The SmarK DVD Rant for Star Wars: The Clone Wars
You know, never let it be said that George Lucas is shy about marketing opportunities or self-promotion. A few years after running his prize franchise into the ground with the prequels, now we get The Clone Wars (which should have been the title of Episode II), which further mines territory that no one cares about any longer except for pre-teens who are seeing the movies for the first time. Really, do we NEED further examination of the time period between episodes II and III? Isn't the fanbase far more interested in what happened to Anakin AFTER he became Darth Vader?
Technically, this is a sequel to the Clone Wars mini-series from Cartoon Network a few years back, rather than a proper re-interpretation of characters who don't need any further interpretation. And really, it's a franchise for kids now, which I think generates a lot of the bitterness and cynicism among the older fans who grew up and watched Lucas take their movies away from them. But is it at least worth watching?
The Film
As noted, this is one of the seemingly endless "untold stories" of the Clone Wars, with Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker fighting on behalf of the Republic against the evil Separatists (kind of like the Bloc Quebecois but with less French), although the politics in these movies are so convoluted and dull that you might as well just call one side "the good guys" and the other "the bad guys" and be done with it. The important thing is you've got the Jedi on one side and Dooku and his robots on the other side. The twist this time around is that Anakin has been tricked into training a Padawan learner named Ahsoka, and boy is she spunky and adventurous! She'd probably be played by Miley Cyrus or one of the chicks from High School Musical in a live action movie, which is another source of the backlash against this thing, as they're pretty obvious in their attempts to pander to a certain chunk of the population.
The movie itself breaks down into three fairly distinct parts (because it was originally intended as a backdoor pilot for the current TV series, naturally) which have just enough connection to each other to hold together as one movie, if nothing else. The first part sees Anakin (or "Skyguy" as too-cute-to-live Ahsoka dubs him) getting his new student while engaged in a life-or-death struggle against Dooku's troops on some planet for some reason or another. I'm finding it harder to care at this point in the franchise, to be honest. It's also harder to invest anything emotionally when one side is a nameless and faceless horde of clones and the other is a group of wise-cracking cannon fodder androids, and I think that's also due to the new younger demographic. The stakes are much lower when you know nothing truly bad is going to happen. Not to say there weren't some good bits here, as the giant battle was kind of cool and Obi-Wan's "surrender" to the apparently-Scottish enemy leader provided a couple of chuckles, but essentially it added up to 30 minutes of exposition and meaningless action.
Part two sees Jabba the Hutt's son captured by unknown forces (the answer is no great shock, fear not), resulting in Anakin and his new Mary Sue, er, student, going on a rescue mission. And wouldn't you know that Jabba Jr. is just the cutest little thing ever and triggers Ahsoka's mother instincts? Apparently this mission is of vital importance because of vague "supply routes" on the "outer rim" as they struggle to find high stakes without doing anything offend to the family friendly nature of the movie. The villainous wasn't particularly menacing here, either, and could have really used a good slaughtering by Anakin to reinforce his continuing change instead of the GI Joe "last second escape" they went with instead. The final part of the movie sees them journeying to Tattooine to deliver the baby Hutt to Jabba while Dooku attempts to flim-flam Jabba (who would have to be the stupidest gangster in the galaxy to buy any of the crap being fed to him here) into siding with the bad guys instead of the good guys. That was all fine, but then they went and shoe-horned Padme Amidala into the movie by making her into a hero as well, introducing us to (and I wish I was making this up) Jabba's flamboyantly gay uncle Ziro the Hutt. Like, seriously, you could have just taken that entire side-story and just dumped it into the trash, but then the movie would only run 70 minutes, if that.
But really, story problems and stupid new characters aside, the biggest issue I have with this thing is that after 100 minutes, NOTHING HAPPENS. Even if it was just a cynical ad for a TV show, you'd at least like to have your time rewarded with some interesting new bit of information about the Star Wars universe or resolution for the characters, but it just kind of ends and immediately fades from your mind. The movie itself is shot much more theatrically than the previous animated series, but with none of the heart, as all the character models seem plastic and almost like action figures brought to life. Just in time to sell action figures, I'm sure. Commander Cody and Commander Rex are pretty cool and might have been a more interesting way to explore the franchise with, but mining the shallow depths of Obi-Wan and Anakin: The Early Years yet again is only good for a minor distraction. However, pre-teen boys will eat this up with a spoon, so I'll give them full marks for hitting their new target audience dead on. (Rating: **1/2)
Audio & Video
Quality of the movie aside, you can't fault the DVD transfer. Digitally animated and transferred in anamorphic 2.40:1 widescreen, this is a beautiful DVD with no signs of flaw in the picture and lots of brightly colored environments to show off the TV you're watching it on. Things like facial details are very well done as well and make this an impressive disc. The audio is presented in Lucas' standard Dolby Digital 5.1 EX, and again I have no complaints to offer here. Laser fights and space battles whiz around in the surrounds and the subwoofer booms at exactly the right times without being overpowering. A treat for the eyes and ears. (Ratings: ***** Video, ***** Audio)
Bonus Features
The studio only sent me the single-disc edition, which has nothing but the audio commentary from the producers on it. And again, it sounds like it was done for young viewers, talking about nothing more in-depth than how George Lucas came up with the idea of having Anakin's nickname be "Skyguy" before I got sick of it and switched it off for good. (Rating: **)
The Pulse:
This was never really intended as a theatrical release and it shows -- absolutely the least of the Star Wars movies, had it been a different franchise intended for kids only it would have been an OK piece of throwaway sci-fi, but as something carrying this brand name, it's unacceptably mediocre. Only recommended for kids.
