"Shall we continue..."
As some of you may know, I created quite a stir in the threads about this film. I just saw it and now I'm going to review it. Have fun guys.
The Clone Wars is like an intriguing Saturday morning cartoon show, then again, this film was a promotion/premier for the 30 episode TV series that will be coming out this fall. This will be a new challenge for me. I will rate this as both a film and a TV show, though I have never done a review for the latter.
As a filmed presentation, it started quirky at best, with highly enthusiastic narration, rather than a scrolling introduction that a Star Wars fan would expect. The dialog was good is some parts, others not, though I was surprised to see that Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Daniels, and Christoper Lee actually contributed their voices to their characters in this animated version. All the voices sounded much like the original actors, with the exception of padme (whose role is teeny tiny).
The animation, not as terrible as I imagined. If anything, I was surprised that this film had a PG rating. I lost track of the body count in the first 10 minutes. It was also funnier than I imagined. Some of the comments that the infantry droids said should have been used in the live action films. That was great.
As a film, it's not one you would want to see a second time, but as a TV show, it was actually pretty good. Tons of fighting, explosions, a new character with an underhand saber fighting style. Yeah...it works for TV.
The most impressive thing about this film was how the scene transitions were much like the live action films. John Williams score was not here of course, but it was engaging, and it never repeated itself, unlike what all TV cartoon shows do. Granted, it ended inconclusively. Like "there's gotta be more than that!" well...I guess we'll see more of it on the small screen.
Shall we continue...? I think so. In a nutshell, if you go this with the mindset of watching a spiffy TV cartoon show, you won't be disappointed. A lot of bad reviews have come to this film because it was graded "as a film". Can't really blame them...but it's a heck of a lot better than those Pokemon movies...wow! Or Batman, Mask of the Phantasm...well...about equal to that one.
3 stars as a Film, 4.5 stars as a TV show.
The true Star Wars enthusiasts will get a kick out of this installment, but don't expect to be wowed like the live action films. Expect something on the level of Super Friends or Thundercats. This will be the best animated series to come to TV in many years...but let's not push another theater release.
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