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Star Wars: Clone Wars

A Review by Cade Antilles

I shouldn’t have to sit here and explain to y’all about how much I love Star Wars. If you’ve been a reader of this site, you’ll know that this is mostly what I’m about. So, how can a review by someone as biased as me be worth reading? Right? Well, I’m sure another one of my fellow Procrastinators will have something to say, but I’m honor-bound to say something. So, firstly, I thought it was very cool, but it does have its flaws.

This film is pure visual candy. From beginning to end, the film is almost nothing but action. Interspersed throughout and between the action is the plot. The plot is fairly straight-forward. Jabba the Hutt’s son has been kidnapped so he asks both the Jedi and Count Dooku to return the child. The side that complete’s the task will gain his support in the war. The Jedi are the honorable good guys, the Sith are the scheming bad guys, blah blah blah, you get the picture.

The action is fast paced, grandiose, and flashy. I like that. As far as Star Wars is concerned, the action’s not over the top, and well within the believability for the setting. The ’saber duels are slick and extremely well animated, and felt like the duels seen in the Prequel Trilogy.

The characters weren’t anything new, so not much to say here. The only real additions were the Togruta Jedi girl Ahsoka Tano and the foppish Ziro the Hutt. Ahsoka is a pretty cool character, with some decent dialog and awesome action sequences. Ziro was entertaining for me, since its the first time a different Hutt has graced the screen. They’ve always either been Jabba or a Hutt just like him. If anyone needs to ask, “Is Ziro gay or something?”, I’ll quickly explain. Hutts reproduce asexually (ie, Jabba’s son has no other parent), and they usually choose a “gender” based on their personality. So, while Ziro comes off as foppish, it just means that he probably just prefers make-up and jewelry and identifies with a more feminine personality. But, that’s enough about Hutt physiology and psychology.

The voice acting is decent, and combined with the animation, makes some of the performances better than the live-action of the films. But, that probably won’t say much, since the actors in the films didn’t have much to work with (and it showed). Also, the voice actors that they cast did such a good job impersonating the actors it was hardly noticeable that Christensen, McGregor, and Portman weren’t even in it. It was nice that Anthony Daniels, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christopher Lee were able to reprise their roles, though.

Where the film lacks is in the story. Don’t expect too much here. Everything is straight-forward, nothing complicated. No big revelations, nothing fancy. But, its Star Wars. Also, the flow of the film, being mostly action, doesn’t have much down time. And when it is slow, it is SLOW. The fact that there is so much action, it just makes the moments that aren’t action packed seem even slower than they probably already are.

I definitely recommend seeing this, in the theatre, but matinee if you can help it (prices being what they are).

Grade: B (86%)

PS Also . . . Lightspeed Starlines. Finally, in the Prequel Era, we get to see Starlines again. Go back and watch the prequels, they’re not there. Go, now! Go watch all three. I’m not kidding, stop reading and go watch them . . . you’re still reading, aren’t you? *sigh* Fine, take my word for it, there’re no Starlines. But, now there are! Yay!

That is all