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I didn't want to reuse any of my own pics or screenshots so I just did this quick close-up of Ahsoka

My "Star Wars The Clone Wars" review

[SPOILERS]

I really enjoyed it. Now I've said more than once I didn't like the character designs (the droids and vehicles don't look much different from the live-action movies), and there does seem to be a lot of criticism about it in the reviews, but then there are a lot of shows with very cheap looking designs that are very good. Like the first "Clone Wars" cartoon for instance, whose look I hated just as much if not more so. But less than 20 minutes into the movie I was used to it, I'll probably never grow to like it like I did with Bruce Timm's style in the "Batman"-through-"Justice League" series, but it's not going to be a problem while watching the new show. Being released theatrically did open this movie up for it being compared to Pixar and Dreamworks but when you consider that they spend about 100 to 200 million dollars more, "The Clone Wars" looks outstanding. "The Clone Wars" will definitely be the Pixar of television. There has never been anything of its quality on TV before.

On to the story itself.

I knew ahead of time that they weren't going to have the opening crawl and John Williams' unaltered score (though they did have the "A long time ago..." so that was great to see, probably for the last time, on the big screen) so I wasn't caught off guard. The opening narration was jarring the first time I saw/heard it (I've seen the film twice so far), but then it served it's purpose the same way the opening crawl did, probably a little better since you could actually see what it was talking about. Personally, I'm glad they kept the opening crawl an exclusive movie trademark (the countless video games that use opening crawls and Mr. Williams' theme notwithstanding ), but I just know from now on, I'm going to hear that narrator's voice every time I watch one of the movies, if not impersonate it myself, while I read the crawl .

Caught up to speed the movie wastes little time getting into the action with ObiWan and Anakin in mid-battle. Star Wars is at its best doing action. And, as promised, the Jedi action isn't as over-the-top as in the 2D "Clone Wars" or upcoming "Force Unleashed" video game. They easily could've done the battles and lightsaber duels in live action (easily being with millions of dollars more and a couple of years production time of course ), but being animation they can churn out battles of this quality on a weekly basis. The verticle battle of Teth, with Anakin, Ahsoka, the Troops, and walkers climbing straight up a cliff, is now one of my all-time favorite Star Wars action scenes.

Which brings us to Ahsoka.

I love Ahsoka. She turned out much better than I could hope. As much as all the reviews seem to bash the inferiority of "The Clone Wars" to Pixar, they seem to be universal in their annoyance with Ahsoka. Ahsoka does have an attitude but if you watch the scene of her coming off the drop-ship Anakin is already copping a 'tude while she's addressing him and Obiwan both respectfully (maybe we're just used to Anakin's attitude ). It's not until she tells him she's his Padawan and Anakin goes ape-Sith that her attitude starts. And she does sometimes charge head-on into situations that causes more trouble (like with the shield generator) but until she does something worse than Anakin's "I'm taking him NOW!" it's nothing unforgivable. She is much younger and obviously has a lot to learn.

And the fact I have three nieces may have a lot to do with how much I love their interaction with each other. Their banter seems just as much older brother/younger sister as it does mentor/student, and their situation isn't unlike Obiwan and Anakin's situation in the beginning. Their nicknames for each other, "Skyguy" and "Snips", would be total nitpicks for me to be annoyed by them (okay, "R-tooie" does come close to grinding my gears, but again, nothing I would blog about).

I wasn't too thrill about that reverse-grip lightsaber style that Vader's secret apprentice is going to use in the "Force Unleashed" video game, but actually seeing it in action (Ahsoka uses this style) I'm actually sold on it.

The kidnapping plot of Jabba's son (yeah Stinky is the cutest slug) is what it is. Considering all the cool things they did surrounding that plot I can't complain about it.

