Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Yes, the opening intro without JW's music or the crawl was a HUGE mistake. (The voice over did make me cringe..ugh!) Yes, the human characters looked freakin bizarre (Kenobi's beard looked like a wood carving) and they should have gone with a more realistic look instead of the pointless style they used.

And yes, the story was pretty childish for a feature film aimed at adults...But that's the thing. This is an opener for a TV cartoon. It was not intended to blend right into the live action franchise. My kids liked it just fine, and I was not offended at all by it. In fact the action scenes were quite impressive. We finally get to see enough clone/droid mayhem to make people complain that it's too much (meaning almost enough clone/droid mayhem for me:) You guys are like a bunch of spoiled kids. Luke, Han, & Co. are NEVER coming back! Some day someone will probably do a series of re-makes or spin-offs that will have a more serious tone, and I agree that the franchise really needs that. But it won't happen while George is at the wheel. So if your going to get suicidal every time George cranks out one of his Disney-phase projects...Just stay away from it. It's not worth the stress.

I saw this movie yesterday at an early preview, and we took our two boys along with us. We found it to be a fun movie, full of action and more than able to keep our kids' attention. The movie itself jumps right into the Star Wars world without any sort of background information, so those who aren't familiar with Star Wars may be a bit lost at first (the movie takes place somewhere in between Episodes II and III). However, the action is immediate and the story moves along well. There were moments of humor with the battle droids, whose vocabulary has been greatly expanded. With a few exceptions, most of the major characters are obviously voiced by different people than in the original movies (though the actor voicing Obiwan was good--we thought it actually was Ewan McGregor), but overall the movie was enjoyable, especially for the younger set.

This film is gonna have two sets of detractors. One set will be of people dying to see George Lucas crash and burn because they didn't like the prequels. The other will be people who, regardless of their feelings about the previous movies will enter with an ill conceived expectation for a great story. The rest of you, like me will have a blast watching this thing.

This movie is basically an extended pilot for a soon to premiere animated series and it plays as such. We are introduced to our characters, some new and some old and watch them set out on missions that take them through hair raising battle after hair raising battle. There is no conclusion, yet no cliff hanger, just a solitary mission, another day in the lives of Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi. In other words, no attempt at any great earth shattering plot, just a lot of good solid action and fun. Whether or not the TV series will develop more complicated story arcs and sub plots is only known by its creators right now, but its the simplicity that works here. I went into this movie expecting nothing but big action, cool characters and a slick look, and that's exactly what I got. The heart of the Star Wars franchise has always been its fun, and this is a cartoon...they're taking advantage of the opportunity to take the explosive larger than life elements of the films and skew them to an altered animated reality...which is what makes cartoons worth watching.

I loved the design of the whole thing too. It is very graphic and unique and I can understand that it may not be everyone's cup of tea but for me it's a great look. In a time when movie theaters are saturated with CG animated fair, many of which are so concerned with out doing one another with their increasingly real skin textures and bump mapping, it's refreshing to see a film that wants to be different. If you want something to look real, you might as well get a camera. For those of you who thought this graphic simplistic look was some kinda time/money saver, give yourself a shake, they wanted it to look this way. And if you're an animator like myself...take note.

Bottom line, you're not gonna walk out of this movie a different person, and its not gonna win any awards...but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Fan buzz has been very negative for this movie. Myself, I have tried to remain positive. But even I, as a very lenient movie watcher has to admit that this really wasn't great. It's not on par with any of the other six movies of the franchise. It wasn't all bad though, and I will tell you what was good and bad about it now.

The animation was a real mixed bag. It had great backgrounds that looked almost like they were taken right out of the movies, then you have these very poorly designed characters. As much as I liked most of the designs on everything but the characters themselves, I couldn't help looking at the animation like a beautiful painting with poo smeared in some spots. You can look at the painting, but it's hard to enjoy it when you can't take your eyes off the poo. It takes away from the potentially awesome animation. They look plastic and stiff, and the facial expressions and lip syncing look like something from a Playstation game from 1999. The voice acting was pretty bad as well, although Christopher Lee did and alright job, and Matt Lanter had a lot more emotion in his voice acting than Hayden had in the entire role.

The dialogue was about as bad as can be. The exchanges between Anakin and his apprentice were all cliché and boring. Not to mention almost all the droids were like copies of Jar Jar Binks. A main problem was that I thought this would focus more on action than it did. That's why I felt all that lame childish stuff wouldn't matter. But it was mostly discussing the problems and treaties and stuff, which was the last thing this movie needed. There was a fair bit of action, but even when they were having awesome lightsaber duals, they felt the need to stop every 4 seconds and talk about stuff that I didn't need to hear, such as why they were having the battle. I wanted to see lightsaber duals on a level that they couldn't manage in a live action movie, and they did not deliver in this way. A lot of the other action was pretty good though, some being very fast moving and intense.

The storyline really didn't consist of much.... just people trying to get Jabba the Hutt on their side, basically. This is not a movie that I think many old Star Wars fans will enjoy, but it may be a movie that helps introduce new people to the franchise, which is always a good thing. This is definitely a movie for the younger audiences, not older people and film critics. It basically just felt like a long TV Show episode, which is basically all it was. It was good for a TV episode, but not for a movie. If the action is as good in the series as it was in the movie (and hopefully there will be more), then I will be looking forward to it. But if they release another movie that looks to be at this level, I will have to wait until DVD.

I had a feeling this would be a major letdown (as a Star Wars fan the trailer did not impress me), but it wasn't. It is no great movie by all means, but It does not try to be. It could however be the beginning of something very good indeed.

Good things first.

The movie looked good and had some good CGI effects. It had a nice pace, lots of action-scenes and some are actually OK, without ever being incredible though. The movie had nice voice work also, even though Yoda is not voiced by Frank OZ (but you need the ear of a true Star Wars nerd to notice that). The chemistry between Anakin and Asoka was nice and worked well (it will be interesting to watch that evolve).

Not so good things. Well first of all the story is not too exiting (youre never really at the edge of you seat), but then again this is hopefully just the beginning to something far greater. The movie lacks that one extremely cool action scene or character (you never really get surprised or shocked). The droid humor is really not needed, because it's just not funny. It feels too forced from the lack of other comical characters (Star Wars will do just fine without the tacky humor George). Then there is the facial animation. Sometimes it's OK, but at other times you wish the faces would be a little more lively (they are at times too stiff, especially around the mouthes). I still liked the overall design of the movie and characters though.

Overall the movie wasn't a bad a start, and I will definitely watch the coming episodes with great interest.