The Clone Wars movie - post your reviews here

[PokerJedi]

Yeah Zero the Hutt was like something straight out of Mardi Gras.   

I was thinking more in the vein of Key West's Fantasy Fest...  I wonder how big his Celine Dion/Barbara Streisand/Cher CD collection is... {LOL}

This will be my best attempt at a spoiler-free review [clearing throat]...

For the most part, I liked this installment of our favorite on-going Sci-Fi fantasy saga.  My instincts tell me that most of these bad-mouthing reviewers were clearly expecting yet another summer blockbuster, when they really didn't understand the concept of this being essentially the 1st 3 episodes of the TV series.

The plot was conceived to be neatly resolved in the short time frame allowed (movie run time 1:38).  It's kid-friendly, TV-acceptable PG rating meant that most if not all the violence would be directed at battle droids & clones- no major character's going to suffer a violent on-screen death here...

The pros:
-Great large-scale battles (Christophsis was fantastic!)- this gives great promise for future battle campaigns to come
-The animation style is very acceptable, considering the target audience (I would like to see it smoother, though...)
-Great Sith!  Dooku & Ventress are as evil as ever...
-Great non-John Williams soundtrack.  All the music pieces fit their scenes nicely
-Good new characters.  I expect good things from Commander Rex...

The cons:
-The first thing rubbing me the wrong way is the interaction between Ahsoka & Anakin.  Even though I understand that she's supposed to (more or less) be a mirror to Anakin's youthful brashness & lack of restraint [most likely per Yoda's intent], it's their verbal jabs at one another that to my ears sound like running nails along a blackboard.  At one particular moment she verbally upstages him in front of Commander Rex {look- it's very bad form and bad karma to upstage a bride at her wedding... it's also not wise for a smart-a$$ padawan to ever do that to their master...).

-The only other thing is the badly cut/edited saber battle sequences.  Is it my imagination, or does those sequences seem like large amounts of frames per second were left on the cutting room floor?  The end result is a very choppy, non-linear action sequence devoid of smooth, fluid motion.  The scenes felt like  clash-clash-close-up for dialogue.... clash-clash-clash-close-up for dialogue...  It seems like these 3 episodes were rushed into production to get into the theaters on-time and harder to animate secenes like a saber battle suffered because of it.

Despite my two {seemingly} nit-picky rants above, I enjoyed it.  Dave Filoni & crew worked very hard to bring us this next chapter of the saga, and I lok forward to what the first season of this series has in store.

Tim the PokerJedi

p.s. *NEWS FLASH to Princess Leia* Your highness, an interview w/ Steve Sansweet on yesterday's "Attack of the Show" [on G4] revealed that first-season scripts for the live show are currently being reviewed and the first season is estimated to debut in the 2011/2012 Fall/Winter TV season.

[PRINCESS LEIA]

They keep changing the dates on me."Always in motion is the date of Star Wars programming ,and products." i.e.-Force Unleashed

[SAESEE TIIN]

I just saw it today.  I can't say it was great and can't say it was bad.  The two main battle scenes were great.  The thing I did enjoy besides the action was the plan on how to turn the hutt's against the jedi.  That just screamed sith scheme at me.  Zero the hutt was absolutely ridiculous, I'm not sure if I dislike him more than Jar Jar lol.  It basically comes down to if you are a Star Wars fan you'll tolerate it and like it, if not, it is a pretty mediocre movie.

[ASAJJ VENTRESS]

I'm not going to bother hiding the spoilers since the very topic should keep those who don't want them away.

I was rather underwhelmed.

Out of a possible two thumbs up, I give it a meh.  No thumbs up or down, very definitely somewhere in the middle.

I'm not going to talk about the animation style and say that it's a drawback, because frankly, there were so many other things I could gripe about.  Besides, I didn't think it was worth griping about.  I personally preferred the style of the first to CW seasons better, but it was different, not worse.

Call me elitist, but I was expecting a deeper story line here.  I was hoping for the characters to be truer to the canon.   I just can't see Aniken warming up to a snotnosed youngling so fast.  Jeez, I wanted to smack her half the time.  I'm wondering if he didn't get the idea of a Force Choke after the first time she called him Sky Guy. 

I was also hoping to see more of the characters.  Hopefully it's because this is being treated as a "first episode" and they'll get into the other characters later.

I'm not even going to accept the excuse of the writing being geared for a younger audience means that it had to be superficial.  After reading and selling literally thousands of young adult novels, I've come to expect more from my storytelling. 

