Day of Days, or It's Hard Out There For a Clone Trooper...
And believe me, it's hard out there for a STAR WARS fan too. By now, I don't need to recount the many ways George Lucas has trashed his own series both behind and in front of the camera; we fans already have our grievances all but nailed to the door of Skywalker Ranch, and to recount the specific offenses here would be both redundant and depressing. As a prequel apologist, I believe there are indeed elements of the new trilogy worth defending and even equal to (and in very rare instances, exceeding) the quality of the OT.
One of those such moments was in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, and it was, in fact, the attack of the Clones on Geonosis near the end of the film -- it was as if all of a sudden STAR WARS mainlined BLACK HAWK DOWN, and that gargantuan, intensely visceral, visually kinetic sequence (replete with hand held combat shots, a first for the series) was like nothing we'd seen before, demonstrating a scope and scale never before achieved in the entire series, as well giving us a taste of the Clone Wars sure to follow. When REVENGE OF THE SITH jumped that entire time period, it fell to other storytellers besides George to tell those specific tales. Officially sanctioned and supervised by Lucasfilm, Cartoon Network's STAR WARS THE CLONE WARS stumbled along in its first year with some rather uneven episodes (with no help from a lackluster cinematic debut), but has started to hit its stride in the currently airing second season with better animation, tighter writing, and a more brutal (and honest) approach to its subject matter, which is of course, war.
"Landing At Point Rain", this past week's episode, was quite simply, their best episode to date, and mainly because it was a non-stop 22 minute orgy of death and destruction, an animated version of (I shit you not) "Day of Days", the D-Day episode of HBO's BAND OF BROTHERS, WE WERE SOLDIERS, and THE LONGEST DAY. The plot was fairly simple -- the Republic forces lead a three pronged assault on the Geonosian droid factories which meets heavy, heavy resistance (it probably didn't help that their entire battle plan was relayed in front of Chancellor Palpatine). Kenobi, Ki-Ai-Mundi (you know, the master with the big long head), and Skywalker (and his padawan Ashoka) all lead individual squads down to the planet, and that's where the fun (and carnage) begins. Season Two of CLONE WARS has been revisiting planets from the prequels to great effect, and in revisiting the action climax of the second film, actually manages to top that sequence in terms of action and carnage, and for the first time in this show, managed to communicate the horrific cost of a full scale battle like this (I even got the sense that the Republic forces might not survive this engagement).
George's fetish for WWII combat movies serves him well, as in a series of striking hand-held, well-chosen pov shots and a stunning homage to THE LONGEST DAY's famous extended crane shot make an incredible visual episode.
The landing parties are beset with flak barrages, blowing troopers out of their carriers into mile high freefalls. Each landing party crashes (two of them far away from the designated landing zone), and suffers terrible losses. Obi Wan's division lands where it's supposed to be (injuring the General nearly to the point of inaction), but comes under withering cross fire, forcing them to circle the wagons against both aerial and ground assaults.
Ki Mundi's team gets beset upon by the flying bug creatues from the arena, and fights them off with flamethrowers. Let me repeat myself: Living creatures are set on fire, flap around in agony while aflame, and then are shot dead by the Clones as they writhe on the ground. In a cartoon. For kids. Well, you don't see that everyday.
My only two complaints about this episode was that I wish it had a better score (can't top John Williams after all), and I would have preferred the Republic forces to have pulled back completely and try a different approach (the Republic usually wins most of the show's major offensives). It seems as if this is another two parter, seeing as how next week's show deals with the assault on the Battle Droid factory itself.
There are those who perfer the Tartakovsky Clone Wars shorts (the 2D two and five minute shorts that were released between CLONES and SITH), and perhaps because they were concentrated, fierce action haikus set in the STAR WARS universe. "Landing at Point Rain" topped them all, and even the battle it was inspired by, and that's no small feat. Well done, guys, and I can't wait to see this in full 2.35 on the eventual Blu Ray.
Episode Grade: A-
Note: I recently saw Disc 1 of CLONE WARS SEASON 1 on Blu and the animation looked much better in full 1080p, as well as its native 2.35-1, the format its actually made in (the Cartoon Network versions are cropped down to 1.78-1)