And people are just making too big a deal about Jabba's uncle Ziro, whether his seemingly "gayness" is the actual criticism, that he speaks basic, or that he speaks it with a southern accent. Now, why would a southern accent need to be explained anymore than an english accent? ( Texans represent!!! -- even though I don't have a southern accent myself )

Speaking of gay english guys . . . I thought Obiwan was great! Sorry, couldn't help myself . But Obiwan had that Ewan coolness going. I really enjoyed his negotiations over tea with General Loathsome (who was this guy's parents?). His duel with Ventress was one of the film's highlights. And maybe it's my imagination but did it seem like he was getting some kind of (maybe) sadistic pleasure seeing Anakin deal with his new Padawan? I certainly look forward to seeing how Ahsoka effects the dynamic of their team.

Ventress was much better here than she was in the first "Clone Wars" series, but with how little screen time she had then, that's a given. Dooku also benefited from the extra screen time as well. Really nice to see Christopher Lee chew up the scenes showcasing Dooku as Sidious' righthand man. From what I hear Mr. Lee isn't going to continue Dooku in the series, which is a damn shame. Hopefully Samuel Jackson will be on the show considering the very small role he had here.

Have to mention how good it was seeing action Padme again after her hiatus in "Revenge of the Sith". I kicked myself for not noticing Mission Vao's voice coming from her the first time I saw the movie, which just shows how well it works as Padme's voice.

Last but not least . . . the clones.

They were great (of course anyone who would paint a Twi'lek in trooper armor on the side of a dropship can't be bad ) Rex seems to have become a instant fan favorite, of course he does have the advantage of not being Anakin's Padawan, therefore not a target of undue bashing. The dude is obviously a badass. He loses nearly his entire battalion twice (in a row) and still ready to continue fighting. Even though he couldn't resist Ventress' mind trick, I love how he was still able to warn Anakin (HAH!!! In yo' face, Traviss! This is how you create badasses without having to Mary Sue the entire race!! . . . Sorry, couldn't help myself again ).

And yes there are some things that were more than nitpicks.

The animation itself. While not terrible, it didn't flow very well a lot of times, even things as simple as walking. It was also noticable during the lightsaber duels, specifically the Obiwan/Ventress duel. But, especially if they're filming in chronological order, they are improving. The Anakin/Dooku duel looked much better and Ahsoka fighting the Magnadroids also looked good. The duels were on par with the ones in the 2D "Clone Wars" but CGI animation has the advantage of being 3D and having motion capture so here's hoping they start using it. I'd put is as equal to Pixar's first Toy Story and Dreamworks' first Shrek movies, so they do have a bit of catching up to do. But, again, if this had been a $100 million + production it would definitely be a glaring flaw.

The dialogue and acting. Again on par with the live action movies and I do mean all six movies (the "original" movies weren't THAT much better). While some of the lines were groanworthy, they were mostly there to service the story. There was a repetition of the plot being laid out, a lot, but that's more than likely a side-effect of the movie originally starting out as three episodes. Speaking of which, the hour and a half running time would suggest that the premiere episode was going to be an hour long anyway. I'd say it would have consisted of the Christophsis and first Teth battles. The second episode being the escape from Teth and crashlanding on Tatooine, and the third ep being the Padme adventure and conclusion on Tatooine.

My breakdown:

Things I loved/liked-

Ahsoka
Anakin/Ahsoka interaction
Obiwan
Ventress
Dooku
Clones
The battles
Ziro's "RUN!" would have made me spit out my soda (had I been willing to pay $4 for a soda)

Things I didn't like so much-

The character designs (but that's just my own personal taste)
The animation at times - the dancing Twi-leks were just a crime to the Twi'lek stereo-type

**

So "The Clones Wars" is off to a good start. If they can keep this level of quality up for the series, the show should blow away all other animated shows (unfortunately, with Avatar ended that won't be much of a challenge now). Very much looking forward to seeing these as well as other background characters from the movies get their chance in the spotlight.

So don't let the negative reviews sway you, give it a chance and decide for yourself. Anyone who hated the "prequels" are going to hate "The Clone Wars", even moreso it seems.

