Star Wars: Clone Wars. Out today. (*****5/10)
I am a moderate Star Wars nerd. In the sense that I probably know more about the series than the average person, but that comes more as a result of being a film buff than anything else. I have friends who can tell me the names of every character, including those who are not named in the movies themselves but rather in the credits only. I am not one of those people. I took the kids out to see the premiere of the new Star Wars: Clone Wars, and I was amazed that they knew the names of more characters than I did. It turns out that a lot of that comes from a video game called Lego Star Wars. This is how they learn the Star Wars story.
I am, however, enough of a Star Wars nerd to realize that Star Wars: Clone Wars is the title that should have been chosen for that dreadful second installment in the series, the sickeningly-named Attack of the Clones. I really think the title of that movie actually made the whole film seem worse than it actually was. And it was already pretty bad, (until Yoda threw down). This new animated movie IS better, but that isn’t saying much. This one takes place at the time of the Clone Wars (obviously), and gives the clones names and personalities. In this case Rex is the leader of the clones who are working with Annakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Also new is Ahsoka, Annakin’s “padawan” learner. She is basically his apprentice, following him around and learning the ways of the Jedi. The stage is set for some character development, when Yoda mentions that Annakin has managed well with his padawan, it might be tough for him to let her go later. But that, we can only assume, will be left for a future episode in this animated series. Because nothing of that nature happens in this one. In fact, almost nothing happens in this one. It is merely an endless series of battles between droid armies and clone armies. There are several cool battle scenes, including one that is vertical, up the side of a cliff, but after a while we want story.
Basically, the first 80 minutes of the movie are these battles, around a strange story. Jabba The Hut’s son has been kidnapped by the evil Count Dooku. The Jedi have been enlisted to bring the Hut kid back unharmed, but Dooku is really setting them up so that Jabba thinks it was in fact the Jedi who kidnapped his son. At stake are a bunch of shipping lanes controlled by Jabba, lanes which could turn the balance of the battle in the favour of either the droids or the clones. Dooku has his preferred assassin tracking the Jedi, a sinister female agent named Ventress. She shows up a few times, then goes away, and proves to be a fairly useless character.
Finally, in the last 15 minutes of the film, the story begins. Padme Amydala shows up - remember her? Annakin’s lover and the future mother of Luke and Leia? She attempts to broker a deal with Jabba through his uncle who lives in the city. In doing so, she uncovers the massive conspiracy behind the Hut kidnapping, and the story resolves itself in fifteen minutes. With more battles. In the end, this is really a Star Wars movie made for kids, in that the story line is incredibly simplistic and the characters are completely two-dimensional. (Ironic, for an animated 3D movie, eh?) And because we, the Star Wars audience, are already so familiar with these characters (Annakin, Obi-Wan, Dooku, Jabba The Hut), we know them as more than two-dimensional already.
So it becomes obnoxious when Annakin has no layers. He’s not the young innocent Jedi, he isn’t the guy who’s going to turn into Darth Vader, he’s just the headstrong hero of an action movie. That’s it. For a story that is already so familiar to all of us, filling in the blanks between Episode II and Episode III ought to involve more than a silly story about Jabba The Hut and his gross young son. And it really should be more than just a 95-minute battle.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:55 am
This was a totally entertaining movie..real 3d movie indeed..