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Tags: Cinema, DVD, DVD Reviews, MMA, Politics, Sting, TV, Vader
NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But in all seriousness, when til the next Melrose Place or All My Children or The Bachelor review?
In fact season 5 of Melrose has been delayed basically forever and it’s driving me nuts because season 4 ended with Richard Hart rising from the grave like a zombie and you just can’t leave someone on a cliffhanger like that for this long.
Silly rabbit. No self-respecting soap opera nerd watching All My Children or any other ABC Soap. It’s all about “Days of Our Lives” and fans obsessing over how the show hasn’t been good since they fired Matt Ashford back in 1993.
Uh huh
This stupid movie (which i’m happy to say I downloaded and did not pay for at the theater) is the worst piece of sh*t ever produced by Lucas. I don’t understand why Tartakovsky or someone new wasn’t just given the reigns of this universe rather than have turkey neck come and continue to stomp on his on legacy.
Anywho, i’m not trying to come off as a bitter fan boy nerd it’s just a shame that it’s come to “Skyguy”, a tennie booper jedi and stinky Hutt.
Remember when Star Wars was cool………..
Remember when Star Wars was cool………..
No….I do not.
Star Wars has ALWAYS been for kids and teens, the same as wrestling has. Sure there are adult themes thrown around there with scary figures, but it’s a freakin’ space movie about magical powers.
Sure LUcas has been milking the franchise dry for years, and may have gotten a little carried away with the childish characters (you will hear no defense for Jar Jar Binks from me), but it’s essentially the same stuff.
Coming from a guy who enjoyed the prequels for the most part and then only saw the original trilogy afterwards, believe me, it’s the same stuff. Slightly better storytelling in the first and lots more CGI in the latter ones, but essentially the same tone.
i’ll respectfully disagree that Star Wars and ESB are not cool. Sure, i’m 34 and i’m biased since i grew up with those two movies, but nothing existed prior to Star Wars that had cool looking bad asses like Darth Vader, the Storm Troopers, the spaceships, etc.
Seeing as I’m 10 years younger than you, I obviously have a different perspective. While they may be fun, entertaining movies, I have not lived in an era where anything Star Wars-related was not immediately associated with geekdom.
If it was cool in the 70s/early 80’s, then maybe you can fill me in on that bit of pop culture but, as it stands, Star Wars has not been cool for a long, long time ago…possibly even in a galaxy far, far away.
(see what I did there? That makes me less cool. *sigh*)
Comment by flair4dagold
2008-11-26 08:14:46
This stupid movie (which i’m happy to say I downloaded and did not pay for at the theater) is the worst piece of sh*t ever produced by Lucas.
Apparently someone is unfamiliar with the Star Wars Holiday Special. So bad, Lucas has refused to release it to home video.
I have a copy of that piece of shit. I bought it off ebay… and wish I’d never opened that Pandora’s Box. I did check out the Clone Wars show after reading this, and I kind of like it. The animation is good, and at the end of the day I am a Star Wars mark.
“Jabba’s flamboyantly gay uncle Ziro the Hutt.”
Can hermaphrodites be gay? Can someone track down Kevin “Not Nailz, the other one” Kelly to find out?
I was born in the early 70s, and I can tell you that the original Star Wars was beyond cool. It was like Titanic and Blade Runner put together. EVERYONE wanted to see it, and wanted to see it again, and again and again. This was before multiplexes, when people would happily queue around the block to see Star Wars over and over. It was also like Blade Runner in terms of the cultish devotion it inspired amongst the traditional ‘geeks’. For an interesting discussion on the impact of these movies, I recommend the book ‘Blockbuster’.
My family had an old ‘Betamax’ VCR, and I would estimate that I watched Star Wars (Episode IV) between 70-100 times.
As bad as the CW movie was, the subsequent TV series has been pretty good (for a half-hour cartoon TV series about Star Wars). I’d rather have seen this series explore another era of the SW universe (Galactic Civil War), but then they wouldn’t have all visual eye candy of the Jedi.
I actually watched this yesterday. Seemed pretty okay. Hardly fist-shakingly anger-inducing anyway.