Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with a narrator explaining the state of the Clone Wars instead of an opening crawl like its predecessors. The Separatists control the majority of the hyperlanes, leaving Republic forces stranded in different parts of the Outer Rim. Jabba the Hutt's son Rotta is kidnapped as part of a plan to make the Hutts join the Separatists. Meanwhile, a fierce battle is taking place on the crystalline planet of Christophsis between the Republic's very limited clone army and the Retail Clan forces.With the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, the clones steadily advance on the Separatists' forces, gaining the Republic an early victory. It doesn't last long, though, as the droid army soon returns. With no communications or the ability to fly in reinforcements, the fate of the few remaining clone soldiers are in the hands of Obi-Wan and Anakin. A shuttle arrives, but without the needed reinforcementsinstead, it is a young Padawan named Ahsoka Tano, who insists that she has been sent by Master Yoda to serve under Anakin. The battle soon commences yet again, with the Separatist forces advancing behind an expanding shield that artillery can't penetrate. Anakin and Ahsoka succeed in penetrating the enemy lines while Obi-Wan stalls for time by holding a fake surrender negotiation with the droid army commander.Soon after the final victory for the Republic on Christophsis, Yoda arrives and brings the Jedi up to date on the situation concerning Jabba's son. The Republic needs Jabba on their side to ensure unfettered travel through Jabba's trade routes. Anakin and Ahsoka are tasked with retrieving the child, while Obi-Wan flies to Tatooine to assure Jabba that Rotta will be retrieved.On the planet Teth, Anakin, Ahsoka and their clones assault a monastery that sits atop a high stone pillar. They find Rotta, but discover that he is ill, requiring them to get him help immediately. But they have been caught in a trap by Count Dooku, who hopes to frame the Jedi for Rotta's disappearance (and possible death), thereby ending any chance of the Republic striking a deal with Jabba. He has sent his minion, Asajj Ventress, to secure fake evidence of the Jedi's supposed double dealing, then to recapture the young Hutt and return it to Jabba, putting the crime lord in the Separatists' debt.Anakin and Ahsoka manage to escape the trap along with R2-D2 and hijack a derelict transport which they use to travel to Tatooine. Obi-Wan, alerted by Anakin, arrives just in time to relieve the clone forces and engages Ventress in a lightsaber duel where he manages to defeat her, though Ventress flees in the face of capture. On board the derelict ship, Ahsoka manages to cure Rotta by the use of medical supplies on board.In the meantime, Senator Padmé Amidala learns of Anakin's mission and fears for his safety. She decides to contact Jabba's uncle, Ziro, who lives in a shady part of Coruscant. The Hutt refuses to cooperate, apparently believing that it is the Jedi who are responsible for the situation. Padmé, however, soon discovers that Ziro has actually conspired with Dooku to engineer the downfall of his nephew in order to seize power over the Hutt clans. Padmé is discovered and detained, but a chance call by C-3PO enables her to summon help, and Ziro is arrested.Upon their arrival on Tatooine, Anakin and Ahsoka are attacked and shot down. Faced with a long trek across desert sands and relentless opponents, Anakin devises a ruse: he confronts Dooku while carrying a decoy Rotta, leaving Ahsoka and R2-D2 to take the real Rotta to Jabba's palace. While Anakin fights Dooku, Ahsoka is ambushed by three Magnaguards, whom she narrowly defeats. Anakin and Ahsoka enter the palace one after another and Rotta is returned to his father. Jabba, deceived by the lies of Count Dooku, orders for them to be executed. Just in time, Padmé calls and convinces Jabba of his uncle's duplicity. Jabba agrees to allow the Republic safe passage through the Outer Rim territories, but only if the Jedi promise to make Dooku pay for his crimes against the Hutts. With their mission accomplished, Anakin and Ahsoka are triumphantly retrieved by Obi-Wan and Yoda.

Tags: good versus evil, violence, fantasy, action

Review:
The rest of you, like me will have a blast watching this thing.This movie is basically an extended pilot for a soon to premiere animated series and it plays as such.
The heart of the Star Wars franchise has always been its fun, and this is a cartoon...they're taking advantage of the opportunity to take the explosive larger than life elements of the films and skew them to an altered animated reality...which is what makes cartoons worth watching.I loved the design of the whole thing too.
