Star Wars: The Clone Wars Review
We’ve finished reviewing the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. So today we’re reviewing the only theatrically released animated Star Wars films, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. This is an interesting one because of how it was made and the purpose of it. It’s also a film that I have a lot of nostalgia for. What do I think about this movie? Is it any good? Let’s talk about it!
The Review
So as I just mentioned this is a film that I have a lot of nostalgia for. If you don’t know the tv show, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is one of those shows that defined my childhood. I don’t know if I’ve seen every single episode but I’ve seen dozens of them several times. I’ve watched this movie several times over the years, mainly when I was younger. I hadn’t rewatched this movie in several years so I wasn’t sure how well this movie would hold up. To be fair, I’m more positive about this movie than most because of that nostalgia factor. But I can still acknowledge the film’s faults and you easily see them. If you don’t know the backstory of this movie, this originally wasn’t going to happen. George Lucas saw the first three episodes of the tv show, liked them, and talked to Dave Filoni about making them into a movie. So this movie is the original three episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Episode one of the actual show was intended to be episode four.
When you watch the movie it’s very clear that this movie is three episodes, about 30 minutes long that are strung together to make a movie. Every 25-30 minutes there’s some sort of talk between two characters reflecting on what they’ve learned, so you can easily tell when an episode ends and when a new one begins. It makes for a clunky movie to watch because act one has a very different plot and feel then acts two and three. Act one is basically this big battle on his planet with Anakin, Obi-Wan and some clones. Then act two and three are about Anakin and Ahsoka recusing Jabba’s son and returning him, Obi-Wan is trying to uncover this larger Sith plot, and Count Dooku is trying to turn the Jedi against Jabba. Then randomly Padme shows up about 50 minutes into the movie and has her own subplot that feels very random and out of place. But everything that’s in act one specifically the conflict isn’t at all really tied into the plot with Jabba. The action sequence at the beginning isn’t bad, it’s a cool sequence. It’s fun to see Jedi doing their thing, specifically Anakin and Obi-Wan. But it has a similar problem to Return of the Jedi. Where both movies have this fun exciting first act that functions as a prologue but doesn’t really tie into the main plot of the film. Coincidentally, both films also have Jabba the Hutt in them. I think this is easily the clunkiest of the Star Wars movies, simply because it wasn’t intended to be a movie. It was intended to be three episodes of a tv show that George Lucas strung together to make a movie, promote the tv show, and sell toys.
The other kind of fun thing to talk about here is this was the Star Wars project that introduced Ahsoka. Ahsoka is an interesting character because between The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels, and then of course her own show played by Rosario Dawson, she’s grown into being this fan favorite character. I’d imagine that a lot of Star Wars fans would have her in their top 10 favorite Star Wars characters. Because The Clone Wars, both the movie and tv show were so formative in my childhood. She’s this very important character in a way that Luke Skywalker and Han Solo aren’t despite those being much more iconic and better Star Wars characters. Watching this movie, she was a lot more irritating than I remember. Her and Anakin have always had this quippy banter, very much this master and padawan dynamic. Here, she’s written to be annoying and not really listening to directions. She’s not very well written in this movie. She can be very irritating at points and you want her to listen and respect Anakin more. She was of course being much better written as the show went along and they understood better what to do with her, but in this movie she’s not written the best. She was one of the more annoying aspects of the film and I wish they found a way to write her better.
I guess one final thing to talk about here but, it’s interesting watching this movie upon rewatch after watching the prequels. This movie is the start of the Clone Wars, so we’re seeing this very important window of time in the Star Wars universe before everything collapses with Revenge of the Sith. Seeing these moments of Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting with each other and working together is interesting and I like those moments because the audience knows that we don’t get a lot of the moving forward because of Revenge of the Sith. With us getting the Ahsoka tv show, it means that it provides the groundwork for who Ahsoka would become in the later seasons and other tv shows. This movie isn’t great, it’s not top tier Star Wars but there is this important factor to it because of the point in time in which it takes place within the Star Wars universe.
Final Thoughts: This is an interesting movie to watch and review because it’s so different from other Star Wars movies. Because it was designed as three TV show episodes, it lacks the cinematic feel and scope of the other theatrically released Star Wars films. That doesn’t make the movie bad but it is not as good as it could be. If George Lucas and Dave Filoni took this movie and gave it the actual movie budget and time it needed then this could’ve been a very solid Star Wars movie.
The Score: 7.8/10 (C+)
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