Review: 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars'

New series of animated 'Star Wars' adventures retraces old ground with the same leaden dialogue as the originals.

from the August 15, 2008 edition

Lucasfilm Animation is intending for this film to be the first in a new series of animated "Star Wars" adventures. Realize that anything with "Star Wars" in the title is going to make oodles of moola, but who really cares anymore about Luke Skywalker and Jedi knights? George Lucas's fixation on this saga has gone past commercial smarts into full-blown monomania. With all the money and power he has at his disposal, here he is once again fobbing the same leaden dialogue and nonvisionary visuals at us. The animated characters in "Clone Wars" are about as lively as the actors in the live-action movies, so I guess Lucas has achieved his goal of eliminating humans from his movies altogether. Grade: D+ (Rated PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language, and momentary smoking.)