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Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 1 Episode 1: Ambush

What is it ? : The first episode of the series, and it drops straight into action, Yoda is to go to Toydaria and discuss them joining the Republic side in the war. Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress are already there and ambush Yoda's Republic Cruiser, and force him to use an escape pod to get to the surface. The Kind then challenges Asajj to prove her battle droids are better than a Jedi, by capturing Yoda.
Yoda and 3 Clone Troopers, fight their way across the surface of the planet to rendezvous with the King.

High Points : The action has settled into fast paced and good quality, and the short running time helps the story zip along. The planet surface is nice and alien (a little like Felucia in design, but different enough), and gave the impression of seeing somewhere we'd never seen before, although apart from the Toydarians and some birds, we never got to see any other wildlife.
The ambush at the start was nice, with starships coming out of hyperspace shooting, possibly the first time that has been shown in Star Wars, and was impressive to behold.

Low Points : Still not a fan of the design style (I won't mention it from now on, except when certain design choices are worth comment), and the design of Yoda with a mouthful of sharp fangs makes him look like a nasty bitey type of beast, hardly the calm sage we've known.
Also the writing is still noticeably for children, with the Battle Droids being even more comedic than they are in the Movies, the complaint of one as he gets destroyed "I only just got promoted", is a funny line for kids, but makes no sense in a droid built as a commander (Commander droids are a different model than standard Battle Droids), I wish they'd tone it down and make the Droids actually a menacing enemy.

So what do you really think ? : This was definitely better than the pilot movie, where I felt that dragged, this is lighter, more action packed and more enjoyable for it, the series seems to be going in a good direction but we'll see how things continue.

Final Words : The shorter episode length meant I didn't need to keep notes, and apart from the "only just got Promoted" line about I never noticed anything too much. I felt that Yoda was a little preachy to the Clone Troopers about brains being more important than weapons, and it reminded me of a line I heard recently about "its bad enough bringing a knife to a gun fight, but bringing a gun to a drone fight is worse". But then again, Ewoks with rocks beat Stormtroopers with Walkers, so I guess in Star Wars, brains and planning may really be more important.
His preachy nature about the Force to the Clone Troopers as well, felt a little odd given the numbers of Clones the Jedi happily sacrifice with barely a second thought. But he's basically a School Teacher, and he's giving old lessons.
Looking forwards to the next episode.

Score : 8/10

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