But even the venerable and generally even-handed Roger Ebert didn't have much good to say about it.After the strange feeling of seeing the "Warner Bros" logo and hearing "As Time Goes By" in place of the Fox logo and fanfare, the film gets off to an inauspicious start - a rendition of John Williams' Star Wars Main Theme played by The London Philharmonic's cheapest non-union Mexican equivalent.
This is not a movie that I think many old Star Wars fans will enjoy, but it may be a movie that helps introduce new people to the franchise, which is always a good thing.
I don't know if it's even necessary at this point to say something as redundant as "this movie has a horrible script and stiff acting;" that's just something we've come to expect with Star Wars in the last decade.
The result is much more astounding than I could have imagined, and almost made me forget they were not the real thing.In the end, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a kids movie, or at least, can be appreciated by children.
It has the whiz-bang battles of a Star Wars movie, but the humour and ADD-infused dialogue that they can appreciate from the cartoons they watch on Saturday morning.
In my book, if the writers/directors/producers etcetera intentionally changed something, and it turned out badly, it's still bad.It got worse, the opening battle could have potentially been something good and enjoyable to watch, instead it was as if it had been played in fast forward, I could almost imagine the 'Benny Hill' theme being played in the background.Admittedly, I was a bit biased towards the 'art style' before hand so I thought, if I'm going to write a review on it, I'll avoid mentioning it as it would be rather unfair and not truly neutral.
In my opinion, the plot was too simplistic for a Star Wars film because the whole entire movie is about Anakin and his new padawan, I forget her name, trying to rescue Jabba the Hutt's son.
Great movie for the little kids and people that are going to watch the TV series but you need to be a true Star Wars fan to love this movie..
For a theatrically released film there is nothing cinematic about it and feels like a feature length pilot for the animated series.As a spin off from the Star Wars franchise, it's OK but purely for kids only..
(The voice over did make me cringe..ugh!) Yes, the human characters looked freakin bizarre (Kenobi's beard looked like a wood carving) and they should have gone with a more realistic look instead of the pointless style they used.And yes, the story was pretty childish for a feature film aimed at adults...But that's the thing.
I have seen Clone Wars twice at the cinema now and I am at a complete loss to explain why there is so much disdain for it.If this is what we can expect from the upcoming TV series I for one am very excited.This movie kept me extremely entertained for 100 minutes.
Now we have Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I remember the first time I saw the original Star Wars, I was a little girl, I watched it with my dad, now this was back in 1989 when I was 4 years old, but there was something so magical about that movie that I still enjoy watching it from time to time, and it wasn't animated.
But in my opinion, I will always love to watch the three original Star Wars movies, the prequels, I did like the Syth, but like I said, the first three have that special touch that will never be matched up with any of these recent Star Wars movies, but of course if you are a die hard fan, I know you will see this, otherwise I'll say stick with a matinée or go for the rental, this was a flop compared to what it should have been, nice try, George, we didn't buy it this time.5/10.
There were some great action sequences, and the storyline had a few concurrent branches to it, in true Star Wars fashion.Dare I say it, the characters almost had more depth in this cartoon than they did in the movies.
My only complaint animation-wise is that the mouth movements of the characters didn't look quite natural, and at times I noticed that it didn't even appear to match the dialog.As a fan, I didn't have that "what were they thinking?" feeling throughout the movie.
Being a fan of the Star Wars franchise since childhood, I wondered what was the real need for a movie like this, set between Episodes II and III, and telling the story of a very unimportant event in the Star Wars universe.
I still liked the overall design of the movie and characters though.Overall the movie wasn't a bad a start, and I will definitely watch the coming episodes with great interest..
After the prequels I had very low hopes for this new animated star wars film but I must say it beat my expectations by being okay and much more watchable then the phantom menace and attack of the clones.
The fact that Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor don't voice could have been a problem but I think both the voice actors did a good job and they encapsulated what the characters are like in the prequels so I thought they led this film pretty well.
Jabba the hut's son is kidnapped by Count Dooku's (Christopher Lee) assassin Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman) and its up to Anakin (Matt Lanter) and his new apprentice Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) to save the little slug.The action is stunning, warfare between the clones and the droids is at its best with huge epic battles even better than the one on Geonosis in Episode II.
One thing that this movie has over the main star wars films is that there are few slow points and it moves from scene nicely.The animation style for this movie i didn't like at first but after seeing the movie wouldn't want it any other way.
