Post by BIGFANBOY on Aug 13, 2008 5:19:28 GMT -5
STAR WARS CLONE WARS
Review by Mark Walters
First and foremost, I'm not going to be an apologist for this movie. I'm pretty vocal about the fact that I wasn't blown away by the prequels. Outside of a few cool moments, I think those are somewhat unsatisfying and poorly written films. It seems as if STAR WARS lately has been a series of "almost" sequences. In the prequels we were inundated with segments that almost reached incredible status, but never quite made it. Going into the CLONE WARS movie (a movie that no one seems to really desperate to see) I kept reminding myself, "This is a TV show, this is a TV show..." in an effort to not get my hopes up too high. What I got is pretty much what I expected. The voices for the most part are pretty well done. Big name actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Christopher Lee lend their pipes to their respective characters, and in those moments take the film to a much more respectable level. And of course Anthony Daniels is in there as C-3PO (like he'd let anyone else step in). On several occasions I found the Anakin (Matt Lanter) and Obi-Wan (James Arnold Taylor) voiceovers to be very convincing. There's a moment in the film where Obi-Wan sits down with an attacking general to "negotiate" terms for a surrender. It's easily one of the better moments in this, and for a second or two I felt like I was watching Ewan on screen. Anakin (sad to say really) has more personality in this CGI film than Hayden Christensen had in ANY of his live action scenes. Even the Padme voice (Catherine Taber) is surprisingly dead on, and Yoda (the amazing Tom Kane) is so perfect you'll swear Frank Oz was in the room. I was upset they didn't use Temuera Morrison for the clone voices, even if the sound-alike (Dee Bradley Baker) does a decent job. Tem has such a distinctive voice, and I'm betting he would've been happy to do it if asked.
One major weakness however for many of the characters is the mouth movement (or lack thereof). So many scenes of dialogue feel stiff and without impact because there is so little expression in the character's mouths. This may be a result of the TV budget, but looking at just about any CGI film from the past few years (BEE MOVIE even), these days animators have captured extemely realistic expressions with character's mouths, yet that effect is noticeably absent here. Maybe this feeds into Lucas' love for Gerry Anderson, but it probably doesn't help win over modern day audiences. Some of the action segments are impressive to look at, but at times feel way too familiar. We've already seen the jedi and clones battling the droids, and how many different ways do we have to watch a jedi slice a battle droid apart? I'd like to see something new and different please.
But seeing as how this story takes please between Episode II and Episode III, they're already limited at just how different it can be. In essence Lucasfilm is limiting itself to only showing us familiar material. Dave Filoni does a good job at keeping things interesting to look at, which may be this film's biggest saving grace. In the hands of a weaker director, this could've been mind numbingly boring beyond forgiveness, but as it stands it's at least visually entertaining. The space scenes work best, and I sincerely hope they work more of that into the series, as the CGI spaceships in CLONE WARS are pretty much on par with the CGI ships in the prequels. That stuff is perfect. The lightsaber fights, which are used way too sparingly for my taste, are almost overly intense. It's hard to keep up with what's happening because these CGI characters are moving SO fast during their battles. Maybe the fear there is if they slow it down too much, it won't look distinctive enough, and fans will lose interest. Perhaps the best fights are the ones between Obi-Wan and Asajj Ventress (voiced by Nika Futterman), and the Anakin and Dooku battle. However both are way too short. Again, this is most likely a result of the TV aspect for Clone Wars. Had this been made strictly for theaters, the whole thing could've been grander and more spectacular than what it ended up as. I do want to compliment composer Kevin Kiner, who while very often sounding little to nothing like John Williams, has given this storyline an epic and otherworldly sound, which I for one found very interesting and in some ways one of the best aspects of the film.
Sure, there are some unforgivable bits in here, such as Jabba the Hutt's uncle (Zero the Hutt), who looks ridiculous covered in glowing paint, speaking english and not Huttese, and sporting Truman Capote's voice... I kid you not. I found myself laughing for all the wrong reasons in those scenes. Zero is the new Jar-Jar! Then there's Jabba's kidnapped son, who looks like a basketball-sized Pac-Man - try to hold your laughter in when he shows up, I dare ya. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the feisty young padawan (named Ahsoka, and voiced by Ashley Eckstein) was actually rather endearing, and in some ways the most likable character in the story. I've always said one of the biggest problems with the prequels was that their main characters (jedis and senators) are emotionless and boring. How can we as an audience get excited about watching characters who show no emotion, no humor, and no compassion? And two of those characters (Anakin and Obi-Wan) are the leads in this story! While they seem to have loosened up a bit in CLONE WARS (most likely a result of Lucasfilm wanting to appeal more to kids), they are still nowhere near being Luke Skywalker or Han Solo. And therein lies the biggest problem for George Lucas, even dating back to before the prequels. We all want them to recapture the magic of the original trilogy. We want desperately for the new STAR WARS to match the old STAR WARS... but it never will. How can it? How can you ever expect to jump over a bar that was set so incredibly high? It's like the latest INDIANA JONES - you can put Harrison Ford in the fedora and jacket, and you can make it look and sound like Indy, but will it ever truly match what came before it? No. We can embrace the familiarity, and that's about it. Sylvester Stallone topped himself with ROCKY BALBOA, and he may end up being the exception to this undeniable Hollywood rule.
In the end, at least in my opinion, CLONE WARS is moderately entertaining, just not ultimately satisfying. I don't know what everyone is expecting to get from this film, but chances are kids will be glued to the screen, at least when the action is in full swing. And there's always the TV series still to come. Maybe Lucasfilm can use the movie like a market research project, finding out what people like and what they never want to see again. At the very least this can be a good litmus test for the upcoming live-action series... let's hope.
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