Star Wars: The Clone Wars

A few days ago, in a movie theater roughly ten minutes from the University of Hartford campus, I sat down for exactly 98 minutes in front of said movie. That amount of time later, I stood up, wandered outside, and proceeded to mosey around and try to figure out exactly what had just happened.

Without trying to give away too much of the plot, I’m going to try to break it all down for you. “The Clone Wars” began in a decidedly non-star-wars like fashion. Without sounding too much like a Star Wars nerd myself, I have to admit starting up the movie without the scrolling text and instead having some guy that sounds a lot like the movie-theater-trailer voice man (RIP) doing some kind of unnecessary voice-over seemed almost unholy, at the very least unconventional. Here I sit, expecting the tried and true scrolling text helping me catch up on roughly ten years in the life of the main characters, and instead I’m brought into what almost looks like an ad to join the army from the original “Starship Troopers” movie. Ships flying everywhere, things blowing up, some kind of mechanical octopus-like thing coming and eating another ship, all while the same movie trailer voiced man was yelling about Jabba the Hutt’s son being kidnapped and the Jedi agreeing to help save him.

That’s right. Jabba the Hutt, who might as well be a slug dropped in HGH, somehow managed to produce offspring that was never mentioned in any of the other Star Wars movies. But fine, I can even buy this, maybe the guy had some fling off-world and he started the illegal trading to afford the child support, who knows. Regardless, the next scene is where my jaw dropped.

Anakin and Obi-Wan are on a planet they had recently freed from the bad guy Seperatists, (remember in Episode III, when Anakin kills Count Dooku on the ship in front of the Emperor? He was the guy in control of the separatists and the droid army and all of that. This movie takes place before that but after Episode II.) So, expecting troops and provisions and the like to help defend against the remaining baddies, a ship comes down with – you guessed it – one nine year old girl! Eventually we find out that she was a new Padawan Apprentice assigned to not Obi Wan, who had applied for the job, but the soon-to-be genocidal madman Anakin Skywalker. The future destroyer-of-worlds ultimate bad guy now has to deal with a tagalong in the form of a slightly irritating little girl. Right away, she justifies the dull pain in my forehead by nicknaming Anakin Skywalker “Sky-guy”, (you better believe the clone troops get a chuckle out of that) although they eventually bond in the end. (Yay!)

The rest of the movie can be summed up by mentioning a few key scenes, for example when Obi Wan and the murderous Separatist general decide to meet and dish about terms of surrender over what looks kind of like coffee. Or maybe later when Obi Wan meets up with Jabba and listens to the big brown anti-snail call his son his little “punkymuffin”. After hearing so many gems like this, it was difficult not to run out of the theatre right then and there.

So why the confusion about the movie? You might ask. Why not just tear up the ticket stubs, demand that the ticket payment be cancelled from your credit card and move on with your life? Not that easy, I would reply with a disgusted sigh. Although this movie deviates from the Star Wars norm, and it sure wouldn’t be ranked up there with any of the other top-grossing films birthed out of George Lucas’ brain, I have to admit it did exactly what it set out to do.

No more are the Star Wars films going to be focused on deep character development, twisting plot lines, odd romances (“you’re my sister?!” “You’re a wookie?!!?!”) and how exactly they fit James Earl Jones into that skinny black metal suit. Readers, we are witnessing the end of an era. The transition to the kids movie. It’s animated, it doesn’t really follow some of the facts set forth by the original movies, and for the most part morals are set, cut and dry dark side vs. light side. Whether it’s because of all of the criticism he received for episodes I-III so he went in another direction, or because he knows all he has to do is make a movie and instantly he gets another hundred bajillion dollars, George Lucas is turning Star Wars kid-friendly.

This film, although certainly a let-down for the intensely jaded Star Wars fan, is entertaining and stays in the “kids movie basepath” well, with its flashy graphics, easy storyline, and bright and shiny action. Definitely a precursor to a possible show on the WB or something to that end. Worth seeing with a little brother or sister, and in the end I grudgingly give it a 7/10.