Rating of
2/4
Should Have Stayed on TV
Chris Kavan - wrote on 08/26/08
I wasn't expecting too much going into this. I knew there was a Star Wars animated series coming up, but the powers that be decided a feature film should be introduced first. They probably should have just made a 2-hour premiere on TV instead.
Geared toward the younger generation, this takes place between episode II and III. With aiming towards this target audience there is a lot more comedic interaction - I dare say Anakin shows a wider range of emotion here than he did during nearly the entire prequel trilogy. Still, the original voice talent is limited to Samuel L. Jackson, Christoper Lee and Anthony Daniels - and out of them only Lee has significant screen time.
The best thing I can say about Clone Wars is that they didn't screw anything up. The new characters are decent if not memorable (I'm interested to see what happens to fire-cracker Asoka since she isn't around by Episode III). I also like seeing Ventress back in action.
The animation is okay - it feels more like they tried to emulate a video game than anything else. It's all sharp edges with a nod toward Japanese anime. It isn't the greatest, but it will be enough to keep the kids happy. This won't bring anything new to the Star Wars table, except for more merchandising. Still, it was good enough that I'll probably end up watching the TV show this fall - where this really should have premiered.
