(Star Wars: The Clone Wars, TV: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Producers:
George Lucas and Catherine Winder
Screenplay:
Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching and Scott Murphy
Original Score :
Kevin Kiner
Cast :
Anakin Skywalker: Matt Lander
Ahsoka Tano: Ashley Eckstein
Obi-Wan Kenobi: James Arnold Taylor
Captain Rex/Cody/Clone Trooper: Dee Bradley Baker
Yoda/Narrator/Admiral Yularen: Tom Kane
Asajj Ventress/Tee-C-Seventy: Nika Futterman
Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious: Ian Abercrombie
General Loathsom/Ziro the Hutt/Kronos-327: Corey Burton
Padmé Amidala: Catherine Taber
Jabba the Hutt: Kevin Michael Richardson
Mace Windu: Samuel L Jackson
C-3PO: Anthony Daniels
Count Dooku: Christopher Lee
Slotting in between Episodes 2 and 3, Star Wars: The Clone Wars
takes the characters of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi on a simple mission.
Well, it's simple in terms of plot structure even if the task from start to finish is fairly difficult for them. And if you
let it, it can be difficult for the viewer if you want to hang on every last word of the plot. That's because, like a lot of
the Star Wars films, the only plot exposition they have is about warring factions and brokering treaties and other things
that sound like you've put on an episode of Question Time instead. However, as long as you recognise who's the good
guys and who's the bad guys and that good has to triumph over evil by the time the end credits roll, while ignoring all the
waffle, then you'll stand yourself in good stead.
The basic plot is that, after dealing with the first big fight where the bad guys try to invade the town of the good guys
by going in with a huge shield that covers every surface within a big enough radius - a shield that is quite easily deal with
by the good guys, the news comes through that Jabba the Hut's son has been kidnapped and both Anakin (Matt Lanter) and
new female Padawan learner, Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), have to go and find him and bring him back to daddy. There's
some good banter between these two as he refers to her as 'Snips', her to him and 'Sky Boy' and both of them to the smelly
green blob they've had to locate as 'Stinky'.
So, why would the good guys help Jabba? Because this means it will keep profitable trade routes open... and, yes, we're back
to tedious plot info again. Still, on the plus side, while this doesn't have Han Solo, Boba Fett and other classic characters
in it, it does have a new good one in the form of Ahsoka, and a new baddie in Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman) who works
under Count Dooku (Christopher Lee).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars has a thread-bare plot (there's a slight bit more to the rescuing of Jabba's son, but not a
lot so I'll leave you to find that out), some of the slow bits do drag at times, but then 70% of it is pure crash/bang/wallop.
As such, this film felt like a series of CGI cut scenes from a computer game stitched together and put up on a big screen, and it looked
fantastic for that. Camera angles go as wild as you'd expect and characters grimace into the camera like Dirk the Daring from
Dragon's Lair as the baddies square up against them. I went to see this film expecting a great piece of entertainment
for 90 minutes and that's what I got. It didn't matter that the two main characters weren't voiced by the real actors from the
films - although it would've been nice, and it was a bonus that we had the original voices of C3PO, Mace Windu and Count
Dooku thrown into the mix.
It also made me realise that, as many films are made out of computer game series - and that almost all of them are total crap,
they'd improve a lot more if they went the route of Clone Wars and made a CGI movie. That way, you could get all of the
action up on the big screen and if you can find hold it together with a decent plot then that'd be welcome, even if it's not
entirely necessary.
There's a good deal of brief comedic moments as well, all of which are entirely daft but which made me laugh a lot, mostly
coming with one-liners between the enemy droids as they exhibit human traits, such as when one notices the forthcoming onslaught
by Anakin and co. as they climb a mountain towards them, and tells his underling to "Fire at grid location 1114467" (or
something similar), to which he replies, "Er... 11..4... what was that again?", and the first one sighs, then points and
shouts, "Down there!"
What was surprising was that for a Star Wars film, from the first week out it was only showing in one screen in this multiplex
and in its second week there wasn't a massive audience for it, which was rather a shame as it certainly deserved more of a big-screen
turnout than the average dumb Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell flick.
