Review of Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) by Nola(N)Brams R — 31 Oct 2015

What a marvelous idea, to make a film made of several episodes of the tv-show with the same name. George Lucas is full of surprises. "Jar Jar is the key to all this".

The show starts in a very fast way with tonne of action and blasters coming from every direction. The plot is quickly introduced and we follow Anakin and Obi-Wan through the struggles of the war. My first impression is the cinematography, which is so smooth and well combined with the events that happen throughout the whole movie. The action is actually pretty good. It got some moments of intensity and entertainment and it does deliver. But this is only one part of it. Later on the plot becomes a bit "meh"; it started to lack entertainment from a long-term perspective. It's no surprise why, it's the structure of the film that's the most crucial. Having three or four episodes of the tv-show with the same name combined into one film comes with some disadvantages. The tempo keeps going up and down over and over, and the plot keeps getting messier and messier. It shouldn't have been a movie, not by a long shot! The plot isn't as good as it could have been, but as a tv-show, it would have worked excellent! The negative aspects doesn't stop there; because the basics are very non-flawless. The characters are very well visualized but some of them does make very Illogical decisions, that they never would have done in the prequels. This is just for a few characters but it's so non-admirable to the source material. The main characters are good when it comes to interaction, but there are a lot of dry moments that could have been better. This includes the dialogs, which can be very dry, fact-based and very Lucas-alike (characters that show their emotions and tell what they think). That's a big flaw right there, we don't need to! We are human beings that can relate to characters through just a brief look at them.

There are a few positive aspects with this show, and except for what just was mentioned; are the a lot of connections with the prequels, both details and twists to those films. The plot is as mentioned very messy, but it can still be entertaining with a good villain and a somewhat okay tempo of action. But the flaws are very big, and that includes the horrible CGI. This is coming from a 2008-movie where CGI is supposed to be well-developed. Even the early days were better. Still, some details like ships are still somewhat okay to look at, but the rest can be so horrible that it's barely watchable. The last aspect that really is bad is the editing, especially when it comes to action-sequences where frames can be disorientated and very horrible done in a very flawed way. There are very few long and constant shots and it therefor can feel too CGI-ish and not real.

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is one of the most flawed movies I've seen. But personally; do I still find it somewhat okay even though I've already forgotten mostly of the plot.

Personal rating: 60/100.

Critical rating: 36/100.