Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Vol. 1

"The Clone Wars that began in the climax of 2002's Star Wars: Episode II rage on in 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm's DVD release of the Emmy Award-winning animated Clone Wars miniseries. Aired originally on Cartoon Network, these 21 shorts not only connect the stories of the second and third episodes in the Star Wars film saga, but do it with extraordinary style and a contagious spirit of excitement. What originally aired as three-minute individual shorts has now been cut together as one giant 69-minute animated short film complete with the standard Star Wars-style ""wipe"" scene transitions to connect the episodes. Created by animators Genndy Tartakovsky and Paul Rudish, Clone Wars shines on DVD with a razor-sharp 1.78:1 widescreen transfer. This outstanding picture quality compliments the marvelous artwork with crisp, sharp colors and rich, deep blacks. Fans of the always-impressive Star Wars soundtracks will be happy to find that the disc houses a massive THX-mastered Dolby Surround 2.0 soundtrack that could easily make viewers' furniture rattle. In addition to the English-language tracks, the disc also offers language options in both Spanish and French. Two different audio commentaries are also included, with Tartakovsky guiding viewers through the entire series on both. While the first commentary basically tells the audience who's who and may have been designed for the more casual fan, the second finds Tartakovsky going more in depth on his original ideas, the input from Lucasfilm, and his thoughts on the overall series. While the disc's bonus features are informative and satisfying, they are short and mostly seem to serve as a commercial for the final Star Wars film, Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith. A seven-minute documentary titled ""Bridging the Saga: From Clone Wars to Revenge of the Sith"" finds Tartakovsky and Rudish showing off work from 2005's third season of Clone Wars (this release includes the first two) and discussing how excited they are to be working on George Lucas' space opera. A very brief, yet exciting look at Episode III's opening space battle and a few words from Lucas conclude this short featurette. Also included is a four-minute behind-the-scenes documentary that pretty much offers the same information as ""Bridging the Saga."" Several art galleries, *Star Wars video game trailers, and the teaser trailer for Revenge of the Sith round out the disc. Despite any shortcomings with the bonus features, Star Wars: Clone Wars is a must-have DVD for any fan of the Star Wars saga or of super high-quality animation."