Star Wars: Clone Wars is an animated feature designed to bridge the gap between the films Episode II (Attack of the Clones) and Episode III (Revenge of the Sith). It comes in 2 volumes, this obviously being the first.

The first volume was originally designed to be a series of 3 minute commercials but ended up being combined to an approximately 1 hour long feature. The animation style is something approaching anime (I know nothing about anime but the director says in one the “Making Of” featurette that they aimed for a similar but not identical style.) Traditional 2D animation is used except for the ships themselves, which are computer animated.

The action comes in thick and fast, with the eye candy factor quite dazzling at times. This doesn’t make up entirely for a lack of coherent plot, though this is not the developers fault as they weren’t expecting to be given licence to turn it into a single feature (this problem is rectified in the second volume). The characters are well drawn and very distinctive, all them recognisable as their film counterparts but with a style very much of their own. Both the characters and the animation itself are a little simplistic at times, but since this is deliberately done for style purposes it is easily forgivable. The backgrounds are very nicely drawn and lend significantly to the Star Wars atmosphere.

The plot such as it is follows the course of the Jedi Knights, particularly Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skwalker, as the war between the clones (on the side of the Republic) and the droids (on the side of the Separatists) heats up. The story also features the Jedi Council, prominent among whom are Yoda (little green dude) and Windu (token awesome black dude), and on the side of the baddies we have Count Dooku (silly name but he really is evil) who is teaching newcomer to the Star Wars mythology, General Grievous. There’s also a Jedi who battles underwater to save a race named after the Spanish name for squid (I kid ye not) who has a smile that Doc Savage would have been proud of.

Among the most interesting characters, in concept rather than actual character, are a group of elite commando stormtroopers, who do all sort of cool stuff and of course the high-tech (well, they look high tech…) hand movements beloved of the Stargate SG-1 team. I found their role in Clone Wars interesting because the whole idea of clones, and how they’re portrayed in all of the films, is that they’re all pretty much the same and, let’s face it, all pretty useless when it comes to it (especially in the original trilogy when they’re on the Empire’s side!).

As you might expect there are lots of battles, in fact lots and lots and lots of battles, taking place on various planets but all part of the same galaxy-wide conflict of the Clone Wars. It’s very, very light entertainment, lots of action and aesthetic wonderment but not much plot, and better than average dialogue for this sort of thing. While of itself I only marginally recommend Volume 1 of Clone Wars, it does set things up nicely for the superior Volume 2. To complement the animation, the voice acting is well up to standard with all the characters sounding respectably enough like their film counterparts. (From quickly scanning the voice acting crew I can only see one – Anthony Daniels [C3PO] – from the film’s doing voice acting here.) The voice of Anakin does occasionally sound a little suspect but overall it’s not bad at all. The music is superb, and goes a long way to help volume1 get an overall “recommended” rating.

There are several special features on the DVD to make up for the short playing time of the feature itself. There are 2 Director’s commentaries, if you like that sort of thing, and an interesting Behind the Scenes documentary. Probably the most interesting for Star Wars fans is the “Bridging the Saga: From Clone Wars to Revenge of the Sith” featurette, in which Star Wars creator George Lucas and the team which made this animated version (including Director Genndy Tartakovsky) explain how they took the concept and made it into an animated feature. There is also a short look at Volume . In addition there are some game trailers, a playable X-Box demo of “Star Wars: Republic Commando” and galleries of concept art, storyboards, sketches etc. To round things off we have a teaser trailer of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Overall this is a pretty good package with some interesting extras, but it’s no more than 3 stars. Worth watching though, and volume 2 is better so if you enjoyed this, you’ll enjoy that even more. Not recommended unless you already like Star Wars, though.

Rated PG for mild violence.


Star Wars Reviews…

Clone Wars Volume 2

Films

Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

Computer Games:

Jedi Academy from the Jedi Knights series, published by LucasArts.

Knights of the Old Republic, also by LucasArts, the first real attempt at a Star Wars RPG.


Freeware Star Wars Games

Battle for Endor

Battle of Yavin

Star Chores (my Star Wars parody)

Star Chores Part 1 (links to other episodes)



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD