Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Dave Filoni, 2008)
The first thing you need to know is that this is not a proper movie. It’s three episodes of an animated TV show strung together and released in the cinemas.
The second thing you need to know is that this is going to get (and has already received) some terrible reviews. Reading the first reviews from the usual geeky corners of the internet, like Harry Knowles’ rant or Alexandra Du Pont’s similarly disillusioned but much better written dismissal, you see these Star Wars nerds exorcising some demons and finally going to town on a Star Wars film. Even amongst all the hate for the prequels, there was always an undercurrent of indulgence as fans went looking for the good things. A similarly forgiving attitude was taken to the first animated Star Wars series by Genndy Tartakovsky (confusingly, also called Clone Wars, only without a leading “The”), which was generally well received by Star Wars nerds, who appreciated its emphasis on action and adventure. Now, though, by taking what is basically a CG-revamp of Tartakovsky’s take and having the temerity to put it on the big screen, it’s like Lucasfilm has given a green light to expressions of completely unabashed fan hatred. Those who respected Lucas’ past achievements, or Tartakovsky’s qualified success with a difficult format, are not going to feel any allegiance to Dave Filoni’s copy of a copy. In this context, the hate Star Wars: The Clone Wars is going to receive is perfectly understandable.
The thing is, it’s not actually that bad, although I don’t want to over-praise it either (and the slightest hint of a positive adjective risks doing so). It doesn’t really belong in cinemas, but if this had been released only as a TV show, where people could discover it without the expectations that a darkened theatre brings, I think it would have been about as well received as Tartakovsky’s series. It essentially provides much the same pleasures that Taratakovsky’s series brought: basically a series of big battles, for all those who complained that there wasn’t enough of that sort of thing in the prequel trilogy. (Lucas has promised one hundred 22 minute episodes of this, so you’ll certainly get your fill of CG laser battles by the time the series is done). The Clone Wars manages to look pretty spectacular by serving up a lot of what computer animation can do very well on a small budget (spaceships and robots) and virtually nothing of what it can’t do cheaply (character animation). Judging by this first “movie” it doesn’t have the poetry that highlighted the best moments of Tartakovsky’s series, but then we’re only seeing a small sample. And for one brief sequence – a battle fought on a vertical cliff face – it shows the kind of flair and imagination that you wish had found their way into more of the “real” prequel movies.
There’s also a lot of extremely stiff and awkward dialogue, but it’s neither better nor worse than what Lucas gave us in the prequels: it’s just different. Anakin Skywalker is paired up with an irritatingly precocious apprentice, and I think audiences will split between those who hate the pair’s appallingly written banter and those who at least appreciate that the writers – unlike Lucas in Episodes I and II – actually tried to provide some character interplay. And there are some weird choices, most notably the character of Ziro the Hutt, who is – wait for this – Jabba the Hutt’s gay tattooed cross-dressing southern-accented uncle. No, I did not make that up, and if anything, it’s weirder than it sounds. But there’s a straightforwardness to the plot (despite the episodic structure it takes from being stitched together TV episodes) that is welcome, and which at times means the film feels closer in tone to the original trilogy than the prequels did. It’s a bit rich for Harry Knowles, who wrote notoriously indulgent reviews of Episodes I and II, to suddenly decide that nicknaming Jabba’s son “stinky” is a bridge too far. What it does feel like, though, is the end: the decisive moment where Star Wars went from a big-screen phenomenon with wide appeal to a never-ending television franchise that only fans really care about.
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
