{     Star Wars: Clone Wars     }    

I neglected to add a paragraph regarding the Jedi battles, also quite unlike those seen in the movies. Heavily influenced by Asian fighting styles, Jedis in Clone Wars fight like a cross between a samurai and a kung fu master. With bored expressions on their faces they deflect countless laser blasts while cooly using their force powers to destroy their largely robotic foes. Jedi Knights in this series use their mystic abilities to decimate their foes in creative ways. In more than one instance Obi-Wan throws his lightsaber, embedding it in the torso of some malcontent, and retrieving it with his mind just in time to decapitate the battle droid that just appeared behind him.

It's been weird watching George Lucas struggle to bring his imagination to the screen with Episodes I & II, often falling prey to visual glamour over solid storytelling. It's like he's so consumed with showing you something you've never seen before that he doesn't give a fuck how it's contextualized (bad acting, poor scripts, even worse dialogue).
Clone Wars Animated boils the formula down to it's basics- unique setting, interesting characters and dramatic conflict- relying on the incredible visual style of Genndy Tartakovsky to carry it all. The best thing about it is that there's no uncomfortable CGI insertion, no crappy prosthetic makeup to make an extra look "alien", no hammy green-screen acting and absolutely no limit to what can be shown on screen.
Take a character like Kit Fisto, who is as dorky as his name would imply in Lucas' Episode II. Floppy prosthetic tentacles and a big Hollywood grin make him look like a douchebag despite the fact that he's supposed to be an ass-kicking Jedi. Check him out in Clone Wars Animated and he's a feral amphipbian fighting machine, a fierce monster with a heart of gold who is unquestionably an alien and definitely not some fucking guy in a mask and a robe playing with a lightsaber in front of a giant green tarp.
I think Star Wars has found it's home in animation, and I hope that a liscencing agreement can be forged that lets us view our beloved universe this way well after it's creator is done fucking it up.
This series is important in another way too- it gives us a chance to see that animation doesn't have to always be kid's stuff. We have a real problem understanding that in America, and subsequently the majority of our animation suffers from themes that do little to elevate it beyond kindergarten level.

Yo man, you may be down with this nu-school shit but Droids and Ewoks will always be the dopest animation of the Star Wars universe!
And that scene with Boba Fett from the Christmas special back in '79- that shit was the bomb!
All this Powderpuff Girls shit gives me a headache! Where my ewoks at? All my furry little homies say "Jub, Jub!"

After reading this I downloaded all the episodes and watched them back to back - wow! These really are great stuff. #3 is like counterstrike meets star wars. I have to agree with Adam in that this genre fixes all the problems the big budget movies have. Many of these episodes are much cooler than some of the coolest scenes from the movies. For me this redeems a franchise that seemed to had lost its way for a few years.
I also found the episodes with commentary - I only watched a couple so far but they seem interesting...
BTW - The link on Cartoon network seems to have been taken down - no doubt they are launching the dvd. A search on google for "clone wars" brought up a page linking to all the episodes. May the force be with you.

CN sure yanked that site in a hurry. It was so elaborate too. They had character, vehicle, and planet descriptions, some really boring commentary by the creator (that will surely appear on the DVD), and at least one flash game I never bothered to play. I'd fix it if I could remember my username and password to log in.