Star Wars: The Clone Wars ««½
PG, 98m. 2008
Cast & Credits: Featuring the voices of Matt Lanter (Anakin Skywalker), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi/4-A7/Medical Droid), Dee Bradley Baker (Clone Troopers/Captain Rex/Cody), Tom Kane (Yoda/Narrator/Admiral Yularen), Nika Futterman (Asajj Ventress/Tee-C-Seventy), Ian Abercrombie (Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious), Corey Burton (General Loathsom/Ziro the Hutt/Kronos-327), Catherine Taber (Padme Amidala), Matthew Wood (Battle Droids), Kevin Michael Richardson (Jabba the Hutt), David Acord (Rotta the Huttlet), Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Christopher Lee (Count Dooku). Screenplay by Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy based on story, characters, and universe created by George Lucas. Directed by Dave Filoni.
“That was awesome!”
If that comment I had heard from someone walking out of the first morning showing of the animated cartoon, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, had come from an actual adult who was my age, I probably would have taken what he said seriously.
The comment, however, did not come from an adult, but from a young kid who was probably not much older than say ten-years-old. In fact, when Star Wars: The Clone Wars ended, there were actual cheers emanating from the audience. Those cheers of applause though came from the kids whose parents took them to see it.
Such are the kinds of positive comments you will likely hear from the young ones who see this latest Star Wars animated adventure. You are not likely to hear it from any adults my age. I am not even certain you are going to hear it from the die-hard fans.
To be honest, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a “for kids only movie” the way Sex and the City movie (2008) was strictly for women fans of the television series and men with a fetish for either admiring or wearing expensive high heels.
I can understand why “younglings” will enjoy it. Every five to ten minutes we get plenty of laser fights featuring Clone Armies battling mindless war droids. When there aren’t ground wars going on, there is plenty of sword fighting to watch as Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker (voice by Matt Lanter) and his new female Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano (voice by Ashley Eckstein), along with Obi-Wan Kenobi (voice by James Arnold Taylor) activate their lightsabers to do battle against separatist villains. They include Count Dooku (voice by Christopher Lee reprising his role from Star Wars – Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) and his own dark Jedi apprentice, Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman).
Not only does it have a character female kiddies can identify with or perhaps root for in the form of Ahsoka Tano, the film also incorporates the cuteness factor as well. That comes in the form of a baby slug Hutt, (crime lord Jabba the Hutt has a son) who when ill, has the ability to turn all sorts of colors with the exception of its normal healthy one which I assume is brown.
Add up the amount of screen time for the fight scenes, which probably comes close to an hour of action and an additional half hour more of dialogue and you get a 98-minute Saturday morning cartoon, provided it does air on Saturday mornings. The film, whose events take place between the end of Episodes II and the beginning of III is a prelude to the highly anticipated half hour Star Wars cartoon series scheduled to air on TNT this October.
If I was a kid under the age of ten, I probably would have responded to The Clone Wars cartoon the same way that one boy did. After all, when I was that young watching the original classic Star Wars trilogy, and such sci-fi television shows as Battlestar Galactica (1978-79) and Buck Rogers In the 25th Century, (1979-81) the one thing I enjoyed most were the outer space dogfights and visual effects eye candy. As a kid, what did I know about writing convincing dialogue or conjuring up an interesting storyline?
Watching The Clone Wars, critics like myself, and probably even fans and non fans would likely allow their minds to wander as far as the gutter asking themselves how Hutts sexually mate and ponder such questions as who is Jabba’s wife and what happened to her or it? Or was it a she? How can you tell the difference between a male and female Hutt? Are they really male or female? I guess Hutts are human, after all, Harrison Ford's smuggling pirate Han Solo called Jabba “a wonderful human being” in the 1997 Star Wars: Special Edition. Then again, perhaps he was just being sarcastic. I could go on and on with this. A kid, however, is not going to ponder such things. They will be too busy marveling at the visual effects eye candy on the big screen.
I won’t argue that the possibility existed that a lot more engaging stories could have been told between the events of Episodes II and III but I am not so sure this plot, where Separatists kidnap Jabba’s baby and use him as a ploy to turn the Hutts against the Jedi, is a notably worthy tale in the Star Wars universe. The story is instantly forgettable.
The animated film is a children’s equivalent of those two hour made-for-tv movies creator George Lucas made after the original trilogy ended in 1983 that featured those dancing teddy bears called Ewoks.
I was hoping, given the amount of negative reviews The Clone Wars is getting, to have gladly placed this film in that group of pictures I call “Films that are not as bad as the critics say it is” like Superman III (1983), Event Horizon (1997) and even Lucas' own Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). It is unfortunately, a slight notch below those titles. Kids will like it. I predict a majority of adults will not. I know I didn't.
For someone like me who is now approaching forty, whose love of Star Wars is really more focused on the original trilogy than the prequels, and has lost a lot of interest in the continuing toy marketing franchise die-hard fans continue to cling to every year at the conventions where the phrase is uttered “Star Wars is forever!”, I find this movie, and possibly the upcoming cartoon series itself, difficult to embrace.
Still, there is no denying that Star Wars: The Clone Wars will probably make for a good alternative to Saturday morning cartoon fare for kids under the age of ten who are not into watching Miley Cyrus or The Suite Life With Zack and Cody. I, for one, at least would be grateful for if I was a parent, I’d much rather see my kid watch animated laser battles for a half hour than watch a show where a teenage rock star sings about how she has the best of both worlds.
