Begun These Clone Wars Reviews Have
I kind of had this hope that if George Lucas was able to do away with human actors, who he clearly doesn’t much care for, that he might be able to put a decent movie together again. But I was sufficiently disappointed in the prequels that I haven’t really read any Clone Wars coverage and this certainly doesn’t sound very good:
A week ago I would have told you that I was just “uninterested” in seeing The Clone Wars. Today, after reading some trusted reviews, you would have to drag me kicking and screaming to see this abortion of a movie. From what I have read it is everything I have feared in a Star Wars film. The plot centers around Jabba the Hutt’s son, nicknamed Stinky (not making this up), getting kidnapped and Anakin Skywalker and his new, hip, cool, sassy, spunky, teenage female sidekick — who apparently refers to him as “Sky Guy” — try to rescue him. This addition is on the level of adding Poochie to The Itchy and Scratchy Show, only for real.
Ah, Stinky, we hardly knew ye.
36 Responses to “Begun These Clone Wars Reviews Have”
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August 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Yeah, once I heard that it was just three chained together episodes of the upcoming animated series, I didn’t even begin to entertain medium hopes. Though hearing of the gay, Truman Capote Hutt, has piqued my interest. There is no way that can be bad in any way.
These Bastards
August 19th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Has anyone noticed Anakin Skywalker looks like a character from Team America World Police?
August 19th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
My 5 year old step-son wanted to see it, so we went yesterday afternoon. It’s ok for what it is, but it’s best summed up as being a movie made for kids 5-12.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I’d rank it somewhere between “Phantom Menace” and a good episode of “Droids”.
The one thing I will say in “Clone Wars” favor is that Anakin Skywaker is a more engaging character in this movie than he ever was in “Attack of the Clones” of “Revenge of the Sith”.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Wow. You thought that if Lucas would only jettison actors he might create a decent movie!? I mean… wow. I understand how pop-culture conditions viewers to belittle actors (it’s a tradition that goes back centuries), but seriously - Lucas’ tone-deaf dialogue is only tolerable because of the aesthetic summersaults his actors do to make it so.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I went to see this with my 13 year old son, who turned to me five times to say how great it was. I think he loved it becasue it was almost non-stop fighting. The animation was very good although I prefered the anime style of the TV Clone Wars series.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
My 8-year-old son and his friend both loved this (my son has seen all of the movies and his friend none of them). It’s kind of dull, actually, but it doesn’t look too bad (the director also did Avatar, a much better cartoon). Totally a kid’s movie, which makes it a bit weird to see a mass-murderer-in-training as the hero. Is this a sign of the times, or just an indication of how totally a hack George Lucas is?
August 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I went into the movie as a fanboi with expectations as low as possible and found myself surprisingly entertained. It’s a cartoon Star Wars movie. Anybody who was expecting something as sophisticated as Battlestar Galactica was confused. I thought it worked quite well for what it was.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Yeah, yeah, it wasn’t great. But as Matthew mentions, it’s nice to see that Lucas has finally brought gays into Star Wars (C-3PO doesn’t count, he’s a driod). He’s tackled Asians (Yoda and the Trade Federation), Middle-Easterners (Watto), Islanders (Jar-Jar), Puppies (Ewoks), and late-70’s African-Americans (Lando!), and now, for all the kids to see, is a truly epic gay role-model, who’s name is phonetically indistinguishable from the empty set (Ziro).
August 19th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
For what it’s worth, the Tartakovsky animated series of the same name is excellent, with not a gay-stereotyped Hutt in sight.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I liked Poochie.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
The Cartoon Network series was excellent, only because Lucas didn’t have his sticky fingers directly in the dialog.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
The stills alone are warding me off — what did they do, decide it was cheaper to make the video game & then retro the film from the same animation?
August 19th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
From everything I can tell, this review is being completely unfair to abortions, which are (unlike George Lucas’ recent output) a net positive for society. A Star Wars character named “Stinky” brings back bad memories of “Itchy” from the
ChristmasLife Day Special.August 19th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
This addition is on the level of adding Poochie to The Itchy and Scratchy Show, only for real.
