Clone Wars -- Season Two

Season two of The Clone Wars does a great job of expanding the stories from season one. Although the series does bounce around a bit, since it's giving us glimpses of so many characters, we get a good sense of the progression of the war. All is not well with the Republic.

One of the things season two does is to give us a glimpse of the universe beyond the Republic and beyond the Separatists. There are a lot of bounty hunters in season two. And some pirates. Fun stuff. Oh, and one raging monster.

My favorite story of the season is the Mandalore arc. I think that trilogy of episodes is a must watch for any Star Wars fan. There's just too much important background for Obi-Wan. Definitely the first two, at least. You can find my reviews of those episodes here, here, and here.

This season also deals a lot with the philosophical issues around cloning. Or around the clones themselves. What makes an individual? What is just a copy?
Definitely check out this episode.

I did, also, have an episode I wasn't all that fond of, but I don't now remember which one it was, and I'm not going to read back through all of my reviews to figure it out. If it doesn't stand out enough for me to remember which one it was, it couldn't have been that bad, right?

Season two really doesn't require that you've seen season one to watch it. Neither do most of the story arcs. With that in mind, I would suggest picking out an arc that sounds interesting and just sit down and watch it.

Clone Wars -- "Rising Malevolence" (Ep. 1.2)

-- Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.

One of the best things about Clone Wars is that it allows us to find out more about characters we only ever really glance at in the movies. This is especially true of the Jedi Masters. In the movies, the Masters mostly just function as cardboard cutouts to fill the Council Chamber. Sure, a few of them get some lines but, other than during the execution of Order 66, we don't see them doing anything. They're just there to look cool.

Clone Wars finally lets us get to know characters like Plo Koon and see them in action.

It's not the same kind of action as with Yoda in the previous episode, though. There's no plowing through battle droids in this one. It's more a survival tale. However, there is more affirmation that the Jedi view the clones as unique and valuable beings, something the clones don't really accept about themselves. There's a piece of dialogue where one of the clones tells Plo Koon, "No one is coming for us. We're expendable," and Plo replies, "Not to me." It's especially poignant considering Order 66.

The other big thing in this episode is the introduction/origin of the ion cannon. You probably remember it best from The Empire Strikes Back has the huge ball turret the rebels used to disable whole star destroyers so that their ships could escape from Hoth. Here, we see General Grievous out testing the first prototype of the weapon in his flagship, the Malevolence, hence the title of the episode. And, I just have to say, the Malevolence is a pretty awesome ship. The animation on it is incredible. The episode is worth watching just for the ship but, even without it, it's well worth watching. [My kid has the Lego of the Malevolence which is pretty awesome, too.]

"Anakin just redeployed himself. Again." -- Obi-Wan Kenobi

Neil Gaiman's Bottle of Milk

Depending upon how you look at things, my kids are either very fortunate or dismally unfortunate. They get great stories all the time about, well, everything. So there is the story about the Troll Bridge and Goblin Town and, now, there is an excavation into Goblin Town going on that I haven't remembered to go take pictures of, yet, but I need to so that I can do a post on that, and, of course, DRAGONS! Sometimes, especially my daughter, the kids get exasperated with me because they have such a difficult time getting merely mundane answers from me. Sometimes, I almost feel bad about that.

Sometimes.

I mean, no one has ever just gone to the store or gone outside to play or, even, just gone to the bathroom. He's been abducted by aliens. And, when he comes back, he's been replaced by a robot duplicate or, possibly, a clone. We're never just having chicken for dinner; we're having dinosaur or, depending upon how many times I've been asked that question, one of the children.

And I might would feel bad about it except I hear my children, delightedly, repeating those stories to their friends.

All of that to say that I loved Neil Gaiman's new book, Fortunately, the Milk, about a father who has to go to the corner store to get milk for his kids' breakfast cereal (because, otherwise, they would have to use orange juice, which is not okay on cereal) and get abducted by aliens on the way home. This was a story after my own heart. It also has dinosaurs.

My own stories don't have enough dinosaurs, I don't think.

It's an illustrated book but not, really, a picture book. The one I have, the American version, is illustrated by Skottie Young. His art is whimsical and funky and fits well with the tone of the book. That does not stop me from also wanting the UK version of the book, illustrated by Chris Riddell, which is not so funky but looks no less interesting. Not that I will be getting a copy of the UK version, because I don't want to pay the shipping on it.

So, yes, the story is whimsical and funky and just a lot of fun, taking off at weird tangents. It has everything you could possibly want from a story like this: aliens, dinosaurs, pirates, time travel... okay, well, it doesn't have cowboys, so I guess it doesn't have everything, but it has an awful lot. If you have young kids (or, even, if you don't), this is a great book to pick up. I'm sure it would make an excellent bedtime reading book. Even though I don't have young kids, I may make mine sit down and listen to it anyway.

Maybe, that way they'll know I'm not the only one that does this.