Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 2, Rise Of The Bounty Hunters: Season Premiere Episodes Review

Title: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 2, Rise Of The Bounty Hunters

Starring The Voices Of: Dee Bradley Baker, Catherine Taber, Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, Tom Kane, and James Arnold Taylor

Special Guest Voice: Seth Green

Based on Star Wars Created By George Lucas

Supervising Director: David Filoni

Producer: Carry Silver

Executive Producer: George Lucas

Running Time: 30 minutes per episode with commercials

Media: TNT Original Television Motion Picture (NTSC DVD Screener)

Season Premiere Friday, October 2, 2009, at 8pm (ET/PT)

Network: Cartoon Network (Check your local cable/satellite listings for channel)

TV Rating: Not Available At Time Of Review

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi calls for reinforcements while battling droids in the second season of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS premiering on Friday, October 2^nd at 8pm e/t on Cartoon Network.
TM & ©2009 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

It has been a year since Lucasfilm Animation and Cartoon Network brought George Lucas’ archetypal saga of good vs. evil from along time ago in a galaxy far, far away to a new generation of viewers with the groundbreaking animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which was first introduced in an animated feature film of the same name that opened theatrically in August of 2008. Now we return for a second season of The Clone Wars entitled Rise Of The Bounty Hunters. Please note that while the second season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been given the subtitle Rise Of The Bounty Hunters, the series broadcast listings and title is Star Wars: The Clone Wars so there is no need to search for a different season title on your DVR and TV listings. The subtitle for a season is not uncommon for genre programs and has been used to bring a kind of novel for television effect to some shows that include such 1990s genre TV hits like Babylon 5, Gene Roddenberry’s Earth Final Conflict, and the DVD release of The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones, which had originally been broadcast as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Jedi Master Ord Enisence doesn’t seem to be quite himself in the second season of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS premiering on Friday, October 2^nd at 8pm e/t on Cartoon Network. TM & ©2009 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

George Lucas has said in an interview “The first season was similar to Episode IV, in that it was fairly light and the conflict was straightforward. With the second season, we’re going deeper into the stories and the character dynamics. The progression is a lot like the difference between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back,” and last year’s season finale, which included the first appearance of Bounty Hunter Cad Bane, a member of the Duro species originally seen in the cantina sequence of A New Hope and the space faring race from which the Neimoidian species that run the Trade Federation in the prequel feature films are an offshoot. This is similar in a general sense to how in Star Trek, the Romulans originally descend from the planet Vulcan, but over the centuries the two nations have developed a few distinct evolutionary biological and behavioral traits. In addition the dreaded Bounty Hunter Aurra Sing, who has a brief appearance in The Phantom Menace appeared in the season finale, which saw the Black Sun organization kingpin Ziro The Hutt sprung out of prison while the galactic senate were held hostage and the Jedi were stymied from a hostage crisis. Well in addition to the return of Cad Bane, Aurra Sing and everyone’s favorite Trandoshan Bounty Hunter first seen in The Empire Strikes Back, Bosk will all make appearances in the second season of The Clone Wars though the first two episodes that make up the Cartoon Network premiere only feature Cad Bane.

Merciless Bounty Hunter Cad Bane leads his droids to battle the Jedi in the second season of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS premiering on Friday, October 2^nd at 8pm e/t on Cartoon Network.
TM & ©2009 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Contrary to what I had been expecting. The second season premiere does not pick up where the first one left off though in the free section of I’Tunes for the week of September 29, 2009 anyway, you can download a scene from a live script reading that gives some perspective to what happened in the time between the first season finale and the second season premiere. The two episode second season premiere picks up some time after these events. Keeping a low profile somewhere on Coruscant, Cad Bane is contracted by Darth Sidious to break into the Jedi Temple and steal a holocron containing the secret names of future Jedi. The resourceful and cunning Bounty Hunter carefully puts his plan in place using schematics of the temple, a techno-service droid and an unscrupulous shapeshifter

Ahsoka and Jocasta inside the Jedi Archives in the second season of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS premiering on Friday, October 2^nd at 8pm e/t on Cartoon Network. TM & ©2009 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

The animation and elaborate settings continues to improve as can be seen in not just such vast locations as the Jedi Library, but even the seediness of Cad Bane’s hideout is contrasted with meticulous detail of a dark cramped space with only the grid lights from outside providing streaks of light to illuminate Bane when he is not in talks with Darth Sidious’ hologram. The relationships between the characters are becoming deeper and we see a bit more of Ahsoka Tano’s reckless nature that is not unlike Anakin’s desire to impress her peers, which sometimes jeopardizes the mission at hand. Overall, I am expecting this season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars to be great indeed as it takes us to new places both within the Star Wars galaxy and the within heroes and villains psyche alike.

Padawan Ahsoka Tano fights for the safety of the republic with the help of Clone Troopers and R2D2 in the second season of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS premiering on Friday, October 2^nd at 8pm e/t on Cartoon Network.
TM & ©2009 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 2, Rise Of The Bounty Hunters will premiere on Cartoon Network on Friday, October 2, 2009, at 8pm (ET/PT). May The Force Be With You!

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