My buddy and I discussed it afterwards, and I was trying, really trying to find excuses for it's mediocrity.

Now that being said, I am not saying it's a terrible movie.  I'm just saying that it's for the people who don't know about Star Wars, or were looking for action.  The fight scenes were good, Ventress got my attention (because I wanted more of her) and at least it's something.  Of course, I'm not so sure how eagerly I'm awaiting the TV show now.

[Nigtronics]

I feel ya Je-rel

I will hold out hope for the series to get rolling. There is going to be alot more of the other jedi in the series I saw something at target the other day that listed Plo Koon and several other jedi as "main characters"

What I didnt get is this....Why did Jabba ask the Jedi for help in finding his kid? I mean they were affraid to have he would join the speratists and he had control of the shipping lanes in the outer rim. Sounds to me he doesn't need anyones help?, he has as much power as he does in ROTJ. Why wouldnt he just hire someone or just use his henchmen to hunt them down? Maybe I missed something?

[WEDGE ANTILLES]

and why would his uncle be a drag queen..? 

[Nigtronics]

and why would his uncle be a drag queen..? 

Shouldn't his uncle be his Aunt?....No doubt the worst part.

[QUI-GON JINN]

nope,  hutts are androgynous...meaning they have no real sex,  as in males and females.  They multiply asexually.  However,  some of them may exhibit behaviour resembling males or females.  At least,  I think that's how it works with them,  anyway.

But even I don't understand the choice in the voice over for the character...I suppopse it was intended to be funny....like Jar-Jar....

[KI-ADI-MUNDI]

What I didnt get is this....Why did Jabba ask the Jedi for help in finding his kid? I mean they were affraid to have he would join the speratists and he had control of the shipping lanes in the outer rim. Sounds to me he doesn't need anyones help?, he has as much power as he does in ROTJ. Why wouldnt he just hire someone or just use his henchmen to hunt them down? Maybe I missed something?

As far as Jabba asking the Jedi for help to get his kid back...Lets see who would you ask.... a bunch of crooks and criminals who like you also kidnap people for profit or persuasion or the only group of people that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt will give your kid back to you when they find him...

[Nigtronics]

What I didnt get is this....Why did Jabba ask the Jedi for help in finding his kid? I mean they were affraid to have he would join the speratists and he had control of the shipping lanes in the outer rim. Sounds to me he doesn't need anyones help?, he has as much power as he does in ROTJ. Why wouldnt he just hire someone or just use his henchmen to hunt them down? Maybe I missed something?

As far as Jabba asking the Jedi for help to get his kid back...Lets see who would you ask.... a bunch of crooks and criminals who like you also kidnap people for profit or persuasion or the only group of people that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt will give your kid back to you when they find him...

Yeah I get what you are saying but I still think you have to consider this. Jabba is one of those crooks and criminals, he has built his empire on the backs of both. He has money to pay anyone to get his kid back safe. I am just suprised he would even bother asking the Jedi, I would have thought he would have way to much pride. I would like to think this...He does have people looking for the kid and days have went by and thing has turned up. So the Jedi contacted him and said look we need free pass in the outer rim for the war, if we locate your kid what do you say? Maybe that was the idea it just didnt play that way to me. More like "My kid is missing get Yoda on the phone, he is John Walsh of the Galaxy"

[Guskenobi]

I didn't really see a problem with the show...

Star wars meets shrek basically.

Its not like GL was going for a "realistic" animation  its supposed to look a little cartoonish

I agree its a kids movie and from what i seen the tv show should be pretty good.

I'm kinda excited to see where it is gonna go!

[Delta48]

nope,  hutts are androgynous...meaning they have no real sex,  as in males and females.  They multiply asexually.  However,  some of them may exhibit behaviour resembling males or females.  At least,  I think that's how it works with them,  anyway.

But even I don't understand the choice in the voice over for the character...I suppopse it was intended to be funny....like Jar-Jar....

wait you mean jarjars gay

[ASAJJ VENTRESS]

maybe it's me, but his voice reminds me of the park ranger in the OLD bugs bunny cartoons with the yogi bear look alike.

I don't think they were going for gay as much as silly.  (not that there's anything wrong with that.... - er sorry, seinfeld influence creeping in there   )

[M477AC]

I don't think they were going for gay

To some kids

Gay = Stupid

I think that's what Delta was aiming for...

[Delta48]

oh i thought he meant jarjar is weird gay but the voice is weird