Volume 2 of the stylish animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars picks up where volume 1 left off, with General Grievous threatening a group of Jedi. The war between the Republic and the Separatists continues to rage, and due to desperate need, Anakin Skywalker is bestowed the title of Jedi Knight, though he must undergo one final rite of passage by traveling to the frozen planet of Nelvan. The action is at its fiercest when the Separatists launch an overwhelming assault on Coruscant, and Masters Windu and Yoda get to show their stuff to defend the city. However, it's just a diversion from the main goal: Grievious's attempt to kidnap Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. In the series' most dramatic moment, Shaak Ti and other Jedi try to fend off the droid's attack. Clone Wars Volume 2 aired on the Cartoon Network in March 2005, and it's a bit more substantial than volume 1, taking place in five 12-minute chapters (nos. 21-25) rather than 3-minute chapters. And while volume 1 was mostly flat-out action, the developments in volume 2 lead directly to the opening of Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. And you even get small tidbits such as C-3PO (again voiced by Anthony Daniels) unveiling his new gold look, Padme sporting a cinnamon-bun hairdo, and the reason why General Grievous has difficulty breathing. Let casual fans content themselves with the feature films; Clone Wars remains essential viewing for the Star Wars aficionado. (Rated Y7 for cartoon action and violence) --David Horiuchi

A great achievement... but not as good as Vol. 1

Considering that the volume 2 was not originally conceived and it was after the first 20 short episodes were a huge success, Genndy Tartakovsky had a major challenge in following up with what he had already made with volume one.

A major change this volume presents is that we now have five episodes only but twelve minute length (which actually makes the same 60 minutes volume one had). The new series focus on the previous events to the very beginning of Episode III (Lucas asked them to do the actual crawl of the episode III), which means that if you watched the film and wondered how did Grievous kidnap Palpatine, that you can find here. Being this the case, you can imagine how limited Genndy's team was this time, they had to work now based on what Lucas wanted them to show different from volume one in which they were able to explore other aspects of the star wars universe during the clone wars period.

After the end of volume one in which we got to see a sneak peek of what Grievous would be, the character became very popular, these new episodes have him as the major villain (you will sadly see that the Grievous from Episode II is nothing but a mere shadow of a pretty cool character shown in these series). Many important events take place here: we see Grievous kill some Jedi masters, Anakin becomes a Jedi Knight, you get to see more of the brother like relation between Anakin and Obi-Wan, (my personal favorite) the trial of Anakin in a remote planet where (as Luke does later) he has a vision of what he is to become later, and of course the invasion of Coruscant by the separatist forces led by General Grievous.

Extras

A documentary called "Connecting the dots" is included which basically explains a little how the main story points for this volume came out. New video game trailers and demos are included as well as the final trailer for episode III. A short film called "Revenge of the brick" was added as well, presenting an alternate story with Lego ships and characters. The series are presented dubbed in both English and Spanish and subtitled in English. Close caption where available.

The clone wars draw to an end.

On May 19th 2005, the Star Wars saga was deemed "complete" with George Lucas saying there will be no more movies. However, that does not exclude an animated television series. Return to the adventure of the Clone Wars in Vol. 2 of this emmy award winning series. Vol. 2 In my opinion is better than the first and that is saying a lot. There are only 5 episodes on this volume as opposed to the 20 on the first volume, but, these episodes are longer and more story driven. All together this volume runs an hour just like the first one. The bonus features on this dvd are also better than on the original season. The Lego short film "Revenge of the Brick" and several trailers have been included as well as a making of and now two playable xbox levels from Star Wars Battlefront 2. This volume of the Clone Wars reveals a few interesting things about key characters from the films such as C3P-0 and Grevious. We also see Anakin facing the Jedi trials. And finally, this season leads directly into Revenge of the Sith. Now the saga is complete. Buy this dvd if you enjoy Star Wars. This is as good as it gets next to the big screen flicks. Thanks for reading.

Better than Vol. 1 - more story and more relevance to the films

Gennady Tartovsky, the director of the Clone Wars animated series, tells of the genesis of this second series - "George Lucas came to us and asked us if we'd like to depict the events that are discussed in the opening crawl." Thus, these cartoons are closely tied in with the events of the Episode III feature film. Anakin and Obiwan's relationship becomes one of partners, rather than master/student. We see Yoda convincing the council of Anakin's worthiness to be promoted to Jedi (and we even see his change of hairdo!). Most importantly, though, we see the arrangement and execution of the raid on Coruscant, where Palpatine is kidnapped by General Greivous. The cartoon ends right where Episode III starts - with Anakin and Obiwan mounting a rescue operation to save the Chancellor.

Overall, the second series is superior to the first. The episodes are longer (12 minutes or so), so there are fewer of them (total running time is about the same). But you get the feeling this second series was conceived and executed as a whole, rather than just as a collection of vignettes. The knock against the first series is that there is too much action because each 2.5-minute episode had to have some action in it. With the longer time, there is more storytelling. Especially effective is Anakin's Jedi trial, where he has a vision of pain and suffering, but fights through it to rescue a group of abducted primitives.

Fans of Star Wars will not be disappointed. Because of its "semi-canonical" status (Lucas approved it, and even gave the cartoonists access to scripts and production notes to the then uncompleted Episode III), no Star Wars collection would be complete without this series.