by emeGoji » Sat Aug 16, 2008 12:20 am
My brother and I caught The Clone Wars earlier today. After reflecting on it for a couple of hours, I found it to be an enjoyable experience with its fair share of annoyances that I'm sure will be dealt with in the inevitable fan edit. Anyway, let's hit its weaknesses first.
The opening. People have hit on this already, but it demands to be addressed. Rather than the explosive punch you in the face opening titles accompanied by the most iconic suite in film history, we're treated to an off key bastardization accompanied by The Clone Wars main title that amounts to not much more than a pathetic whimper. And then rather than an opening story scrawl, we're subjected to a cheesy propaganda video that was seemingly put together to keep the ADD stricken 10-year-olds attention. I couldn't come up with a more consistently cringe inducing 5 minutes of Star Wars if I tried.
The music. The lack of John Williams was staggering. I really hope Lucas doesn't cheap out on the live action Star Wars TV series coming up. It needs John Williams badly.
The action, and action, and more action, and even more action, etc. Seriously, I know it's supposed to be a war, and perhaps not meant to be viewed in one sitting, but give me a damn breather! During the very prolonged clone trooper battle sequences, my brain started to feel numb and I couldn't help wondering how much longer before the film ends. Not a good thing to find oneself thinking when you've paid good money to watch a movie. And the battles just weren't all that interesting. How am I supposed to feel anything but apathy when soulless droids are fighting clones of a dead man (who were bred to kill, die, and betray their commanding officers) to the death?
I've seen this before. Um, hey George. I can't think of a more redundant idea than making another Clone Wars TV series. Do we need this? Thousands of years worth of really interesting history and lore to explore, and this was deemed most necessary? Never mind the fact that this wasn't in any way near as awesome as the original Clone Wars micro-series.
Now that I've skewed off into negatives that really don't have anything to do with the actual film, I guess I'll move onto the good.
Anakin Skywalker. Woah, he's not a totally wooden jerk wad.
Ahsoka Tano & Family. I liked her, and her banter with Anakin (no matter how poorly written). I even found their dumb nicknames for each other endearing (in a Goldenrod kinda way). It reminded me of a dynamic that was sorely missed in the prequels: family. In the original trilogy, Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, 3PO, and R2 were a family. In the prequels the main characters always felt sterile, reserved, and disconnected. Here we finally see Anakin and Obi-wan acting like friends, and Ahsoka is brought in and bonds with them as well. It was nice to see a group of prequel characters having something that resembled human emotion. I'm gonna be sorely pissed if Ahsoka is murdered during the purge.
As a TV pilot, this would have been more than acceptable. The OT family-like interaction between Obi-wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka really helped my overall enjoyment of the film. And it was nice to see Star Wars on the silver screen one more time. I'll stick around for the TV series at least for the first season, and see if they continue to develop the aspects that I enjoyed.
If you're not a fan of Star Wars, don't bother. Go see The Dark Knight.