Star Wars: The Clone Wars (working title: WHY GEORGE WHY?)

August 18 2008 20:31 Filed in: Movies
Wondering what new toys are slated for the Lucasfilm product-line later this year? Why not pay $9.50 for a prolonged commercial for them?

I finally get to quit saying the phrase “yet another film this summer that is better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom and the Crystal Skull.”

Let me qualify that by saying that I went in to Crystal Skull with the highest of hopes knowing that even if it was the worst of the Indiana Jones movies it could still easily be the most fun movie of the summer. Well, I was supremely disappointed with Crystal Skull (see my review of Darabont’s Indy 4 script HERE), I didn’t hate it completely. However, I’ve had this bar since whereby I say to myself or openly that I have seen “yet another” film that was better than it. This is my way of torturing myself with the anticipation I had initially for the Jones flick.

But now, several films later, I finally get something so amazingly bland and disappointing that I can finally end the chain. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is not good at all. It not only makes Indiana Jones and the Kindgom of the Crystal Skull look great, it manages to make Star Wars Episodes I-III look much better in comparison.

At least in the prequel trilogy, we had a handful of iconic moments, images and scenes to carry those of us that were disappointed. I’m not one of these “Lucas screwed me” idiots, though. He just made three Star Wars films that managed to fail miserably at recapturing the fun, excitement and mythology of the original trilogy. Not to mention, without those elements, Lucas knack for awful dialogue and utterly awful pacing made the prequels a real drag.

I had high hopes for The Clone Wars because I felt the limted animated series on Cartoon Network prior to Episode III’s release was probably the best Star Wars we’ve seen on screen in the last decade. The thought of a new Star Wars without Lucas’s direct and intense daily influence played out in stylistic, rich CG animation seemed like a possible return to glory or redemption. Instead, we got a prolonged commercial for kid’s toys achieved by stripping the last vestiges of mythology, mysticism and fun out of the Star Wars universe.

Some of the “iconic” cool moments of the prequel and original trilogies were epic lightsaber duals and crazy large scale battle sequences. These things just don’t seem to carry the same weight in an animated environment and since we already know the soon-to-be fate of all these characters it just has almost no emotional pull.

Overwrought with “cute” kids elements and characters in a Star Wars universe with technology run amok this film was in a sad state within the first 10-15 minutes. While we really have three stories mushed together to form the movie (these will become the first three episodes of the TV series when it begins) it does have a connecting plot of the Republic sending Anakin and Obi-wan to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s kidnapped son in order to gain his favor in a trade route dispute before the Dooku lead separatists do.

If the plot doesn’t sound dull enough for you, let’s add the bonus that Jabba’s son is a cute “infant” that they nickname Stinky and Anakin is joined by a young “spunky” girl padawan that seems like every mediocre kid actress on every kid’s network teen/pre-teen girl program all rolled into one.

As simplistic and youth-aimed as all of this seems, we are occasionally startled by unkid like flashes of violence. We actually see clone troopers get clocked by laser blasts violently a few times and at one point we see several dismembered heads of bounty hunters rolled in on a table in front of Jabba after failing to recover his son--the bounty hunters having been beheaded during their rescue attempts and not at Jabba’s orders.

Throw on top of all this a lisping, truly gender-ambiguous character Zero the Hutt to complete this freak show and this boils down to something that it will be hard for any Star Wars fan over the age of 12 years old to enjoy.

I notoriously try to focus on the good elements of even the worst movies I see. This one is difficult, but I will give it a couple. First, there were just one or two flashes of coolness throughout the movie. There were extremely brief good old “Star War” exchanges and nice pick-ups between characters, but not many. Second, and probably the one thing I can give credit to Clone Wars for is that they did manage to make Anakin a worthwhile character rather than the confused, unsympathetic, immature jumble of a character that Lucas and Hayden Christianson created in Episodes 2 and 3. I have no beef with Hayden in most anything else, but he was cringeworthy in the prequels, but mostly due to outrageously bad dialogue and a poorly realized character.

The Clone Wars Anakin, voiced by Matt Lanter, isn’t anything spectacular. However, he is at least a solid confident “Jedi-Like” character more so than he was in the prequels. On the other hand, we had little or none of the subversive Anakin that would lead him to the dark side, but it was nice to actually have Anakin be one of the most tolerable characters rather than most cringe-worthy ones. Overall, most every voice performance was fairly stiff, though.

Do not put another penny in Lucas’s pocket for this, people. If you need to see it wait until it airs on television as part of the series. Maybe it will work better that way. Perhaps this is just an unfortunate mis-start to the animated series and it will get better. However, looking ahead to the series that this is kicking off, I can’t help but be reminded of one familiar phrase: “I have a bad feeling about this.”

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