Release Date: August 15, 2008 Studio: Warner Bros. MPAA Rating: PG Genre: Scifi •
Animated Director: Dave Filoni Writers: Henry Gilroy, George Lucas, Steven Melching, Scott Murphy Cast: Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, James Arnold Taylor, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kane, Nika Futterman, Ian Abercrombie, Corey Burton, Matthew Wood, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Daniels, Christopher Lee Synopsis: A Long time ago in a galaxy far,far away...George Lucas returns to the Star Wars galaxy and The Clone Wars in this joyless computer-animated 98 minute toy commercial. The Review: STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS opened not with the familiar FOX fanfare and searchlights, but with the Warner Brothers Golden shield against cloud-filled skies.
The green Lucasfilm LTD logo then showed up with some very weird back-chatter of voices behind it. I’m sure someone on the net has figured out exactly what I heard, but frankly, I don’t care enough to check.
Then, in blue text , the magic words: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appeared on the screen. And, before I continue, do you remember that rush of excitement you used to get reading those words? Do you remember that hushed pause of anticipation right before the starfield, the majestic opening blast of The London Symphony Orchestra and the famed yellow STAR WARS logo would zoom onto the screen?
Well, you can forget it. The STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS logo quickly disappeared into the star-flecked distance backed by a chintzy faux-military fanfare with the worst adaptation/variation of John William’s classic Main Title tacked onto it.
As Homer Simpson once said: "They're butchering the classics! John Williams must be rolling around in his grave!”
Gone with the quality of the music was the opening crawl, replaced by a fast paced narrator who breathlessly updated us on the status of the war between the Galactic Republic and The Separatist Something-or-other. I’m sure the narration was designed to evoke the tone of the old newsreels and it does, but who are they kidding here ? According to wikipedia.org, the last American newsreel company folded in 1979 , but the big ones died in the 1950s. So, if you’re the target CLONE WARS audience (ten and younger), there’s no way you get the joke, and if you’re old enough to remember the newsreels then what the hell are you doing watching this ?
Anyway, I’m sure the footage was nothing but scenes from the upcoming CLONE WARS TV show. What? You didn’t know this …movie/toy commercial/whatever is just a pilot for a TV show? Yup. It sure is. But, from the corporate mindset that brought us PIGLET: THE MOVIE and all of those other execrable Disney made for home video movies that were foisted upon the $10 bucks for a medium popcorn set back in the days of Chancellor (err…CEO) Michael Eisner’s reign.
ANAKIN SKYWALKER ($7.99 at TOYSRUS) , OBI-WAN KENOBI ($7.99) and the stalwart clone CAPTAIN REX ($7.99) are on the planet of CHRISTOPHSIS leading a battalion of clone troopers (Voice Changer Helmet $23.99) against a horde of battle droids ($7.99) , Super Battledroids ($7.99) , spider droids ($34.99) , Destroyer Droids ($7.99), and floating ATT tanks (Die-Cast $6.79). Armed only with their lightsabers ($19.99) and their “witty” banter, they manage to force the robotic troops into a retreat.
Above them, a space battle rages. The Republic Cruiser (Mega Pocket Model $11.99) under the lead of GENERAL WHORM LOATHSOM (Boy, they’ve given up trying at all to be creative with the names haven’t they?) assisted by V-Wings ($24.99) and V-19 Torrents ($59.99) faces off against a multitude of Vulture Droids (Die-Cast $6.79).
Meanwhile, on the planet Coruscant, CHANCELLOR PALPATINE has received word that JABBA THE HUTT’s son has been kidnapped and he wants the Jedi Knights to find him.
According to my copy of Star Wars:The NEW Essential Guide to Alien Species, Hutts are hermaphroditic.(Good-right? Who wants to consider the vagaries of Hutt sexual intercourse ?) But it made me wonder,when did Jabba decide to impregnate himself, did he get maternity leave from the Hutt’s gangster union , how did he feel about raising his son as a single mother and as a single father and does the Hutt castle on Tatooine have a daycare center ?
Additionally, YODA has decreed that ANAKIN must take a Padawan learner. Yes, YODA in his infinite wisdom , has decided that the most impulsive, most irresponsible, most immature padawan should himself take on the responsibilities of teaching an apprentice.
Enter AHSOKA TANO -THE JEDI JAILBAIT (Star Wars Shop The Clone Wars Ahsoka Adult T-Shirt $16.99).
She’s a red-skinned Togruta, like the adult Jedi Shaak Ti (introduced in ATTACK OF THE CLONES and portrayed by the lovely Orli Shoshan). She appears to be around twelve years old and keeps calling her master “sky guy”. Oh joy. Anakin takes an immediate dislike to her, but as the film progresses he finds his grudging respect turn to admiration(duh). Tano was annoying throughout –in voice and in action and her character arc was completely uninspired.
