Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Director:

Dave Filoni

Writers:

Henry Gilroy (written by) &
Steven Melching (written by) ...

Release Date:

15 August 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

As the Clone Wars sweep through the galaxy, the heroic Jedi Knights struggle to maintain order and restore peace...

Plot Keywords:

Jedi | Star Wars | Apprentice | Sequel | Good Versus Evil

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Matt Lanter	...	Anakin Skywalker (voice)
Ashley Eckstein	...	Ahsoka Tano (voice)
James Arnold Taylor	...	Obi-Wan Kenobi / 4-A7 / Medical Droid (voice)
Dee Bradley Baker	...	Clone Troopers / Captain Rex / Cody (voice)
Tom Kane	...	Yoda / Narrator / Admiral Yularen (voice)
Nika Futterman	...	Asajj Ventress / Tee-C-Seventy (voice)
Ian Abercrombie	...	Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious (voice)
Corey Burton	...	General Loathsom / Ziro the Hutt / Kronos-327 (voice)
Catherine Taber	...	Padmé Amidala (voice)
Matthew Wood	...	Battle Droids (voice)
Kevin Michael Richardson	...	Jabba the Hutt (voice)
David Acord	...	Rotta the Huttlet (voice)
Samuel L. Jackson	...	Mace Windu (voice)
Anthony Daniels	...	C-3PO (voice)
Christopher Lee	...	Count Dooku (voice)

MPAA:

Rated PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language and momentary smoking.

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:PG (certificate #44445) | Finland:K-7 | UK:PG | Ireland:PG | Australia:PG | Netherlands:6 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:All | Brazil:Livre | Portugal:M/6 | Hong Kong:I | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | Malaysia:U | Sweden:7 | Philippines:G (MTRCB) | New Zealand:PG | Spain:7 | Peru:PT | Argentina:Atp | Germany:12 | Mexico:A

Company:

CGCG

Trivia:

The white headdress and traveling cloak Padme wears while visiting Ziro the Hutt was originally designed for Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) but never used on screen. Several behind the scenes pictures from the production in which Natalie Portman is seen wearing the headgear were released at the time.

Quotes:

Ahsoka Tano: You've got that 'we're in trouble' look.
Anakin Skywalker: There's a look?
Ahsoka Tano: You can't miss it.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Big Bang Theory: The Lizard-Spock Expansion (#2.8)" (2008)

Mixed feelings about the movie.

Fan buzz has been very negative for this movie. Myself, I have tried to remain positive. But even I, as a very lenient movie watcher has to admit that this really wasn't great. It's not on par with any of the other six movies of the franchise. It wasn't all bad though, and I will tell you what was good and bad about it now.

The animation was a real mixed bag. It had great backgrounds that looked almost like they were taken right out of the movies, then you have these very poorly designed characters. As much as I liked most of the designs on everything but the characters themselves, I couldn't help looking at the animation like a beautiful painting with poo smeared in some spots. You can look at the painting, but it's hard to enjoy it when you can't take your eyes off the poo. It takes away from the potentially awesome animation. They look plastic and stiff, and the facial expressions and lip syncing look like something from a Playstation game from 1999. The voice acting was pretty bad as well, although Christopher Lee did and alright job, and Matt Lanter had a lot more emotion in his voice acting than Hayden had in the entire role.

The dialogue was about as bad as can be. The exchanges between Anakin and his apprentice were all cliché and boring. Not to mention almost all the droids were like copies of Jar Jar Binks. A main problem was that I thought this would focus more on action than it did. That's why I felt all that lame childish stuff wouldn't matter. But it was mostly discussing the problems and treaties and stuff, which was the last thing this movie needed. There was a fair bit of action, but even when they were having awesome lightsaber duals, they felt the need to stop every 4 seconds and talk about stuff that I didn't need to hear, such as why they were having the battle. I wanted to see lightsaber duals on a level that they couldn't manage in a live action movie, and they did not deliver in this way. A lot of the other action was pretty good though, some being very fast moving and intense.

The storyline really didn't consist of much.... just people trying to get Jabba the Hutt on their side, basically. This is not a movie that I think many old Star Wars fans will enjoy, but it may be a movie that helps introduce new people to the franchise, which is always a good thing. This is definitely a movie for the younger audiences, not older people and film critics. It basically just felt like a long TV Show episode, which is basically all it was. It was good for a TV episode, but not for a movie. If the action is as good in the series as it was in the movie (and hopefully there will be more), then I will be looking forward to it. But if they release another movie that looks to be at this level, I will have to wait until DVD.