Monday, December 8, 2008

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - DVD Review

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (**) - Starring the voices of Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, Anthony Daniels, Ian Abercrombie and Tom Kane.
Directed by Dave Filoni.

This was originally intended as the first three episodes of the Cartoon Network TV show, but George Lucas loved it so much, it went to the big screen.

The cartoon is fine, but I can't imagine paying theater prices to see it. I do not consider this the seventh Star Wars movie. It has more in common with the two Ewok TV-movies than either trilogy.

It takes place between Episodes II & III, and before the rest of the episodes airing on Cartoon Network, so the only new thing we know we're going to get is the introduction of Anakin's new padawan, and Dooku's new apprentice. We also get to meet more of the Hutt family family. There's Jabba's baby son Stinky, and his gay uncle Zero. (And I don't mean subtle T.R. Knight gay; we're talking Liberace gay. Anyone dying for a drag-queeny Hutt with Truman Capote's voice? Your prayers are answered!)

The movie makes Lucas's world less and less magical. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." used to inspire dreams. Now it inspires toy lines and video-game spin-offs. And it's weird how it keeps building up this band-of-brothers feel about the clone troops that you know are just going to turn around and slaughter the Jedi.

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