Additionally, she holds a lightsaber, not in the traditional Kendo sword/flashlight one or two handed upright grip, but with the point behind her. I tried practicing her moves with one of my son’s lightsabers and let me tell you, it’s nearly impossible to do anything but impale yourself gripping the hilt that way.
I’m not going to re-tell the whole movie’s patch-worked story. There are a few lightsaber duels in the film, but, since we know who is going to live and who is getting beheaded in REVENGE OF THE SITH, there’s no drama or sense of urgency.
I will admit, I did like the pink-hued vertical battle on the planet Teth as the precursor to the Imperial Walkers in EMPIRE- the All Terrain Tactical Enforcer or AT-TEs ($99.99) climbed up a 90 degree sheer cliffside, supported in the air by the Republic Gunships (LEGO version $129.99) tricked out with pinup alien girl “nose art”, the clone troopers rappelling up the wall, and Anakin and Whatshername , the Jailbait Jedi engaged in a race to the top.
The clone troopers, despite the filmmaker's best efforts to individualize the captains with strange crewcuts in wacky colors are largely identical and thus, utterly disposable. There are, of course, many variations of the standard armor in yet another shameless attempt to sell more toys
As the plot plodded along (I was restless and kept checking my watch), there were a few very sad nods to the original STAR WARS, including the Cantina Band making a listless appearance. At least Threepio got in a few good scenes very late in the game.
At the very end, Yoda shows up to Jabba’s palace and a slow and stately version of Kenobi’s theme plays. This is the same music that accompanied Luke watching the twin suns set in STAR WARS, and again, the music not only doesn’t match the emotions of of what we’re watching, but it also lessens the impact of the music where it really matters.
It’s worth sticking around for the end of the credits. You’ll be treated with an actually funny bit of five Jawas struggling with a device which then becomes the Lucas Animation logo. “That was the best part of the movie!” I heard myself exclaiming out loud to the nearly empty theatre.
I don’t understand the CLONE WARS design choices. The spaceships, hardware and architecture are uniformly photorealistic yet the characters,including R2-D2 (usually grouped in the hardware category) are oddly overly-stylized;their faces like carved wood. I guess it works well with the mostly cardboard voice acting.
On the bright side, it was great to hear the returning voices of Samuel L. Jackson as Jedi MACE WINDU, Christopher Lee as COUNT DOOKU, and Anthony Daniels as C3-PO.
The remaining voice cast was uninspired going on terrible.
Obi Wan (James Arnold Taylor) grasps vainly to hold on to his English accent and frequently falters to hold onto any decent impression of Ewan MacGregor impersonating the late great Sir Alec Guinness.
ZIRO THE HUTT (Corey Burton) was a horrendously awful addition to the movie. It’s not that I dislike the idea of a Hutt speaking English ( I do), it’s the voice was so awful I found myself physically cringing every time it opened its mouth. Imagine if you can, Gargamel from The Smurfs,sloshed out of his skull, doing an impression of THE PRINCESS BRIDE’s Wallace Shawn channeling Peter Lorre and you begin to get my drift.
Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) was as delightful as any perky pre-teen girl could be (not very) . Thank goodness she was paired with the morose monotone of her master, Anakin (Matt Lanter).
It’s painfully obvious the voice casting director made many of her choices from listening to voice actors.
By contrast, voice casting director goddess Andrea Romano (Justice League: The New Frontier /“Batman:The Animated Series”/”Superman: The Animated Series”/”Tiny Toons”/ “Animaniacs”/”Pinky and The Brain” is well known for hiring actors and actresses outside the insulated community of voice actors, resulting in fully realized performances.
It would make sense that a character running would talk differently than one standing still, or that you could hear the effort in a character’s voice as they lifted a heavy object using only the force.
But that extra touch was missing. Missing too, was any sense of a character’s voice changing from location to location. Hasn’t anyone ever heard of echos?
The music by television veteran Kevin Kiner is dull including a frequently utilized B’omarr monastery theme involving woodwinds and I guess it’s meant to sound exotic-which it does, the first time.
After the fifth time, it began to bore. Looking over Kiner’s resume on imdb.com, I found one of his credits included “Nick Fury:Agent of Shield” the Hasselhoff –starring made for TV movie . Wouldn’t it be a gas if he had recycled one of his “Nick Fury” themes and put it into CLONE WARS ? I wouldn’t be surprised.
My biggest complaint with CLONE WARS aside from the design, the writing, the voice cast and the music is the lack of gravity. To explain, one of the most difficult things to duplicate with computer graphics is giving the objects a believable sense of weight. The characters in CLONE WARS never “read” as real to me. Unlike WALL-E, BUZZ & WOODY or anyone else I could mention in Pixar’s famed stables, the people populating SW:TCW appear less realistic than The Simpsons.
