Foxkei

Star Wars: The Clone Wars does more wrong than it does right. Unlike the original Clone Wars animated series, which had a broad appeal, this iteration is pining to a younger crowd. Within the first thirty seconds of the movie this point was shoved directly in my face - the opening sequence.

Think back to all of the Star Wars movies, both prequels and sequels. How do they open? Well, you get the name of the Episode, and then you get a couple of short paragraphs of scrolling text that catch you up on some recent events, setting the stage for the movie, accompanied by the same sweeping theme - epic tone of Star Wars is set here. Related Star Wars media, like many of the games, which weren’t directly backed by Lucas like this movie is, use this method as well. The Jedi Knight series, the Knights of the Old Republic games, and even the Lego Star Wars games, carry the same opening format.

Here comes The Clone Wars, something Lucasfilm is pushing as a big event for both young and old Star Wars fans, backed by Lucas himself. How does it open?

You get the title of the movie. It scrolls into the background like normal. Then, out of nowhere, a childish, completely mood-killing narrator starts spouting what would be the opening scroll in an overly enthusiastic manner.

My friend Dustin, whom I was sitting with, looked at me at this very moment, as I had just turned to him. Our expressions were strikingly similar.

"What. The. Hell."

At that point, I seriously felt as if I should just get up and leave. Overreacting? Maybe. But for an avid Star Wars fan like myself to have an officially recognized Star Wars feature film open like that.. Were they trying to make sure older fans, who have been with the series for their entire lives, hate this film from the start? Were they scared that the stupid five year olds they want to love this crap could not read?

Already disheartened, the movie started. Thankfully, we were almost immediately placed in the middle of a large-scale battle on Christophsis between the forces of the Republic and the Separatists, where Obi-Wan and Anakin were fighting alongside the clones, severely outnumbered and running out of supplies. This is when you come in contact with one of the few decent things about the movie: the action.

The opening action sequence, along with the others, are truly entertaining - sadly, the rest of the movie isn’t quite.

 

The action in the movie is great, and quite possibly its only true saving grace. All of the action sequences, large and small, are well directed, but you’ll notice a few rough cuts every now and then - which you would think would be caught during editing. Nothing too bad, but if you have a sharp eye, you’ll notice some oddities. Still, overall, the action’s great, and the only thing I can really complain about is the duel between Ventress and Obi-Wan, which was a bit too jerky for my tastes.

I’m not a big fan of the Anakin and Ashoka dyanmic - perhaps if Ashoka’s personality wasn’t so similar to Anakin’s, she would have appealed to me more.

 

Soon into the movie, the 14 year old padawan Ashoka is introduced. Assigned to Anakin against his will, she fights beside him the entire film. At first, she is annoying, but she manages to get better a little while in. I couldn’t escape the feeling that she was a bit unneeded, however - her involvement, which was basically to help develop Anakin and teach him some responsibility, doesn’t really feel necessary. Perhaps Filoni felt The Clone Wars needed a young, ‘powerful’ character to appeal to the younger crowd.. Who knows?

I will say my grandmother and sister liked the dynamic between them a lot more than I did. Perhaps I’m being too judgmental? They do have a few decent scenes together (during action), but nothing that couldn’t be done much better with a more established character.

Yeah.. I think I would’ve enjoyed the movie a lot more if it would have focused completely on the two guys on the right.

 

I might attribute my lack of interest in Ashoka due to the fact that a few select clones in this movie are completely awesome. Commander Rex is a fucking beast and turned out to be my favorite character in the movie (alongside Obi-Wan) simply because he fucks shit up. When you reach the last half or so of the movie you will probably start missing his character - the focus by then is almost completely on Anakin and Ashoka, along with some side-scenes with a new Hutt character (more on that later) and Padme (HATE).

Okay, screw later. More on that new Hutt now. "Zero," this new Hutt character, spoke in full English with a butchered Lousianian accent. I had to grit my teeth at that. Not only is the character pretty much completely useless outside of shoehorning some Padme screentime in the movie, he’s also offensive in a "Why the fuck would they even put this shit in here?" kind of way. It feels so out of place.

Oh, did I mention he accessorizes and speaks like a female? What the fuck was Filoni smoking? My buddy was laughing at how hard I was facepalming through every single scene that faggot was in, along with how fucking stupid that shit was.

How can anyone accept the Droid Army as a serious threat when they keep being used as comic relief? I’ve always hated that..

 

They try to introduce a good bit of humor in The Clone Wars, but it’s pretty childish. Almost all of the humor was centered on Droids doing something silly in the middle of a battle or screwing up. It isn’t particularly bad, but I did cringe a few times. The more fun moments, like Obi-Wan stalling at the start, were fine, but when they tried to outright be funny.. well, it fell flat.

Obi-Wan definitely benefits from one of the better character designs, while Anakin doesn’t fair quite as well.

 

The art style is basically hit or miss, I guess, but at least it is miles better than the animated Clone Wars series. The stills don’t look that great, but in motion, I think it works very well. Certain characters benefit from the design, as characters like Obi-Wan and Mace (in the movie for a total of 5 minutes) look great, but others are only so-so (Anakin), and some are straight-up awful (Dooku).

The CG work certainly isn’t up to par with say.. Pixar’s latest, but I believe the quality of the movie was meant to be not too far ahead of what the series is going to look like - if not the same. Some of the textures give the movie a hand-drawn feel, but I think Lucasfilm could up the budget a bit for some more detailed environments.

Alright, I’ve hit on a lot of stuff, but I have yet to get to one of the most important things to a movie: The plot.

How fucking lame can you get? The entire plot is basically "deliver this annoying little Hutt kid back to Jabba, but, oh no, Dooku is making it seem like Anakin and Ashoka kidnapped him!" GASP! INTRIGUE! Not. And it ends so abruptly, you have no clue where the fuck Rex is or anything.

Why they’re doing it makes sense (so Jabba will let the Republic travel through Hutt space because the Separatists are all over the standard hyperspace routes), but if you’re going to release something like this as an official Star Wars branded movie, to get everyone psyched up for an upcoming series, why the FUCK aren’t you going to do an epic story worthy of the name "STAR WARS"? What the hell is up with all the kiddy shit, Filoni? And you too, Lucas. You’re all over this shit!

You know what I’ve come to realize while writing this review? The entire movie was really nothing more than an extended episode. I will say, straight out, it shouldn’t have been released in theaters - it’s just not a movie. Calling it such hurts Star Wars even more than Attack of the Clones. I really, really hope the series fares better than this shit, and has some serious plot-lines, because otherwise, I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue watching it, even if it does have some decent action.

I seriously have no clue why Lucas ever decided to give this shit the go-ahead to be released in theaters. The Clone Wars gets a:

And I’m being generous.

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Review by member Heiae — [ original post ]