoy the original content but have thoroughly enjoyed your edits! I’m looking forward to reviewing episode 2 😃
Oh and, happy star wars day! 😃