Description
I didn't want to reuse any of my own pics or screenshots so I just did this quick close-up of Ahsoka

My "Star Wars The Clone Wars" review

[SPOILERS]

I really enjoyed it. Now I've said more than once I didn't like the character designs (the droids and vehicles don't look much different from the live-action movies), and there does seem to be a lot of criticism about it in the reviews, but then there are a lot of shows with very cheap looking designs that are very good. Like the first "Clone Wars" cartoon for instance, whose look I hated just as much if not more so. But less than 20 minutes into the movie I was used to it, I'll probably never grow to like it like I did with Bruce Timm's style in the "Batman"-through-"Justice League" series, but it's not going to be a problem while watching the new show. Being released theatrically did open this movie up for it being compared to Pixar and Dreamworks but when you consider that they spend about 100 to 200 million dollars more, "The Clone Wars" looks outstanding. "The Clone Wars" will definitely be the Pixar of television. There has never been anything of its quality on TV before.

On to the story itself.

I knew ahead of time that they weren't going to have the opening crawl and John Williams' unaltered score (though they did have the "A long time ago..." so that was great to see, probably for the last time, on the big screen) so I wasn't caught off guard. The opening narration was jarring the first time I saw/heard it (I've seen the film twice so far), but then it served it's purpose the same way the opening crawl did, probably a little better since you could actually see what it was talking about. Personally, I'm glad they kept the opening crawl an exclusive movie trademark (the countless video games that use opening crawls and Mr. Williams' theme notwithstanding ), but I just know from now on, I'm going to hear that narrator's voice every time I watch one of the movies, if not impersonate it myself, while I read the crawl .

Caught up to speed the movie wastes little time getting into the action with ObiWan and Anakin in mid-battle. Star Wars is at its best doing action. And, as promised, the Jedi action isn't as over-the-top as in the 2D "Clone Wars" or upcoming "Force Unleashed" video game. They easily could've done the battles and lightsaber duels in live action (easily being with millions of dollars more and a couple of years production time of course ), but being animation they can churn out battles of this quality on a weekly basis. The verticle battle of Teth, with Anakin, Ahsoka, the Troops, and walkers climbing straight up a cliff, is now one of my all-time favorite Star Wars action scenes.

Which brings us to Ahsoka.

I love Ahsoka. She turned out much better than I could hope. As much as all the reviews seem to bash the inferiority of "The Clone Wars" to Pixar, they seem to be universal in their annoyance with Ahsoka. Ahsoka does have an attitude but if you watch the scene of her coming off the drop-ship Anakin is already copping a 'tude while she's addressing him and Obiwan both respectfully (maybe we're just used to Anakin's attitude ). It's not until she tells him she's his Padawan and Anakin goes ape-Sith that her attitude starts. And she does sometimes charge head-on into situations that causes more trouble (like with the shield generator) but until she does something worse than Anakin's "I'm taking him NOW!" it's nothing unforgivable. She is much younger and obviously has a lot to learn.

And the fact I have three nieces may have a lot to do with how much I love their interaction with each other. Their banter seems just as much older brother/younger sister as it does mentor/student, and their situation isn't unlike Obiwan and Anakin's situation in the beginning. Their nicknames for each other, "Skyguy" and "Snips", would be total nitpicks for me to be annoyed by them (okay, "R-tooie" does come close to grinding my gears, but again, nothing I would blog about).

I wasn't too thrill about that reverse-grip lightsaber style that Vader's secret apprentice is going to use in the "Force Unleashed" video game, but actually seeing it in action (Ahsoka uses this style) I'm actually sold on it.

The kidnapping plot of Jabba's son (yeah Stinky is the cutest slug) is what it is. Considering all the cool things they did surrounding that plot I can't complain about it.

