Shawn's Star Wars: Clone Wars Review

2008 Movie #103 - Star Wars: Clone Wars

I didn't even realize until now how stupid it is to have the word "wars" show up twice in a four word title. Say that outloud, it sounds retarded. It makes sense though because the whole movie is just as stupid as that title.

I'll go on record now and say that while I definitely am a fan of the original trilogy, I'm not a die hard Star Wars fan in any form. I don't like a single entry in the new trilogy. I found each of them to be frankly dull and a pale imitation of the original movies. Looking back at them now, they seem like wonderful memories compared to this beast.

You know you're in for trouble right away when after the familiar "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" message, it's not followed by the scrolling text. Instead we get this baffling voice over that kicks in. It's very jarring and you're almost shocked that it has happened. You wonder how on earth they could make a decision that fucking stupid. You will be wondering that same thought for the movie's entire running time.

Why was this movie made? It's that simple, why the fuck was this movie ever released? Even the Star Wars fans didn't want to see this one. This movie is a complete middle finger to anyone who enjoyed any of the other Star Wars movies. The prequels started to venture a little more into child territory (Phantom Menace especially) but this one just takes things way too fucking far. There is virtually nothing in this movie for adults to enjoy.

The film makes many attempts at humour and each one of them fails and fails spectacularily. When the running joke has a character calling Anakin "Skyguy" and another calling Jabba the Hutt's son Stinky, you know you're in for a shitstorm. Even for a kids movie this one is painfully unfunny. At points it's just borderline embarrassing.

The storyline is so stupid you can't really believe that's all there is to it. The entire movie is basically Anakin and his annoying sidekick trying to get Jabba's son back for him in order to entail safe passage through his territory or something. Meanwhile Count Dooku has convinced Jabba the Jedi are actually the enemy and are holding the son hostage. That's pretty much it. The whole movie focuses on a little Jabba named Stinky. It's amazing this was made into a movie at all, let alone with the Star Wars brand in it's title.

The voice acting is nothing short of terrible. The main girl is just beyond irritating and the person doing Anakin's voice is almost as bad as Hayden was in the live action versions. Obi Wan just sounds pompous and you will be sick of listening to him talk halfway through his first sentence, if not even sooner. Then there is Jabba's cousin or brother or whatever who as far as I can tell is a transvestite alien version of Truman Capote. That character has to be one of the most bizarre creations I've seen in a while. Don't take that as a good thing though. I mostly mean bizarre as in "what the fuck were they ever thinking with this?"

The animation is decent, with some of the battle scenes actually looking pretty good. The character models however are bland and stiff and are boring to look at. Overall that straight to DVD Little Mermaid sequel had better looking animation than this, which is not good when you're Star Wars and known for great looking cinema.

I'm aware it's supposed to be the lead-in for a TV show in the fall which will have similar animation, therefore the animation level won't be terribly high. That just begs the question though, why even bother putting this piece of shit in theatres? Why not just make it the 2 hour premiere of the show and save people the trouble? Especially the people who have to watch every movie that comes out this year. Were you even thinking about those poor souls?

It's almost amazing to watch this movie and take in all the stupid decisions and overall poor quality on display. Fucking Space Chimps was better than this. This one gets one of the lowest reviews I've given out in quite some time. Aside from Disaster Movie, which I could still write a shit ton more about.

.5 / 5