She's just a tad bit annoying and by that i mean shes fifty times worse than Jar Jar. My advice when seeing this movie is too cover your ears when ever she starts to talk (trust me she doesn't say anything important).Aside from that this was great movie and if your looking for a over the top action flick or your a true star wars, you should see this movie..
{with a character so bad in it you will start to LOVE Jar Jar Binks} {I am of course talking about Jabba The Hutt's Drag Queen uncle} This movie is NOT a true SW film and to boot there is no true star wars opening and there are key characters of the clone wars missing {like Bail Organa & Captain Antillies} there is NO story arc {except maybe one or two thrown in lines} that even connect Clone Wars to Episodes II & III and the other trilogy NONE!!!!
Ahsoka is not a bad character to be honest, and her banter with Anakin, well some of it (more on the bad stuff later) has the sense of fun from the original Star Wars movies.
Oh and the new voice of Yoda, Tom Kane, deserves to be repeatedly punched in the face, he was god-awful.But the really big problem with the Clone Wars is that it constantly feels like a television episode.
At best its a good episode of the past Clone Wars series, at worst its a shoddy Saturday morning cartoon with big bangs to catch the kids attentions.
Have to say that I agree and disagree with some of the other comments on here though..being a long time Star Wars fan I take every opportunity to catch any SW's film upon its release on the big screen, be it live action or animated.Having loved the original trilogy of the 70's and 80's, there was no way on earth that I was going to miss out on this new episode of the saga.
Star Wars has long been my favorite film series, a series so great in my opinion that I posted on this site while watching the original trilogy - with other posters who were also watching the movies.
Ashley Eckstein(Thats So Raven) as Ashoka Tano , Dee Bradley Baker(Halo) as Captain Rex/Commander Cody/ Various Clones,Catherine Taber(Knights Of The Old Republic) as Padme Amidala,,Tom Kane(Wolverine And The X-Men) as Master Yoda/Narrator , Ian Abercrombie(Green Lantern:The Animated Series) as Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious ,Sir Christopher Lee(Lord Of The Rings) as Count Dooku, Corey Burton(Superman:The Animated Series) as Ziro The Hutt, Samuel L.Jackson(Iron Man ) as Mace Windu ,Nika Futterman(Batman:The Brave and The Bold) as Asajj Ventress, the Series was Fantastic Each Episode Was very different from The Rest as The film was fun also really established what The Clone Wars was going to be about also enjoyed The voice work from all the cast .well Amazing Score By Kevin Kiner(CSI:Miami),Amazing Direction By Dave Filoni(The Last Airbender) A Fantastic Film to Lead Into a Great Series 10/10.
I would have loved a "real" clone wars movie, but this didn't even feel like anything star wars nor were the characters anything like their "real series" counterparts...and come on..
First of all this is not a full blown Star Wars movie, more of a sub-story, so anyone expecting to see jaw dropping, galaxy changing moments like in Revenge of the Sith, or the Empire Strikes back, should think otherwise.
I found myself traveling to the cinema to go and watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars expecting an average film at best, and surprised, I was, to find it a very good CGI action/SCI-FI movie.First and foremost; The PG rating the film carries is likely to put off many older viewers; don't let it.
The script is both serious and funny at the same time, characters often sniping at each other in tense situations, and the clones and droids having eccentric one-liners.All in all, it's a return to form for the Star Wars Saga, after relatively disappointing outings with Episodes I-III.
If George Lucas had spent several years and many more millions of dollars to get this movie on par with a Pixar flick, how was he supposed to keep up this level of animation quality when the Clone Wars television cartoon started?!
If you or your kids like Star Wars, and want to see something fun and silly, go see this movie.
For any adult who likes Star Wars (but isn't a critical freak) This movie is awesome with its references to other SW droids, characters, lines, etc....
If you're an eight year old boy, with a ton of popcorn and sweets to distract you and a bunch of your mates who like you have all got the light sabre toy to swing around, then you're gonna love this movie.Otherwise i'm guessing that you'll struggle wading through this very poorly executed 138 minutes of digital sewage.HOW CAN A PROJECT WITH THIS BUDGET, POTENTIAL AND FREEDOM BE WORSE THAN THE 80's CARTOON: DROIDS?I really think that the TV show is going to create a massive fanbase amongst younger viewers and of course create a brand new line of merchendising for Mr. Lucas et Al. Did this project deserve to be on the big screen?.
