Star Wars: The Clone Wars

September 19, 2008 | Reviews, Movies

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 3d animated cartoon, featuring all your favorite characters from the prequel trilogy, and some of your faves from the original trilogy.

I got to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars last weekend and quite enjoyed it. The film takes place during the Clone Wars, a period of unrest chronologically placed between the second and third prequel movie.

The film is a full blown 3d animated adventure with lots of action and a couple of laughs. The story is a little weak - Anakin is sent to rescue Jabba the huts kidnapped offspring from a bunch of bounty hunters. Like the Star Wars movies, The Clone Wars has planet hopping tendencies - lots of travelling back and forth. There are also lots of references to the real life films, and with George in the credits - I think we can take this as cannon.

There are lots of 3d animated cartoons around and unfortunately this one isn’t as visually impressive as the others. I do really like the style they have gone for, much more puppet-like, artistic, and stylised than other films, but compared to anything by Pixar it is lacking. That said the cartoon is soon going to be a tv series and for that these models will be ideal - better than any other 3d toon that I’ve seen for sure.

There were some nice touches in the film, I particularly enjoyed the vertical battle ascending to the clifftop temple. The new apprentice Sith was also cool - I was pleased to see Ventress brought to life in one of the films. She was first designed for Star Wars Episode two (before Dooku was dreamed up and I loved the design then as much as I do now. I suspect she will show up as a regular in the cartoon series.

I wasn’t expecting it but somehow the producers managed to get some of the voice cast from the movies to reprise their roles in the film. It’s just as well really as I can’t believe anyone else can be Samuel L Jackson as well as… well… Samuel L Jackson.

I’m of two minds about the film, I did enjoy it but at the same time I’m not sure it should have been released at the cinema (yes Gnorb - you were right), released straight to DVD it would have been perfect. I do recommend watching it but possibly not at the cinema, unless you’re an absolute Star Wars nut.