©8/16/08
PG, 98m. 2008
Cast & Credits: Featuring the voices of Matt Lanter (Anakin Skywalker), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi/4-A7/Medical Droid), Dee Bradley Baker (Clone Troopers/Captain Rex/Cody), Tom Kane (Yoda/Narrator/Admiral Yularen), Nika Futterman (Asajj Ventress/Tee-C-Seventy), Ian Abercrombie (Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious), Corey Burton (General Loathsom/Ziro the Hutt/Kronos-327), Catherine Taber (Padme Amidala), Matthew Wood (Battle Droids), Kevin Michael Richardson (Jabba the Hutt), David Acord (Rotta the Huttlet), Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Christopher Lee (Count Dooku). Screenplay by Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy based on story, characters, and universe created by George Lucas. Directed by Dave Filoni.
If that comment I had heard from someone walking out of the first morning showing of the animated cartoon, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, had come from an actual adult who was my age, I probably would have taken what he said seriously.
The comment, however, did not come from an adult, but from a young kid who was probably not much older than say ten-years-old. In fact, when Star Wars: The Clone Wars ended, there were actual cheers emanating from the audience. Those cheers of applause though came from the kids whose parents took them to see it.
Such are the kinds of positive comments you will likely hear from the young ones who see this latest Star Wars animated adventure. You are not likely to hear it from any adults my age. I am not even certain you are going to hear it from the die-hard fans.
To be honest, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a “for kids only movie” the way Sex and the City movie (2008) was strictly for women fans of the television series and men with a fetish for either admiring or wearing expensive high heels.
I can understand why “younglings” will enjoy it. Every five to ten minutes we get plenty of laser fights featuring Clone Armies battling mindless war droids. When there aren’t ground wars going on, there is plenty of sword fighting to watch as Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker (voice by Matt Lanter) and his new female Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano (voice by Ashley Eckstein), along with Obi-Wan Kenobi (voice by James Arnold Taylor) activate their lightsabers to do battle against separatist villains. They include Count Dooku (voice by Christopher Lee reprising his role from Star Wars – Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) and his own dark Jedi apprentice, Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman).
Not only does it have a character female kiddies can identify with or perhaps root for in the form of Ahsoka Tano, the film also incorporates the cuteness factor as well. That comes in the form of a baby slug Hutt, (crime lord Jabba the Hutt has a son) who when ill, has the ability to turn all sorts of colors with the exception of its normal healthy one which I assume is brown.
Add up the amount of screen time for the fight scenes, which probably comes close to an hour of action and an additional half hour more of dialogue and you get a 98-minute Saturday morning cartoon, provided it does air on Saturday mornings. The film, whose events take place between the end of Episodes II and the beginning of III is a prelude to the highly anticipated half hour Star Wars cartoon series scheduled to air on TNT this October.
If I was a kid under the age of ten, I probably would have responded to The Clone Wars cartoon the same way that one boy did. After all, when I was that young watching the original classic Star Wars trilogy, and such sci-fi television shows as Battlestar Galactica (1978-79) and Buck Rogers In the 25th Century, (1979-81) the one thing I enjoyed most were the outer space dogfights and visual effects eye candy. As a kid, what did I know about writing convincing dialogue or conjuring up an interesting storyline?
Watching The Clone Wars, critics like myself, and probably even fans and non fans would likely allow their minds to wander as far as the gutter asking themselves how Hutts sexually mate and ponder such questions as who is Jabba’s wife and what happened to her or it? Or was it a she? How can you tell the difference between a male and female Hutt? Are they really male or female? I guess Hutts are human, after all, Harrison Ford's smuggling pirate Han Solo called Jabba “a wonderful human being” in the 1997 Star Wars: Special Edition. Then again, perhaps he was just being sarcastic. I could go on and on with this. A kid, however, is not going to ponder such things. They will be too busy marveling at the visual effects eye candy on the big screen.
I won’t argue that the possibility existed that a lot more engaging stories could have been told between the events of Episodes II and III but I am not so sure this plot, where Separatists kidnap Jabba’s baby and use him as a ploy to turn the Hutts against the Jedi, is a notably worthy tale in the Star Wars universe. The story is instantly forgettable.
The animated film is a children’s equivalent of those two hour made-for-tv movies creator George Lucas made after the original trilogy ended in 1983 that featured those dancing teddy bears called Ewoks.
I was hoping, given the amount of negative reviews The Clone Wars is getting, to have gladly placed this film in that group of pictures I call “Films that are not as bad as the critics say it is” like Superman III (1983), Event Horizon (1997) and even Lucas' own Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). It is unfortunately, a slight notch below those titles. Kids will like it. I predict a majority of adults will not. I know I didn't.
For someone like me who is now approaching forty, whose love of Star Wars is really more focused on the original trilogy than the prequels, and has lost a lot of interest in the continuing toy marketing franchise die-hard fans continue to cling to every year at the conventions where the phrase is uttered “Star Wars is forever!”, I find this movie, and possibly the upcoming cartoon series itself, difficult to embrace.
Still, there is no denying that Star Wars: The Clone Wars will probably make for a good alternative to Saturday morning cartoon fare for kids under the age of ten who are not into watching Miley Cyrus or The Suite Life With Zack and Cody. I, for one, at least would be grateful for if I was a parent, I’d much rather see my kid watch animated laser battles for a half hour than watch a show where a teenage rock star sings about how she has the best of both worlds.
©8/16/08
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