On the front lines of an intergalactic struggle between good and evil, fans young and old will join such favorite characters as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé Amidala, along with brand-new heroes like Anakin’s padawan learner, Ahsoka. Sinister villains – led by Palpatine, Count Dooku and General Grievous – are poised to rule the galaxy. Stakes are high, and the fate of the Star Wars universe rests in the hands of the daring Jedi Knights. Their exploits lead to the action-packed battles and astonishing new revelations that fill Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

-- From Rotten Tomatoes

Let's address that right off the bat. This film got pretty universally panned by critics when it came out last month -- it's literally the worst according to them...even the Ewok's movie rates higher at Rotten Tomatoes. It was struck down from everything from the marionette looking CGI, the fact that it seemed more of a plug to the upcoming tv series, dialogue, etc. You can check it out if you really feel like it.

The thing was though, and maybe it was because I'm on a Star Wars kick right now, but looking back, none of that really bothered me. I enjoyed the style of animation, which is sorta just what the critics panned it for, a mix of Thunderbirds from the 60's and a psuedo-anime. I didn't even know about the TV series until I caught it on the television one night a couple of weeks ago, and since then, I've been following it, so even if it does serve as a plug, it wasn't that bad for it. (Actually, according to Wikipedia, this movie was an afterthought of Lucas, something along the lines of lets make a feature by tossing together the first couple of episodes.) And really, the dialogue? When it that not bad in a Star Wars picture. Mind you, this dialogue was more because of it's "kiddy" nature than bad writing.

Despite being the seventh film to see US theatres, this film had a lot of firsts, some of which I noticed, some of which were pointed out to me...its the first animated film, it's not done by 20th Century Fox (Warner Bros. is doing it), it doesn't contain some version of "I got a bad feeling about this.", it didn't open in May (and not at number one), it didn't have huge paragraphs of text flying through space ;), it's the first cockpit view of a jump-to-hyperspace, and perhaps most importantly for this review, as it segues to my next paragraph, is that Yoda was not voiced by Frank Oz.

The voice cast in this movie contains virtually no one from the live action films. C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), and Mace Windu (Samuel Jackson) are the only returning voices that I know of. (And of those voices, only Anthony Daniels works on the animated series, all of the other voices are those of the actors in this movie, or newbies.)

Anyhow, I've blathered on enough, but what I'm really trying to say is that this is one of those movies that the critics are universally wrong about in my opinion. With it's DVD release next month, you should check it out if you enjoyed any of the Star Wars mythos.

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