Being a big Star Wars fan myself, however wishing Lucas would of made a movie in between III and IV (The Empires rise to power, Vaders mixed feelings towards the Empire(perhaps explored in The Force Unleased) and the fall of the Jedi Council) as we've already seen the animated TV series and I believe the clone wars to be rather boring.As the movie starts, instead of having the scrolling text to keep you up to date, it is narrated...
Master and Apprentice (along with trusty Swiss army pedal bin R2-D2) are sent on a mission to rescue the son of Jabba the Hutt where they encounter stiff resistance from Count Dooku's Droid army and an all new dual-sabered Sith Lord.The most striking thing about the Clone Wars are the visuals  the scenery, ships and machinery are all superbly realised and gel perfectly with the look of Lucasfilm's previous masterpieces, whilst the textures and character designs have a hand-painted finish that gives it a distinctive charm of its own.
Well it seems we have taken a CARTOON INSTALLMENT for a television series and use it's inherently and understandably lower production standards as an excuse to exercise our intellectual snobbery and movie critique.Sure, it was a shame that people had to pay standard rates to see it in theaters, but it is a promotion for a series that is going to be free on TV for the rest of the season.That's actual Star Wars brought to us FREE on TV every week in the comfort of our homes."Oh, no, the productions values aren't up to my standards, and why is so and so not using a GREEN lightsaber?!?" Well, my geekiness may not be on par with the rest of the Star Wars community, but I think the visual and audio are great for a TV show and that we've really come a long way, and appreciate being able to follow stories from the great franchise every week from the comfort of our own home.Ahsoka Tano is awesome, the coolest character since Anakin himself (Luke was always a bit too cheesy for me), and her character adds an interesting new dimension to the Star Wars universe.Anyone who speaks ill of this movie should be executed as an enemy of the Republic!http://nickysworld.net.
So I'm glad to see them detailing some of that.No great revelations (Hey, we all know how every major character in this is going to die, pretty much.) Still, the battle scenes looked as impressive as anything in the movies, some of the action was pretty good and the characterizations are just fine.
It does its job as a story for a television series, but I did not expect it would be of the same level as the previous Star Wars movies.
I'm 20 and love the original 3 and the newer ones r pretty good too and i think i would have liked this movie a lot more if it was done live action or at least in the original animation instead of the blocky 3-D art(see the clone wars TV series to know what i mean).
The voice acting is horrible (though Sam Jackson and Christopher Lee are given fat enough paychecks to crawl back for bit parts), the visual FX looks like a condemned building in a Detroit ghetto when compared to recent Star Wars video-games- where, at the least, you can pass whatever lackluster story and play the frigging game- and whatever passes at any kind of artistry are undermined by everything going against it.How much Lucas had to do with the overall product may be ultimately hard to say- at the time this was being done he was also producing Indiana Jones 4 (which, say what you will, is at least superior to this and at best is everything this movie is not)- but his name is on it, and the mark of the beast suddenly becomes all the more clear.
I love this movie, and the series that follows this film, are also very well made, both the animation, voices, story lines.
There were not very many good things about this movie at all.The Pros: It describes a little more about the Clone Wars, (but very little), The fights were okay to say the best, and we find out that Anakin gets a new apprentice.
Character's sometimes don't act like they do, in the rest of the movies (When did Obi-Wan become so arrogant?)Overall: Worth seeing if you have to see something Star Wars that's new.
Her character is like a little kid running around through a story that is attempting to be a Star Wars movie, but it can't because she keeps re-naming things and people (Skyguy??), and (barring the occasional bout of astonishing light saber moves and tricks with using 'The Force') generally behaving as if she's still acting in a show made for girls under age 10.For example, most of her role in the movie is not as a Jedi apprentice, but a babysitter of Jabba's offspring, the "Huttlet," as he is affectionately called throughout the movie.
I mean an animated Star Wars movie, based on a animated cartoon series that I never followed...why would I watch a thing like that?
But I watched this along with the clone wars (2008) series, which are additional installments, following other characters and better stories as well, such as Yoda and other Jedi Masters.
A few of the original cast members does their voices of their respective characters in this film and he does an amazing job.Overall, while some people hate the STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS movie, a lot of people liked the show.
Overall, while some people hate the STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS movie, a lot of people liked the show.
This is a CG cartoon movie related to the series that spans between episodes II and III.For what I've seen, it's quite enough good to be part of the star wars universe.
I was not expecting it to be like the six previous Star War films and that is probably why.