The first thing I’d like to say about this episode is that if Cartoon Network pulls this “special presentation” crap on a school night again, I’m going to be extremely annoyed. I live in a timezone that puts Clone Wars on after bedtime, and it’s a hard thing to explain to your kid that they have to get up at 7:00 the next morning for school and they can’t stay up late to watch the new Clone Wars. That wasn’t cool. Sure, I’m grateful to get it two days early, but seriously… Come on. Never again, please.

As for the episode, “Landing at Point Rain” is, perhaps, the first all out, action packed war episode. The episode was an intense half hour battle that was so well animated I was shocked. Basically, Poggle the Lesser has rebuilt the droid foundries on Geonosis and the Jedi need to get that taken care of in order to cut off a major supplier of battle droids to the Separatists. In order to do so, they send Anakin, Obi-wan and Ki-Adi Mundi to settle the conflict.

There’s not much story here to the episode, it’s all action and character work, which I enjoyed. I particularly liked Anakin and Ahsoka’s Gimli/Legolas style interaction, with the two of them comparing body-counts and turning it into a friendly competition in the course of the battle.

As far as the actual battles, there were a lot of moves in here pulled straight out of World War II movies and Attack of the Clones and I couldn”t ask for more than that. From the landscape of Geonosis that we came to know and love in Episode II, to the giant barriers meant to keep the tanks out like in the battle of Normandy, this episode felt like a very well-thought out military campaign.

The camera work is also advancing on this show quite a bit alongside the animation. There were conversations held into long hand-held shots between Anakin and Ahsoka that were very good looking that I liked quite a bit. My favorite bit of camera work this episode, though, was the shot of Anakin and Ahsoka leading the clones through the shield from a distance at a full sprint. It last for at least 15 or 20 seconds and was so dense and full of action and little things, I want to go back and watch it over and over again to see what I missed and how each clone who loses his life buys it.

At the end of the day, this was another solid episode and I have no complaints about it whatsoever.

Next week has me doubly excited though, we get to see Barris Offee and Ahsoka together in action…!

To catch up on Season 1, you can order The Clone Wars: The Complete Season One at Amazon by clicking the link.

For other Clone Wars news and reviews of previous episodes, click this link.