Seven Burning Questions About Star Wars: The Clone Wars
by Tom Burns

How strange is it that, next week, a new Star Wars movie will be hitting your local multiplex? It feels like we should've been camped out in front of a ticket booth months ago, but, even though we feel woefully underprepared, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is coming soon and we couldn't be more excited. Critical opinions of the prequel trilogy have varied wildly, however, almost everyone and their mothers absolutely adored The Clone Wars animated series that ran on The Cartoon Network between 2003 and 2005.

The series, developed by Samurai Jack's Genndy Tartakovsky, was a huge eye-opener, showing the world how blissfully bad-ass the Star Wars universe could look in animation. As you may have heard, Lucasfilm is preparing to launch another Clone Wars animated series (this time CGI-animated and minus Tartakovsky) later this year, and, to kick the new show off right, they've arranged a beautiful theatrical release for the Clone Wars pilot movie - hence, the new big-screen Star Wars movie next week.

While a theatrical screening of an animated TV pilot is a much, much harder sell than a big-budget, live-action, sci-fi spectacle, if you've seen The Clone Wars trailer yet, you already know that this is way more than just a TV show. The preview is filled with so much drama, intrigue, and unrelenting lightsaber action that you almost forget that this is, essentially, just telling a story that's shoehorned between two movies you've already seen - Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. And, while we already know how the Clone Wars turn out, we're still filled with questions about what exactly we're going to see in this new chapter of the Star Wars universe.

So, to vent a little before we lose our minds, here are The Deadbolt's top seven burning questions about Star Wars: The Clone Wars:

1. Is there really enough story to sustain a Clone Wars series?

We can already hear the choruses of Star Wars fanatics across the globe screaming "YES" in response, but it's still a legitimate question, one that every casual Lucas fan will be asking themselves as they head out to catch Clone Wars in the theatre. We know that there have been countless novels, comic books, video games, and works of borderline creepy fan fiction all exploring every obscure nook and cranny of the Clone conflicts, however, there's a big difference between mainstream fans and continuity-obsessed uber-fans. Diehards will gladly pick up a seven-volume cycle about what Kit Fisto was doing during the few years between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and happily ask for more. Less devoted fans - the sort that just watch the movies and maybe the Cartoon Network series - aren't going to have the same amount of patience.

The Clone Wars takes place within a very limited time-frame in the Star Wars universe and, thanks to Revenge of the Sith, we already know what happens to 90% of the major players from the war. Will fans of the SW movies find enough drama to keep them engaged in the Clone Wars movie (and the forthcoming TV series) even though they already know the final fates of Anakin, Obi-Wan, Grievous, etc.? It's a tough question, and there's a lot of pressure on the Clone Wars movie to come out of the gate running and prove to audiences that this is a viable, relevant story worth telling. If done right, The Clone Wars TV series could be the Star Wars equivalent of Band of Brothers - knowing how WWII ended up didn't effect our mad-love for that series - but, if done wrong, this could just be one big animated wank that spends too much time over explaining an event that wasn't interesting enough to make it into the movies anyway. (We're hoping for the former.)

2. Will Anakin's Padawan die?

As soon as it was revealed that The Clone Wars feature would introduce a new character - a previously unmentioned Padawan Jedi apprenticed to Anakin named Ahsoka Tano - the fan community as a whole greeted the announcement with a rousing chorus of "Whoa, whoa, whoa... who the heck is this chick and why the heck haven't we heard of her before?" In terms of storytelling, Ahsoka is a great concept, bringing a youthful energy to the new Clone Wars series and opening up a whole new aspect of Anakin's life. (Never really saw him as the mentor-type.) But the main problem with Ahsoka is a problem of continuity. We never heard of Ahsoka in Attack of the Clones and she's never mentioned in Revenge of the Sith (it's never even mentioned that Anakin had a Padawan). So, if that's the case... what the heck happens to her during the new Clone Wars series? Does she die? (The most popular theory so far.) Does she quit the Jedi order? Does she turn traitor? If she becomes a full-fledged Jedi, why didn't we hear about her in Revenge of the Sith? Is she really a figment of Anakin's imagination? (That's M. Night Shyamalan's theory.) Any way it goes, fans are dying to learn more about who Ahsoka is and, almost more importantly, why Anakin never mentioned her again after the Clone Wars.

3. What kind of cameos can we expect from The Clone Wars film (and series)?

Although one of our favorite aspects of the previous seasons of The Cartoon Network's Clone Wars series was that they introduced us to many, many new characters that we'd either a). never heard of or b). only seen lurking in the background, we have to admit that we're really looking forward to seeing if some of our other favorite characters from the Star Wars universe might drop by The Clone Wars for an old-fashioned cameo walk-on. Specifically, we would LOVE to see Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn make an appearance in The Clone Wars series. One of our (many) issues with Revenge of the Sith is that the movie concludes with Yoda discussing this master plan for eventually defeating Palpatine that he's been working out with Qui-Gon's ghost and yet Lucas never lets us see the ectoplasmic ex-Jedi with our own two eyes. Let us see Qui-Gon first approach Yoda from the afterlife and, retroactively, the end of ROTS will be so much cooler. Who else do we want to see aside from dead Jedi Neeson? What about a young, up-and-coming Moff Tarkin? Or a little more interaction between Obi-Wan and Owen Lars? We'd even be happy to see anyone with the last name Calrissian or Solo, although the LAST thing we want is for the new TV series to turn into Star Wars Babies. We love all the new characters, but if Chewbacca got a walk-on in Revenge of the Sith, you just know someone equally nostalgia-worthy is going to be popping up in Clone Wars.

Seven Burning Questions About Star Wars: The Clone Wars Page 2