Cast:
Matt Lanter (Anakin Skywalker), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi / 4A-7 / Medical Droid), Dee Bradley Baker (Captain Rex / Commander Cody), Tom Kane (Yoda / The Narrator / Admiral Yularen), Nika Futterman (Asajj Ventress / TC-70), Ian Abercrombie (Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious), Corey Burton (Ziro the Hutt / General Loathsom / KRONOS-327), Catherine Taber (Padmé Amidala), Matthew Wood (Battle Droids), Kevin Michael Richardson (Jabba the Hutt), David Acord (Rotta the Huttlet), with Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), and Christopher Lee (Count Dooku) Directed by Dave Filoni.
Review:
Imagine, it is the year 2008, for a moment. All you've got with Star Wars is six theatrical movies (and a bunch of television that, what, twelve people cared about?)...and a new film coming out, one that's animated. Then you ask what the hell is The Clone Wars? Well, your immersion has expired, but I might as well run it down anyway. Well, there are two shows under that title, with the first coming around in 2003 via animated shorts that was developed by Genndy Tartakovsky with digital 2D animation (and select cel-shaded 3D). Then you've got the 2008 animated series (now with "The" in there because, well, why not?) that came around because of George Lucas. Lucas had thought about doing this as early as 2002, once stating that Star Wars was "a sandbox I love to play in"; Lucasfilm Animation was created in 2005*. Dave Filoni was among the team of people (described by The New York Times as "young Star Wars-obsessed artists") hired by Lucas. The Mt. Lebanon native had studied animation at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania prior to serving as a storyboard artist/assistant director on a variety of television such as King of the Hill and also directed/wrote a number of the first season episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The first season was pitched around to TV networks in 2007, but nobody initially went with it. Regardless of this, encouraged by the animation results he saw, Lucas decided to produce a theatrical Clone Wars movie, which only then got Warner Bros. interested in the show. Essentially, a couple of episodes were stitched into what you see for a 98-minute movie, with Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy being credited as writers for this film. Released in August 2008 (the first and so far, only, Star Wars movie released in that month) with a reported budget of $8.5 million, the movie was a light success with audiences. Two months later, Star Wars: The Clone Wars aired on Cartoon Network and ran for five years (before returning for stints on Netflix and Disney+ because, well, why not?).
It may actually be the most vacant Star Wars film of its ilk, managing to do the bare minimum in "space battles" and plot that probably does make one appreciate the live-action filmmaking of Attack of the Clones [2002] (especially when one realizes that the war is basically window dressing for one guy acquiring further power anyway). Things happen in a vacuum that probably are explored in televised form, but it all feels like the paint has rusted off a familiar format with little to really back it up. The animation was deliberately meant to be "a little bit of anime, a little bit of feature animation", one that basically was inspired by the Gerry Anderson Thunderbirds as opposed to say, Beowulf. With that understanding in mind, I can't stand the animation in the same way that I just couldn't stand Thunderbirds in all of its off-putting ways (but with no strings). There are moments when it looks like something you could create with a bunch of foam cups, honestly. The voice cast is in that odd spot where going from folks such as Hayden Christensen/Natalie Portman/Ewan McGregor can only go so far in a movie that doesn't really give them much to actually show off anything beyond the most perfunctory of things (this is a fetch quest movie to save a gassy aged soccer ball looking kid, after all, and I totally will never hear the phrase "Rotta the Hutt" ever again)...to contrast with the bit moments of Jackson and Lee (paycheck time). The banter between Lanter and Eckstein is, well, not exactly endearing, mainly because it feels like a workshopped encounter between siblings more than anything. I remember having basically one question about this film as a person who didn't see the show as either a teenager or an adult: what exactly is the point of Ahsoka Tano? Okay, sure, there were other questions (namely if the animation ever looked better), but really, what is the big fascination about this character that they have their own show nearly 20 years after this film? (going as someone who just watches the films, anyway, since this character never showed up physically in any of the movies, which suggests they were somehow important for the show, but not the main saga*). All I got from this film was a bunch of chuckles at the banter and that was about it. With such sluggish amusement all the way around, it only seems appropriate to call it a middle-of-road misfire, one that did not exceed my expectations in mediocrity.
Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.
*Incidentally, the only other feature film Lucasfilm Animation has been involved with came with Strange Magic seven years later.
*What the hell is The Mandalorian? Also, I fudged a bit, there is one Clone Wars "bit" I did see: "I am coming back from my ten minute ban.."
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