‘Clone Wars’ doesn’t add to the ‘Star Wars’ legacy

By Jason Foster - The Herald

E-Mail

Comments (0)

Text Size:

tool goes here

Ten years ago I would’ve thought it impossible for the “Star Wars” universe to be boring.

But after creator George Lucas gave us three mostly unsatisfying prequels, I learned to approach anything “Star Wars” with a bit of trepidation.

Unfortunately, the yawn streak continues with the animated “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”

In this seventh theatrical “Star Wars” release, which is set between “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith” in the live-action saga, Jabba the Hutt’s son has been kidnapped, and the slimy gangster enlists the help of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi to find him. But the evildoers of the universe, Count Dooku and his cronies, do their best to doom that mission and stir up trouble in the galaxy.

(Now, wouldn’t it stand to reason that a story that takes place between two uninteresting stories would, itself, be uninteresting?)

Despite plenty of action — consisting mostly of lightsaber-wielding Skywalker and Kenobi deflecting laser blasts from droids and then decapitating them — the film is completely unengaging. At no point during the story do we care about, or have any doubt about, the outcome. That’s what made the three live-action prequels so unsatisfying. Without a strong, multi-layered character, this approach just doesn’t work. And I’m convinced now that Anakin Skywalker just isn’t interesting enough to pull this off.

That aside, the movie just doesn’t feel like “Star Wars.” This is evident right from the start with the absence of the traditional opening crawl accompanied by John Williams’ classic music. Instead, we get a TV-style voice over accompanied by a variation on Williams’ “Star Wars” theme (composer Kevin Kiner provides the score this time).

That aside, “Star Wars” just doesn’t work in animated form. It just feels empty. That’s also something that weakened the prequels; the flat CGI that dominated those films ran away with any sense of realism that the original trilogy offered.

Truth be told, this film only seems slightly more animated than the prequels. OK, that’s somewhat of a joke, but it’s not that far off.

Like the prequels, “Clone Wars” is full of bad writing and forgettable, even annoying, secondary characters. It’s really a microcosm of everything that went wrong with Episodes I-III.

Of the principal actors from the three prequels, a handful lend their voice talents for “Clone Wars,” most notably Samuel L. Jackson as Jedi Mace Windu and Anthony Daniels as C-3P0 (Skywalker and Kenobi are voiced by sound-alikes).

“Star Wars” has made a lot of people happy for a lot of years, but it’s time for its creator to put it to rest. But Lucas, who serves as executive producer on “Clone Wars,” is ever-tinkering with re-releases, special editions and spin-offs and it’s hurting the brand’s integrity (though certainly not Lucas’ wallet). As long as there’s money to be made, he’s not going to stop. Case in point, “Clone Wars” will be adapted into a television series later this year and Lucas says a live-action “Star Wars” series also is in the works.

But with each incarnation, this universe, for years so thrilling and so captivating, becomes less and less interesting. And that’s a shame, because “Star Wars” used to be grand. Now it just swims in mediocrity.

Jason Foster • jfoster@heraldonline.com

Cast:Voices of James Arnold Taylor, Matt Lanter, Christopher Lee, Ashley Eckstein

Director:Dave Filoni

MPAA rating: PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language and momentary smoking

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

Grade: