Star Wars: The Clone Wars

STAR WARS is probably the most influential sci-fi movie (franchise) ever. It is what inspired a whole generation of predominantly young men to become filmmakers, writers and artists. It has had a lasting effect on the film industry with the innovative technology developed by George Lucas and his team in the pursuit of realising Lucas’s vision. In spite of the rather mediocre prequel trilogy the STAR WARS films still have, literally, legions of fans.

One of the more interesting sidelines of Lucas’s universe is the Star Wars Tales comics from Dark Horse, where professional fans get to tell stories that range from quite dark to downright silly, many illustrated in a highly stylised fashion with a leaning towards manga. It made sense for Lucasfilm to go down the animation route, which they did with the Clone Wars TV series, which got rave reviews for the quality of the stories and animation.

Building on that success comes STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS animated feature film. Instead of continuing with 2D line animation Lucasfilm have opted for 3D CG, while trying to retain the style of the TV cartoon and it doesn’t always work. These highly stylised, angular characters work much better in 2D than they do in 3D, Pixar’s THE INCREDIBLES being an exception – but Pixar are in a league of their own.

The story itself takes place between Episodes II and III, the Jedi Knights, with the help of the clone army are battling Count Dooku and the relentless droid army. In order to stop the Republic’s trade routes Dooku has Jabba the Hutt’s son kidnapped and it is up to Anakin Skywalker and young Padawan Ahsoka Tano to rescue the Huttlet in order to prevent further war.

Surprisingly, the animation is not great, especially as the prequels were mostly animations with human actors composited in. I did find myself paying a bit too much attention to texturing and character movement rather than to what was actually happening on screen, but this was during the slower parts of the movie. The action sequences, for the most part, move along at a cracking pace and don’t leave much time for scrutiny. And there is plenty of action, which seemed to enthral the younger members of the preview audience, but to me it did feel a lot longer than its 98 minutes.