Star Wars: Clone Wars a dud?

So I did something I rarely do, I ran out and saw a movie from a franchise I love without looking at any reviews and saw it on the second day. Usually I hold out for a week or even several weeks, but with Star Wars I figured how could I lose? Yes the newest Star Wars movies don’t come close to the originals, but they were all entertaining in their own right. Below is a list of how I would personally rank every Star Wars movie to date.

1. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
3. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
4. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
5. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
6. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
7. Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Yoda in Star Wars: Clone Wars

The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones is a tough one, Jar Jar and Anakin are annoying in The Phantom Menace, but Darth Maul is pretty awesome and the pod race was cool too. Since I can’t remember much of Attack of the Clones, I’ll put it near the bottom. Clone Wars really does belong on the very bottom of the list. The Empire Strikes back is a no brainer for the top spot.

Seriously disappointing

Okay, without giving too much away here is why Star Wars: Clone Wars was seriously disappointing. First, lets start with a tiny spoiler.

Every single Star Wars movie to date has started with the epic Stars Wars intro. This intro triggers emotions like “OH YEAH BABY. STAR WARS!”, or just a jaw dropping “WOW!”. This one started out no different for the first four seconds. Star Wars music, black space, followed by the yellow Star Wars logo sliding into the distance. Okay, now I’m pumped and getting ready to read the juicy details followed by an awesome signature Star Wars pan down to a massive ship or battle scene… Wait, what the heck is this crap? I instantly see a battle and a sports announcer style voice describing the current situation in the Star Wars universe? Am I in some kind of a bad Star Wars nightmare? I think I glazed over in shock, because I have no idea what the crazy sports announcer voice was talking about. This was a huge disappointment, there was no tension, and I was not drawn into the story at all.

A kids movie?

So that was strike one, by now I’m coming to the sad realization that this is probably aimed squarely at kids and only kids and this is only 20 seconds into the film. I don’t understand why this was done, because I saw the original Star Wars movies as a kid and remember my parents and other parents reading what was on the screen to us little ones. It was way cool, and I still loved Star Wars, every kid did, why all of the sudden has Star Wars been transformed into a Disney style children’s movie I’ll never know. Yes I am sure kids will love this movie, but kids and adults loved the past six movies, so there was really no reason to dumb it down.

What was also really misleading were the Trailers for Star Wars: Clone Wars. They make it look much more serious and darker than it actually is, but they don’t really give any indication of what the movie is really like. None of the trailers have the childish voice acting found throughout this movie either. It was the trailers that made me want to see it in the first place, how deceptive.

With a few exceptions the droids in Clone Wars are more annoying than Jar Jar was in The Phantom Menace, yes they are that bad. Seriously childish and there is absolutely nothing scary about them. The movie is action packed, in fact it is non-stop action with silly voice overs and a weak side story.

Was there anything good about this movie? Well yes, I thought the art direction was fantastic, but some will disagree. The light saber battles were engaging even though none of them had a climatic ending. Unfortunately eye candy alone does not save this movie, it’s seriously a dud in my opinion and pretty disappointing.