Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
2.5 Lloyds – Family-Friendly
PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language and momentary smoking.

I know this movie has been out for about a month and you’re probably wondering why I’m reviewing it now. Yes Star Wars: The Clone Wars opened on August 15, but to be honest with you, it just slipped by me. I did see the movie, but there was so much going on when it came out, I didn’t get around to writing my review. Also, I must admit, it really didn’t strike me as a fantastic Star Wars flick so I didn’t make it a priority.

But, here I am today jotting down a few thoughts for a review of this animated version of the Star Wars franchise.

First off, Brody Harper over at In Case You Were Wondering nudged me to write a review after reading his post on the flick. At the end of his post he mentioned he hadn’t heard much about the movie. That’s what nudged me to write a review. He’s right, there hasn’t been a lot of hype about Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

I went into this latest Star Wars flick with low expectations. After all, how can an animated Star Wars stack up against the original Star Wars franchise. Of course going in with such a mindset, did make it hard to step aside from my critic mode. About a half hour or 45 minutes into the flick, I found myself yawning and bored. But, then a strange thing happened. I sat back and said to myself…

“I am not the target audience for this movie. It’s aimed at kids.“

That changed my mindset, and suddenly changed the way I viewed the movie. I know of few true Star Wars fans who liked this movie. But again, Clone Wars is not aimed at those fans. While the plot line fills in some missing pieces, this is directly aimed at the young cartoon crowd.

The idea for the Clone Wars was planted in the 1977 flick Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. In that movie we discover the Clone Wars are a conflict between the Galactic Republic, led by the Jedi Knights and their clone army, and the separatist movement of Chancellor Palpatine, whom later becomes the Emperor. What makes this animated movie different? It’s not a rehash of what’s taken place in prior movies. Instead, the Clone Wars take place between the events of 2002’s Episode II and the 2005 Episode III.

For this move of filmmaker brilliance, I applaud Warner Brothers and everyone else connected with the movie. Again, I went into this flick with low expectations figuring it would be nothing more than a rehash of what I’ve seen before. If anything, for the true blue Star Wars fan, if you can step aside from the fact that this is a cartoon, The Clone Wars does a nice job of filling in some missing pieces of the puzzle from the original series. We discover in this flick our favorite characters of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padme Amidala. However, there are a few new heroes tossed in along the way including Anakin’s padawan learner, Ahsoka. There’s lots of action, there’s lots of Light Saber fighting, and yes, there’s lots of fast space flying too.

Overall, this is not a strong movie when it comes to the bar that’s been set by previous Star Wars flicks. I have a feeling it didn’t do as well as Warner Brothers hoped either. The opening weekend box office pull was just slightly more than $14 million. According to Box Office Mojo, to date, (September 11), The Clone Wars has only made slightly more than $33 million dollars.

The best summary of the movie probably comes from the character Asajj Ventress when she says to Obi-Wan Kenobi, “How predictable, you’re still chasing Anakin, cleaning up his messes.” Yes, it’s true, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is very predictable. But then again, it’s also nothing more than an hour and a half commercial for the upcoming cartoon relaunch of a 2008 Clone Wars on the Cartoon Network. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an upcoming 3D CGI animated TV series created by Lucasfilm Animation which starts airing on October 3 of this year on the Cartoon Network. Each episode will have a running time of 22 minutes, to fill a half-hour timeslot. Star Wars creator George Lucas said there will be at least 100 episodes produced.

I’m not sure why The Clone Wars carries a PG rating. Maybe the filmmakers were hoping to fool the Star Wars fans into believing this animated cartoon was aimed at them. In the end, Star Wars: The Clone Wars should carry a G rating. It’s family-friendly and loaded with fun for the 10 and under crowd.

Enjoy the show!
Dr. Rus