This isn’t an issue when it comes to the space battles ( and there are many-too many of those)-lucky for Lucas, I guess. Speaking of space battles, I miss the choreography of the dogfights, the chases and the battles of STAR WARS , EMPIRE and JEDI. The current mindset of these pixel pushers seems to be, from my seat in the audience, “let’s give ‘em a clusterfuck-they’ll eat it up!”
As Executive Producer, Uncle George’s well-manicured fingerprints are all over this mess. Anyplace there’s a corner that isn’t completely filled, you can find your attention diverted by one more damn thing to look at. Check out the silhouetted twi’lek dancing in the background of Ziro the Hutt’s lair, take a gander at the eopies, jawas and scurriers all crowding up the frame as Obi-Wan leaves Jabba’s palace, laugh at the little nuna birds frolicking in the sand,and note all of the extra soldiers in the hangers, walking in the background, performing maintenance.
Lucas never used to crowd his shots like this. Before the advent of digital technology and the beloved (sarcasm) Special Editions of the Star Wars trilogy, there was some subtlety in his visual compositions.
Before I attended THE CLONE WARS screening, I was talking Star Wars with fellow Film Geek Mikey.
He said: “Wouldn’t it be great if in the future, you could watch STAR WARS and you could pick and choose the parts of the movie that you wanted to see from the special editions and the original version?”
And, on a completely different subject, a few conversations back with Mikey, I mentioned a great essay called F/X PORN** by David Foster Wallace.
In it, Mr. Wallace said that Special Effects are becoming the new pornography, in that, movie watchers are now able and willing to bypass watching the actual movie to “skip to the good parts”.
Post CLONE WARS, a bunch of us were commiserating over the sheer awfulness of our mutual movie experience.
“Wouldn’t be great if you watch THE CLONE WARS with only the battle scenes?”someone wondered.
I turned to Mikey. “Doesn’t this sound familiar?” I asked.
Watching SW:TCW was a depressing experience. What happened to the sense of whimsy and wonder present in my STAR WARS? As I saw Jabba speak Huttese with no subtitles and Ziro the Hutt speaking in perfect English I was reminded of a Lucas quote I read saying he wanted the subtitles kept in RETURN OF THE JEDI because it would encourage younger kids to read.
As I saw Anakin’s freighter jump into lightspeed with the spectacular star-streaking effect, I remembered reading that Mr. George insisted that effect wasn’t shown in the prequels so that the jump to hyperspace effect in STAR WARS would remain special.
Some times, like then, I wish I didn’t have my memory.
Sitting in the movie theatre before the show, I turned around to the guys behind me and said : “ Any of you guys up for some Star Wars trivia?” “Sure,” they assented. “ What is the name of the sequel to STAR WARS?” I asked. The first fellow jumped in: “ THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!” “No, I’m sorry. That’s incorrect, ” I said, a little bit too self-satisfied.
“You?” I asked the next guy. “I don’t know,” he said.
“How about you, do you know?” I asked the final guy.
“I couldn’t guess” he said meekly.
“A sequel features the original cast in different situations from the original film right?”
I did a “you follow me here, right?” gesture.
“The sequel to STAR WARS is “The Star Wars Holiday Special !” I said triumphantly and turned around in my seat. Okay, I admit it, I was being an A-hole there, but my point was that, as lousy as that TV special was (and boy, was it lousy with recycled special effects, no-budget sets, Bea Arthur, Mark Hamill in eyeliner and Carrie Fisher singing the STAR WARS theme) , it was closer to the original intention and original execution of STAR WARS than the CLONE WARS could ever aspire to.
Should you take the kids to CLONE WARS?
Absolutely. If you’ve never seen STAR WARS or if you don’t like your children. (Note: This does not count for Mikey and Henry...they rock *written by Mikey*)
Additional resources for the STAR WARS FILM GEEK:
For an amazingly well-researched, well -written and sometimes controversial look at the many changes George Lucas has made to his STAR WARS saga go to http://www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/ right away.Michael Kaminski’s epic 524 page e-book traces the development of STAR WARS, from its inception as a remake of Kurosawa’s THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, to the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK script dated February 24, 1978 featuring a scene on Dagobah with Luke, Yoda, Obi-Wan’s spirit and the spirit of Luke’s father (not Darth Vader) and way, way beyond.If you’ve been puzzled by Lucas’ frequent revisions of his own fictional history or bewildered by his backpedals from statements he’s made earlier about the films , then this book is for you.
If you’re in the mood for an amazing painting that is more evocative of Star Wars than the entire CLONE WARS movie , look at Erik Maell’s entry at http://www.starwars.com/fans/events/news/20080711b.html Rating:
