Star Wars: Clone Wars videos (and an Obi-Wan debate settled)

I just recently found out that two of my brothers-in-law didn’t know anything about the new Clone Wars movie or the TV series it’s setting up. This post is for them…. but there’s a nice treat at the end for those who know all the rest.

First, the basics: as I said back in August…

As most people know already, there are two Star Wars TV shows in the works, one live action and one computer animated. The latter of those is much closer to completion, and it’s release is still over a year out. But on the official Star Wars website, they’ve released a trailer for the “Clone Wars” show, and it blows me away. This series looks like it will be awesome. It covers, as the name implies, the Clone Wars, which begin at the end of Episode II: Attack of the Clones and end in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. There was a short cartoon series run on the Cartoon Network (approximately 5 minute episodes totalling 2 hours), that covered some of that war, and this series will fill in the gaps.

Here’s the “Sneak Peek” trailer I was referring to:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/TK3JCmMN5mQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Then, in February, Lucasfilm announced that they would be releasing an animated theatrical movie to kick-off the animated TV series. At the time, I said:

To be honest, it’ll be a little weird to see an animated Star Wars on the big screen, and it’s a bit of an odd idea to launch a TV show with a theatrical pilot (though there will be a TV pilot, too), but if any franchise can pull that off, it’d be Star Wars.

The theatrical release will be on August 15th, followed by the TV debut on Cartoon Network (and TNT) in the fall.

Here’s the trailer for the movie (notice, some of the shots are the same, but there’s some cool new stuff) [edit: if the video below is "no longer available" click here to see it - embedding is apparently blocked on all versions of this one]:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/xboEibLVZPE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

The thing about Jabba’s son… I’m trying not to think about it… but it looks awesome. The fluidity of the movement is amazing. Those lightsaber battles are going to be great.

The new young girl they focus on in the trailers is called Ahsoka, and she’ll be Anakin’s padawan (apprentice).

The movie premieres on August 15th. It should come as no surprise that I’ll be seeing this in the theater (it’s the last of my “essentials” group this year.)

Now… on to the Obi-Wan debate.

The best lightsaber battle ever was against Darth Maul in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. (For my money, it was worth sitting through Jar-Jar to get to that.) One of the frequent nitpicks of that sequence, though, is that Obi-Wan didn’t use his force speed power to quickly go through the laser gates, thereby catching up with Qui-Gon and probably preventing his death. Why wouldn’t he do that? The beginning of the movie established that particular power when they escaped from the destroyer droids. Why not use it now in this critical moment battling the Sith?

At last, we know the answer!

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/t3dI-ghYimg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

That settles it for me. Totally plausible.

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