“Only for real.” Priceless.
August 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Yikes. So Count Dooku (a.k.a. the equally-subtle Count Tyrannus) kidnaps Stinky the Hutt? Do they hide out on a planet called Limburgia?
August 19th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
So sad to read these words.
There was a Young Adult series of Star Wars novels that had one called “Zorba the Hutt.” I always found that amusing. A relative of Stinky’s, no doubt.
August 19th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
2 words: Jar Jar
August 19th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Kelly: “Lucas’ tone-deaf dialogue is only tolerable because of the aesthetic summersaults his actors do to make it so.”
This is true. Carrie Fisher signed as script rewriter for the “Young Indiana Jones” series and basically got into curse-word screaming matches with Lucas over the dialog which, as a writer, she considered to be pathetic. “George, people do not talk this way!”
August 19th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I’m so tired of people bad mouthing the Star Wars prequels. Did you see the same movies I did? I absolutely loved them. The chorus at the end of The Phantom Menace when they’re fighting Darth Maul was among the best music of the series. The fight in the big arena in Attack of the Clones was fantastic, ending in a great Jedi shootout. And then finally seeing Yoda show his stuff?! I liked Darth Sidious in the final movie, both in the awesome opening sequence and in the later battle with Obi Wan.
Sure, little Anakin is played by a terrible actor and the teenage Anakin is little better, but I wouldn’t give an award for Luke’s whining in Star Wars either. Sure, Jar Jar is overly cute, but so were the Ewoks. Sure the political subplots get a little confusing, but so did some of the ins and outs of the original three.
Anyway, I think the new ones are as good as the old ones. They’re all fun movies with good action sequences and a glimpse at a larger universe of characters.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
The new ones are decidedly NOT as good as the old ones, for two reasons: Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford. The did, as Kelly rightly notes, superhuman things with Lucas’ dialogue, including sometimes rejecting it altogether (eg, Ford’s ad-lib “I know” to Fisher’s “I love you” in ESB).
Little Anakin is not terrible, and both Christensen and Portman are really excellent actors. See them in literally anything else. But neither really have the dry, slightly campy notes in their repertoire that Ford and Fisher (and McGregor) do — notes necessary to distract from the fact that the dialogue is shit. Now Hammill: that boy could not act.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Luke apologist here, I liked him in the originals, thought he did well with the farm-boy character. Even a touch of wry camp to boot. Otherwise I generally agree with you nolaboyd.
But the Episodes I-III, garbage, I’m sorry fletc3her.
August 20th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Funny someone mentioned Team America…apparently Lucas and one of his side kicks loved the classic ’60s show which was done with marionettes, and they based the movie on that.
What’s really interesting is how Lucas loved actors made out of wood. Coincidence? I think not.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:05 am
On dialogue: In the first movies Lucas realized he was bad at dialogue and hired someone to rework that part of the scripts. A good move he should have done for the latter three.
On this particular movie: I’ve seen the previews, and Anakin is still really annoying–how does anyone buy this sullen show-off punk as a jedi? Hated that aspect of the prequels, as well–this guy just screams “not at peace with the force, not reliable, need’s major reprogramming” and the idea that all the cool (temperment-wise) Jedis have no serious doubts about teen-to-adult Anakin beggars belief. They have doubts when he’s a pleasant 8 year old, but not when he’s a 16-year old punk?
I won’t see the actual movie, but my seven-year-old will next week. I confidently predict his review will be “It was cool. Kapwing! Szwoooj, szwooj, pow!” If you’re looking for cartoon light sabers, it should satisfy.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:13 am
My two cents on ranking the films:
TESB > RotS > AotC > RotJ > ANH > TPM
Haven’t seen The Clone Wars yet, but since it is (a) expressly aimed at kids, and (b) a distillation of episodes of a TV show, my expectations will be calibrated accordingly.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
The snippets I saw - played during commercials of a recent Star Wars showing on some channel - made it completely unclear how there was going to be any new plot to the story than previous movies. In fact, I honestly wasn’t sure if this was just an animation version of one of the previous movies. Sounds like I made the right decision by ignoring this.
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