Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Animated Feature) (2008)

The TV commercials for Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Animated Feature) weren't impressive -- on a living-room screen much less for the script, animation, or voice talent. There's something to be said for my being a Star Wars fan from the very beginning -- the more lamentably to see the depths to which George Lucas has fallen -- but the clincher was my close relation to a 10-year-old Star Wars fan. We had to go see it. While my concerns for the script and animation proved on target, the battle action was truly a driving force and the voice talent turned out better than I had been led to expect. (In the commercial excerpts, Padwan Ahsoka sounds like a nasal Valley Girl who might next blurt out "Hel-lo-o-o..." She turns out to be a fairly competent Jedi trainee, even if her banter sometimes delays the mission.) The animation is particularly wooden -- like the scripting and acting of the typical Star Wars character -- so it fits right in. (I'm not kidding. Count Dooku and Emperor Palpatine each look like a totem pole or a Kachina doll.) This feature is meant to expand on the story behind the excellent cell-based animation of the prior Clone Wars series from Genndy Tartakovsky. While much is new, we only see the caped back of General Grevious and limited battle action with Asajj Ventress. We also have to endure the subplot of a proposed Imperial alliance with Jabba the Hutt over the kidnapping and recovery of his "punky muffin" infant son. It takes a Jar Jar Binks or a "punky muffin" to make clear-thinking adults regret their younger affection for the Star Wars saga (esp. when they realize that Jabba-nese is basically mangled English -- slime is slimo, for instance). This animated feature stands downhill from the live-action movies -- if that were possible -- in depicting characters but the action sequences are fairly riveting as animation goes. 4 stars.