Clone home

Probably one of the more amusing parts of a ten-part serial told in three-minute increments is the "previews" of the next part, which tend to be about two seconds long.

I'm talking about Star Wars: Clone Wars, currently airing on the Cartoon Network and messing with VCR programming everywhere else. As it stands, I don't have any other shows that I tape at 7pm Central time for the stretch that the "micro-series" is running, but it seems prudent to get them all on one tape for more coherent viewing later, so there has been some juggling involved.

So far, I don't exactly know what to make of it. We're already halfway through the 30-minute program, and while it's been cool to see the allegedly noble origins of the Imperial fleet, there's not really a compelling narrative thread yet. And they're running out of time.

Then again, it's been somewhat reminiscent of the original Liquid Television shorts of Aeon Flux, which didn't make any sense whatsoever, but it didn't matter. If you look at it more as "animation as impressionist art," there's maybe some more richness to the presentation, but it's still tough to wrap your head around. At the end of the day, it will still probably be better than the last two (three?) movies in the franchise.