‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ is the Funniest Star Wars Yet
-----The latest big screen entry into the Star Wars mythos comes not from the saga, but from an animated spin off television show. Taking place during the already thoroughly explored Clone Wars, there wasn’t very much hype for this animated entry. It is Star Wars though; it couldn’t be bad…could it?
-----Taking place between the second and third live action episodes, ‘Clone Wars’ follows the story of Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano. As their egos clash and they find themselves struggling with their teamwork, they start to learn of shady activities, courtesy Jabba the Hutt. As they try to expose these crimes, Count Dooku and the deadly Asajj Ventress have other plans for our young Jedi duo.
-----The voice acting is hilarious. It’s rarely intentionally humorous, but definitely funny. Matt Lanter is adequate as Anakin, but Ashley Eckstein, playing his cocky sidekick, is not. She hjas terrible line delivery, with minimal inflection, not mention ridiculous lines for both her and Anakin. James Arnold Taylor, however, is the truly terrible performance. In the role of Obi-Wan, he has the most monotonous voice you may have ever herd. He would say, “look at those flowers” and, “we’re about to die” in the same exact tone. It comes to the point where you’re just erupting with laughter every time he comes on screen. In their defense, they have little to nothing to work with. Not to mention the many droids in the film, who, despite being robots, crack continuous slapstick jokes. This was funny too, but often for the wrong reasons. When did droids get personalities?
-----The film’s major downfall comes in exploiting all of the worst parts of the live action Star Wars films. Whenever someone parodies Star Wars, they do exactly what this movie did. They make Obi-Wan monotonous, the droids goofy, the characters melodramatic, etc. Not mention very choppy animation. They should have chosen to stay with the stylish 2D from the original Cartoon Network shorts, or gone full out CG. The mesh of styles looks terrible, and every fight scene is as boxy and boring as if it weren’t even moving. It’s like picture after picture, not motion. The film also fails in the area of plot. It’s such an insignificant and pointless story you’ll wander why it was ever told. They could have explored some of the deeper mythos of Star Wars, but instead stuck to killing time in a story we’ve already seen concluded in live action. The musical score too, doesn’t even effectively recall upon the classic Star Wars standard.
-----This was probably the least hyped mainstream Star Wars film ever made, and for a reason. Acting as a 90 minute advertisement for the TV show of the same name, ‘Clone Wars’ is nothing more than three episodes meshed together. And while I’m sure I would have been more forgiving if I saw it on TV, I certainly won’t be tuning in for this show. The bottom line is if you’re willing to spend $7 to laugh at how ridiculous this movie is, you should see it. However, I you’re like me, and actually care about the Star Wars mythos, you’ll want to rid your mind of this film’s existence…although you’d probably still laugh during it, and for that I give it entertainment props.
