'Star Wars' Saga Continues with 'The Clone Wars: The Complete Season Three'

The power of the Force behind "Star Wars" never seems to let up. The theatrical movies might be a thing of the past, but George Lucas's saga continues to march forward through a TV series, books, video games, and role-playing games. There literally looks to be no end in sight to the franchise's popularity.

Lucasfilm's "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" has just entered its fourth season and is already in production for a fifth. Supervising director Dave Filoni has said creator George Lucas will keep making the Cartoon Network series until people stop watching. It doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon.

What most fans would call the best season of "The Clone Wars" has just been released on Blu-ray and DVD. "Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Complete Season Three" features all 22 episodes of the hit show on three discs. It's also packed with all sorts of extra features for enthusiasts to dig into.

For those unfamiliar, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" fills in the three years between "Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones" and "Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith." It follows Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, C-3PO, R2-D2, and the whole army of clone troopers as they lead missions to different planets in their battles to defend the universe from the evil Count Dooku and his Separatist Army led by General Grievous.

Season three of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is where the series really started to pick up momentum. There are great story arcs that return to the tone of the original trilogy of films. The episodes that focus on the introduction of Savage Opress and the fall of Asajj Ventress take us back to the dark flavor of "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Revenge of the Sith."

The episodes dealing with the Force Planet will help longtime fans forget they ever heard the term "Midi-chlorians" as it showcases the Force to be the great power we remember Obi-Wan talking about in "A New Hope." We also get to see some familiar faces from the movies, like Chewbacca and a young Tarkin before he becomes Grand Moff.

As stated earlier, "The Complete Season Three" comes with quite a few impressive extra features. You get featurettes like "Creating Kamino," "Hutts and the Underworld," "Witches and Monsters," Chewbacca Returns," and "Secrets of Mortis." They also include the "Jedi Temple Archives," an extensive database of early test animations, concept art, and 3D turnarounds.

The only thing missing is a commentary track by supervising director Dave Filoni for any of the episodes. Anyone who has ever seen or heard Filoni talk about "Star Wars" knows how much fun it is to experience. He definitely has enough to say about the universe to easily provide commentary for every one of the 22 episodes in the season.

There's been a lot of controversy among fans over "The Clone Wars." Some people can't get past the animation style or the fact that it's a "cartoon." Others won't give it the time of day because it's not a part of the "original trilogy." Personally, I love "Star Wars," and I'll take more of it any way I can get it. Anyone who has watched the show from the beginning can tell you that it has gotten surprisingly better in both writing and animation with every episode.

For more articles by Eric Shirey, check out:

Actor Clancy Brown Talks About Voicing Savage Opress for 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars'

'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Sound Designer/Voice Actor Talks About 'Nomad Droids'

Supervising Director Dave Filoni Tells Us What to Expect from Season 4 of 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars'

Eric Shirey is the founder and editor of Rondo Award nominated movie news websites MovieGeekFeed.com and TheSpectralRealm.com. His work has been featured on Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! TV, Associated Content from Yahoo!, DC Comics, StarWars.com, KISSOnline.com, and other national entertainment websites. Eric has interviewed and worked with actors like Harrison Ford, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Gerard Butler, Brooke Shields, Brendan Fraser, Michelle Monaghan, Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Gene Simmons, Ashley Tisdale, Selena Gomez and many more.