“Star Wars The Clone Wars” has lots of action and is fun for the kids, fans of the franchise might like it… BUT – I hate to say it, this movie fell a little flat for me… and I’m a die hard Star Wars fan.  I had hoped it would be on the level of the short “Clone Wars” cartoons from 2003-2005… and I think that if they would have played on TV as shorter episodes – the way this project started – we would have enjoyed it more. I’m disappointed that my 1st media screening as a movie blogger would turn out that way.

(2008) (rated:PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language and momentary smoking) (1 hr, 38 min)

Starring the voices of: Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, James Arnold Taylor, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, Anthony Daniels

Director: Dave Filoni

Genre: Animated/Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi

The Plot: As the Clone Wars sweep through the galaxy, the heroic Jedi Knights struggle to maintain order and restore peace.

Star Wars Chronology: The story is set between “Episode II: Attack of the Clones” and “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” TV Series: This movie sets up the TV series on Cartoon Network starting in October.

MY TAKE (spoiler free): I can tell you that for the kids in the audience… it was a lot of fun… they even clapped at the end. No offense to those kids… but I’ve probably seen more movies in theaters *this year* than they’ve seen in theaters in their *lifetime*…. so they might think it was great or they might just be applauding because when they saw “Iron Man” the audience applauded and these kids might not know anything different.

“Star Wars The Clone Wars” seems to be geared at a new generation of Star Wars fans, because one of the main characters is a kid.. so the kids can kind of connect and relate to her.  Most of the voices in the movie are different – only Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Christopher Lee (Count Dooku), and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) return for their characters.

For Star Wars fans – many of the lines in the movie are easily anticipated, but it is nice to see George Lucas flesh out the backstory and side stories within the Clone Wars period between “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith”… and while this movie doesn’t really deal with any of the issues of Anakin Skywalker, it does do the one thing the Prequel movies didn’t – give a backstory to another big character from the original trilogy: Jabba the Hutt.

THE BOTTOM LINE:  Kids are going to love this movie, fans of Star Wars will like most of this movie, but there were several times that we should have gone to a commercial and waited a week to see the next chapter (like the old Saturday Matinee Serials that influenced George Lucas)… I give it 6.0 out of 10… the action and side plot to the Clone Wars were good and it looked great on the big screen, but the overall story came up a little short for me and didn’t have the hard edge that the Clone Wars animated cartoons had in 2003-2005.   This really should have been three 30 minute TV episodes… or bring back the Movie Serials and make it a series of 30-minute movies!!

FOOT NOTE: “Star Wars The Clone Wars” was originally conceived as an animated TV series… but they decided to amp it up and turn some of the episodes they had made into a feature-length movie to promote the upcoming TV series on Cartoon Network starting in October. This is related, but not a continuation of the animated shorts “Star Wars: Clone Wars” cartoons that aired on Cartoon Network in 2003-2005… that were actually pretty good and won some Primetime Emmy Awards.

“Star Wars The Clone Wars” poster courtesy 20th Century Fox