Just watched the kick off to the new season. Nothing really new in the plot line as of yet, but as usual they follow the old adage - introduce a clone, kill the clone. The two main clones they seem to focus in on are echo, 99 and Heavy. Who are the two they kill? you guessed it. I like that they are willing to do this as it makes for great storytelling, but its almost turning into the Star Trek redshirt curse. Red shirt=death clone focused story=death. I do like the clone focus stories though. The whole 99 story line was fantastic even though (or maybe especially because) it was buried as a small back story.

I really think Asajj knows whats coming. She had a very nice shot right after the mission failed of her thinking "****, i lost again." I think she is beginning to sense she has failed one too many times. I really liked that they finally put her back in her dress instead of those stupid leggings. Her dress as well as Shaak Ti's had very nice flow when they moved. It was nice to see.

I was surprised it was such a jedi light set of shows. About the only one who plays any real part is Shaak, which was nice to finally see her. Besides her dress, i really liked her disposition and voice.

While i was happy with the story, did anyone notice the animation? They kept talking about how they raised the bar for this season and i think it really showed. If you did not notice, you need to go back and rewatch it. They made the space fight VERY RotJ-esque. The characters continue to have smoother movements, and the lightsaber fights are getting less jerky and more than the usual three moves-stop, three moves-stop, three moves-stop repetition. Visually i think they have really dialed it up. I could be wrong, but there seemed to be more expressions in the faces as well. I noticed this especially with Asajj.

the quality of this show keeps going up , and with where they have hinted at this storyline going, this is going to be one rocking season.

i realy enjoyed the 99 subplot to the two episodes. 99 showed that no matter what your handicap is you can still help defend your home, family and your beliefs. I'm enjoying the clone heavy episodes. It's nice to see the war from the grunt in the trenches viewpoint and the not the high and mightly jedi veiwpoint everytime. I kinda find hard to invest emotions into any new jedi cause we all know what is going to happened to them....... Order 66

Yeah, I definately noticed the upgraded visuals. Especially the space battel. Very, very cool. I liked how they sort of made a trilogy out of "Rookies". The premiere was great, but to get the most out of it, you have to toss Rookiees in the middle. 99 I can see how you think he is a bit of a red shirt, but the focus on Heavy comes after we know what happens to him, so I don't think a retroactive look at a dead character(s) is bad.

Still, lots of cool new stuff. Needs another episode to chronicle Fives and Echoe as ARCs.

I think they were great episodes. Okay so other than 99 which clone died? And if I recall, everybody but Echo and 5's died back in Rookies, so none of them being there was a surprise.

One of the ways you can tell how the animation has improved is in the robes. Part of the reason that Assaj was in pants was because the dress was too hard to render. The same for SHaak Ti and even Grievous in his Cloak.

I thought these episodes were great, and again going to non-main characters really helps the story, heck even Rex and Cody were only minimally involved in the episodes.

Yeah, the robes and skirts were the main things that popped out at me. Everything seems more fluid now.

Still, major Red Shirt is next week. Master Ima Gun Di.

I am not sure I watched the same show you guys did. I thought the first 30 minutes were a lame, very boring, very predictable story. The last 30 minutes were good and moved the entire series along. Overall it didn't impress me as much as episode 1 of season 2. This might be becasue I had extremely high expectaions for it.

I loved the first 2 episodes. I really liked the dialogue between the clones. 99 was a great character and I was really sad when he got killed.

The guys making the series have really stepped up the graphics for the show, and it could be seen definitely in the water graphics and in the space battle. Also, I'm very glad to see the return of Assaj's dress outfit.

While I agree the first story was predictable I found it well done. Heck the second episode was equally predictable the only question was who was not gonna survive. We all knew Assaj wasn't escaping with the DNA, we all knew the droid army would be repailed. So...it was still fun. Heck it was terribly brutal even. More so than point rain in some aspects.

I'll be turning 50 soon, and so I identified with 99, because I often feel the way he looked. Sure hope the fact that he died isn't ominous forshadowing for me.