And people are just making too big a deal about Jabba's uncle Ziro, whether his seemingly "gayness" is the actual criticism, that he speaks basic, or that he speaks it with a southern accent. Now, why would a southern accent need to be explained anymore than an english accent? ( Texans represent!!! -- even though I don't have a southern accent myself )

Speaking of gay english guys . . . I thought Obiwan was great! Sorry, couldn't help myself . But Obiwan had that Ewan coolness going. I really enjoyed his negotiations over tea with General Loathsome (who was this guy's parents?). His duel with Ventress was one of the film's highlights. And maybe it's my imagination but did it seem like he was getting some kind of (maybe) sadistic pleasure seeing Anakin deal with his new Padawan? I certainly look forward to seeing how Ahsoka effects the dynamic of their team.

Ventress was much better here than she was in the first "Clone Wars" series, but with how little screen time she had then, that's a given. Dooku also benefited from the extra screen time as well. Really nice to see Christopher Lee chew up the scenes showcasing Dooku as Sidious' righthand man. From what I hear Mr. Lee isn't going to continue Dooku in the series, which is a damn shame. Hopefully Samuel Jackson will be on the show considering the very small role he had here.

Have to mention how good it was seeing action Padme again after her hiatus in "Revenge of the Sith". I kicked myself for not noticing Mission Vao's voice coming from her the first time I saw the movie, which just shows how well it works as Padme's voice.

Last but not least . . . the clones.

They were great (of course anyone who would paint a Twi'lek in trooper armor on the side of a dropship can't be bad ) Rex seems to have become a instant fan favorite, of course he does have the advantage of not being Anakin's Padawan, therefore not a target of undue bashing. The dude is obviously a badass. He loses nearly his entire battalion twice (in a row) and still ready to continue fighting. Even though he couldn't resist Ventress' mind trick, I love how he was still able to warn Anakin (HAH!!! In yo' face, Traviss! This is how you create badasses without having to Mary Sue the entire race!! . . . Sorry, couldn't help myself again ).

And yes there are some things that were more than nitpicks.

The animation itself. While not terrible, it didn't flow very well a lot of times, even things as simple as walking. It was also noticable during the lightsaber duels, specifically the Obiwan/Ventress duel. But, especially if they're filming in chronological order, they are improving. The Anakin/Dooku duel looked much better and Ahsoka fighting the Magnadroids also looked good. The duels were on par with the ones in the 2D "Clone Wars" but CGI animation has the advantage of being 3D and having motion capture so here's hoping they start using it. I'd put is as equal to Pixar's first Toy Story and Dreamworks' first Shrek movies, so they do have a bit of catching up to do. But, again, if this had been a $100 million + production it would definitely be a glaring flaw.

The dialogue and acting. Again on par with the live action movies and I do mean all six movies (the "original" movies weren't THAT much better). While some of the lines were groanworthy, they were mostly there to service the story. There was a repetition of the plot being laid out, a lot, but that's more than likely a side-effect of the movie originally starting out as three episodes. Speaking of which, the hour and a half running time would suggest that the premiere episode was going to be an hour long anyway. I'd say it would have consisted of the Christophsis and first Teth battles. The second episode being the escape from Teth and crashlanding on Tatooine, and the third ep being the Padme adventure and conclusion on Tatooine.

My breakdown:

Things I loved/liked-

Ahsoka
Anakin/Ahsoka interaction
Obiwan
Ventress
Dooku
Clones
The battles
Ziro's "RUN!" would have made me spit out my soda (had I been willing to pay $4 for a soda)

Things I didn't like so much-

The character designs (but that's just my own personal taste)
The animation at times - the dancing Twi-leks were just a crime to the Twi'lek stereo-type

**

So "The Clones Wars" is off to a good start. If they can keep this level of quality up for the series, the show should blow away all other animated shows (unfortunately, with Avatar ended that won't be much of a challenge now). Very much looking forward to seeing these as well as other background characters from the movies get their chance in the spotlight.

So don't let the negative reviews sway you, give it a chance and decide for yourself. Anyone who hated the "prequels" are going to hate "The Clone Wars", even moreso it seems.