How Far Is Too Far?

I'm playing catchup today with Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the CG cartoon series due to start it's third season soon. I loved the first season, chewing through the entire set in a matter of days, but I waited until season two was finished before really starting in on that one.

I have to say I love the clones! Every one of them is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker (met him once), and every one of them is awesome. I've always been a fan of the clone armour designs. I love the addition of colour to the otherwise stark white body suits of the galaxies elite troopers. Having an entire series that uses clones in almost every episode is just too much fun for me to watch.

The action in this version of the Star Wars universe is a pleasant trade-off between what we see the live action actors do in the movies and the crazy, super over-the-top antics of the earlier Clone Wars animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky. I never really got into that series. It was just too crazy and far from what we had seen in the movies. But this CG version has fantastic moments of action and combat, stunning lightsabre duels and mesmerising space battles, without sacrificing the impression that these warrior monks could really do this.

And it's surprisingly dark at times. People die, and not just the unnamed clones. Jedi are electrocuted to death, colonies are wiped out by the Trade Federation and, in the episode I have on while writing this, we see flame-throwers being used on sentient bug creatures. Evil, Separatist bug people, but sentient none-the-less.

Which brings me to why I started this, all to show off this one, 60 second scene. In the Star Wars universe, I have always gotten the impression that the Jedi were just good. Through and through. They would never sacrifice their ideals to achieve a goal. The Sith and bad, the Jedi are good. Sith use Force Lightning, Jedi use Force Push. That kind of thing. And it is why I absolutely love this series. Here, even the Jedi are not beyond forcing information out of a prisoner of war to get what they need.