The Clone Wars Review

(Originally published on my now-defunct MySpace page in the summer of 2008)

First of all, let me get this out of the way: I genuinely enjoyed The Clone Wars.

I know what you're thinking: "Of course Terry liked Clone Wars. Geeky sci-fi fanboy would like a mushy cow patty if it could whistle the Star Wars theme while wielding a lightsaber."

Well, it's not really that simple. See, when I'm critiquing something -- any kind of art, really, and especially cinema -- I consider two questions:

1) What was the artist trying to accomplish, and

2) Was the artist successful in realizing that goal?

Remember how Lucas has always maintained that Star Wars was based on the old sci-fi movie serials from back in the day? Of course, being feature-length motion pictures, they were allowed to be more in-depth with their stories and characters in the films than those shortened episodic pieces allowed their creators to be (And who cared, really? It was World War Two. People went to the cinema for mindless escapism. But that's another topic.)

Well, it seems to me that the more condensed episodic nature of a show like "The Clone Wars" has allowed Lucas to take Star Wars back to its serialized roots. And, to that end, he's allowed himself to give the show a purer resemblance to its source material. Hence the grandiose voiceover at the beginning (reminiscent of the old cinematic newsreels from WWII, which are not at all out of place here) and the overly stylized adaptation of the original Star Wars score, more bombastic and playful than the original.

"The Clone Wars" is rife with everything that made Star Wars the phenomenon it was to me as a child. There's the brash hero, the reckless youth, the wise old master, and the feisty young woman, and the droids. In addition, they've thrown dozens of the clones into the mix who, as stated in other reviews, are the real darlings of the film. And let us never forget the fact that there are lightsabers. Lots and lots of lightsabers.

The clones' interaction with Ahsoka alone makes her character justifiable. She's like an orphaned youth that gets adopted by some Army unit in WWII. (Think Bucky with Captain America in the old Golden Age comic books.) They clearly get a kick out of having her around, and it's easy to see them (especially Rex) go from scepticism to adoration in their dealings with her.

Ahsoka herself is spunky, cute, cocky, at times badass ... and, sadly, cursed with a bit of bad dialog. But not too much. Just enough to remind us that this is, above all other things, a Star Wars film.

There is one thing, and only one thing, that pained me beyond measure: Jabba's uncle, Zero. Oh. My. GOD!!! The slug's overly-stylized, weaselly gangster voice made me cringe. I mean that. I visibly cringed every time this ridiculous character spoke. I'm sure he was based on some character from some Cagney film I've never seen, but that voice emerging from a giant Hutt body, sounding like the polar opposite of Jabba's deep, guttural utterings, was just ... wrong...

But the battle scenes were not. Nope. Not in the slightest. In fact, most of them were downright brutal ... much more so than those we glimpsed in "Revenge of the Sith." Those clones, man. They've got a hard life.

Here's my advice for those of you on the fence (or in flat-out refusal mode): Dismiss all pre-conceived notions as to what you imagined the Clone Wars show should be. (I never allow myself that sort of conceit. It's not my film, after all.) Pretend instead that you're going to the theater to investigate a curious and dubious animated feature film that has its roots heavily fixed in 40s cinema sci-fi nostalgia. Then pretend they gave it lightsabers. It's good fun. Seriously. I think, as a wise old (and dead) Jedi once said, "you'll find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." ;)

(And, yes, I'm likely going to fork over the cash to give it a second go.)