Serving as the curtain raiser to the upcoming television series, ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ is the latest attempt to breathe life into the iconic science-fiction franchise. I’ve been a Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember, and I remember loving the 2003 Clone Wars miniseries, but I was still sceptical about this film. Still, how bad can a Star Wars film be?
Even when compared to Episodes I and II of the Star Wars saga, The Clone Wars has an incredibly weak plot. Everything in the film, from the introduction of Anakin Skywalker’s new Padawan to the elaborate kidnapping of Jabba the Hutt’s son, feels like it has been badly pieced together from child’s fan fiction. Established fan favourites such as Yoda and Mace Windu barely feature, instead being replaced by undeveloped, high pitched newcomers that almost made me miss Jar Jar Binks. Almost. All this combined with the silly twisting and turning of the plot, results in arguably the worst Star Wars film of all time. And you thought Pod Racing was bad.
The poor storyline isn’t helped at all by the incredibly irritating characters. I always thought that pre-respirator Skywalker was a whiney little bitch and his repetitive, predictable banter with his cocky, high pitched Padawan Ahsoka only helped to reinforce that belief. They even managed to make great characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jabba the Hutt unbearably annoying, which even by George Lucas’s current standards is an incredible feat. The majority of the voice acting is so wooden and dull that I’m convinced that the entire script was written on hundred dollar bills, just to remind the cast of the sole reason why they were actually in the recording studio, they just sound that passionless and uninterested.
It’s a bit harsh to focus my rant on the voice acting because, to be fair, it does the animation justice. The standard of CGI in films is ridiculously high in the current box office, and the animation in The Clone Wars falls a long way short of those standards. The art style, which was supposed to resemble anime, resulted in choppy, robotic animation. What particularly annoyed me about the animation was that the style used in the Clone Wars miniseries was abandoned, and I was a massive fan of that style. Obviously that is just personal taste, but I don’t understand why a proven, popular style was trashed.
The redeeming factor of the film was the musical score. A decent blend of new music and the excellent original Star Wars themes form a very good soundtrack, but it’s still not enough for me to recommend the film to anyone.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is the disappointment of the summer. After the success of Tartakovsky’s series, I expected this film to deliver, but it falls way short of the mark. It feels like the production team took every negative comment anyone has ever made about the new trilogy, and crammed it all into two hours of badly animated, childish trash. Nice going, George.
2/5
If I haven’t put you off the film, see the trailer here.
1 comment:
Wow,was it that bad?
I'm disappointed in you George.
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