Put simply, if you like the Star Wars films and you want to see something very undemanding, and a bit different as it's a CGI-only
sci-fi movie, then this is a great way of spending an hour and a half.
Note that this is also the first entry prior to a new animated TV series, currently airing on US TV.
The film is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks outstanding. No obvious defects on the print and an image
that really does the animation justice. The sound is explosions aplenty in Dolby Digital 5.1 when required and the dialogue is
clear in the quiet scenes. It doesn't have as much action as a live-action Star Wars film but still packs a neat punch.
Onto the presentation of the DVD and, I have to say, it's shockingly bad for a Star Wars movie. I know it hasn't been released
by Fox - for some reason the Clone Wars movie has come under the Warner Bros bannner - but the main menu is static and silent
and the only extra is a feature-length audio commentary with director Dave Filoni, producer Catherine Winder, writer Henry Gilroy
and editor Jason WA Tucker. On the blu-ray release, you get the extras listed below. While there was an option to review this title
on Blu-ray, sadly I don't have a player at present. I hope to have one before too long but the prices will have to come
down under £100 before it fits into my current budget. However, I can't see any reason why a second disc couldn't have
been thrown in with many of these extras given the retail price of the DVD being a penny under twenty quid.
The extras available on the Blu-ray release, so you can see what you're missing out, is as follows:
The Clone Wars: The Untold Stories - Sneak peek into Season One of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS, the weekly animated series debuting this fall on Cartoon Network.
The Voices of The Clone Wars - Recording sessions, for the feature film and selected episodes of the TV series, with the actors of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS.
A New Score - Scoring STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS with a 90 piece orchestra in Prague.
Gallery
Webisodes
Introducing The Clone Wars
Epic Battles
The Clones are Coming
Heroes
Villains
Anakin's Padwan
Deleted Scenes: - Through the Tanks (Anakin and Ahsoka navigate through enemy lines) - Rancor Pit (Anakin and Ahsoka battle Asaaj Ventress in a Rancor Pit) - Platform Droid Fight (Anakin and Ahsoka battle Droids on a landing platform) - Cargo Bay (Ahsoka empties the Twilight's cargo bay)
STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS Trailers: - Launch Trailer - Dark Trailer - Clone Wars Videogame Trailer
Hologram Memory Challenge (BD Java) - Memory game
winner unlocks 3 sneak peeks from upcoming TV series.
Digital Copy on separate disc.
The only good thing I can say about the DVD presentation in this segment is that there's a mammoth 46 chapters for the film, which I
wasn't expecting for a movie that lasts just over an hour-and-a-half. As such, given the lack of extras, if you don't have a
Blu-ray player and, thus, opt for the DVD version, you may wish to rent before considering a purchase and here's hoping that
when the new Clone Wars series gets a DVD release that us non-HD users aren't left behind.
Check out the following for more info about the movie:
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
DVD: 
Slotting in between Episodes 2 and 3, Star Wars: The Clone Wars
takes the characters of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi on a simple mission.
So, why would the good guys help Jabba? Because this means it will keep profitable trade routes open... and, yes, we're back
to tedious plot info again. Still, on the plus side, while this doesn't have Han Solo, Boba Fett and other classic characters
in it, it does have a new good one in the form of Ahsoka, and a new baddie in Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman) who works
under Count Dooku (Christopher Lee).
There's a good deal of brief comedic moments as well, all of which are entirely daft but which made me laugh a lot, mostly
coming with one-liners between the enemy droids as they exhibit human traits, such as when one notices the forthcoming onslaught
by Anakin and co. as they climb a mountain towards them, and tells his underling to "Fire at grid location 1114467" (or
something similar), to which he replies, "Er... 11..4... what was that again?", and the first one sighs, then points and
shouts, "Down there!"
The film is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks outstanding. No obvious defects on the print and an image
that really does the animation justice. The sound is explosions aplenty in Dolby Digital 5.1 when required and the dialogue is
clear in the quiet scenes. It doesn't have as much action as a live-action Star Wars film but still packs a neat punch.
