Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Sometimes childish is just too childish!

Written By: Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, & Scott Murphy
Directed By: Dave Filoni

As a huge fan of Star Wars it pains me how badly Star Wars: The Clones Wars functions as a film. There’s no reason it should be as bad as it is, but alas the film is bad, and glaringly so. There is no one area at fault more than any other area. In fact all areas of the film, sans the voice acting which is actually quite solid, deserve ridicule for their various missteps.

The biggest area where Star Wars: The Clone Wars falters is in its actual story. At no point did I care about what was going on in the film. A little Hutt was kidnapped, well big freaking deal. The ins and outs of his kidnapping were atrociously paid out on the screen. The script came across as super heavy handed and obvious in every way. But, most importantly no matter how hard it tried there was nothing the script could do to make me care about what was happening on screen. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a throw away story, the type that exists in short story form within the Star Wars expanded universe and only works in that short of a format.

The animation in Star Wars: The Clone Wars is also troubling. In a day and age where Pixar Animation Studios exists there’s no reason that a company with as much money as Lucasfilm should provide such dodgy animation. The characters are far too angular and the backgrounds are far too sparsely filled. Star Wars: The Clone Wars looks very much like a bad 1990s early attempt at computer animation. The low quality level of the animated style is very distracting, and when the story is hard to pay attention to to begin with that makes distractingly bad animation even more noticeable.

The last straw for me as far as actually enjoying the film was the character of Ahsoka Tano. She is immensely annoying, and the film revels in how annoying she can be. The nicknames she gives to every character she meets, her false go getter attitude, and the way she talks to people who are her superiors make her a character impossible to like. The rest of the characters in Star Wars: The Clone Wars are okay I guess, but the film does suffer because it dumbs the majority of them down too far. I understand Star Wars: The Clone Wars is intended for a younger audience, but they deserve better than Stinky the Hutt.

Luckily the TV series that the movie leads into is much better than the film. As it stands, the film is not a good one in any way, shape, or form. Annoying characters, badly awkward animation, and a lackluster story do not a good movie make. Star Wars fans, like me, will probably want to check out Star Wars: The Clone Wars. But, if they are anything like me they will find the film version of Star Wars: The Clone Wars to e a painfully dull and badly executed experience.

Rating:

**

Cheers,
Bill