Star Wars: Clone Wars

I think of myself as a fairly big fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, so I had been looking forward to the animated movie and television series that was being produced. That changed as soon as I started seeing promotion clips.

First, I very much dislike Anakin Skywalker. Darth Vader, good. Anakin, bad. I suspect that George Lucas wanted people to sympathize with Anakin and his transformation-redemption bit. All I wanted was Anakin to die. Quickly. ASAP. Die in Episode I; who cares if it would screw up Star Wars continuity. Die, Anakin... die.

All this to say I was very disappointed to discover that the recent movie and current television cartoon takes place in the time between Episodes II and III. Ugh. Even worse, Anakin appears to be the main character, along with a new-to-the-mythology padawan perky enough to make me ill.

If Lucas wants to fill in the gaps, he should have made the series take place between Episodes III and IV. I want to see the original trilogy characters before the trilogy. Truthfully, I'd love to see more Han Solo, others not so much. Hey, they could get Shia LeBeouff to play a young Solo; LeBeouff's already played Indiana Jones' son.

Anywhoo, to cut this short I didn't see the Clone Wars animated movie and I have no intention of watching the television cartoon... except for tonight when while channel surfing I caught the last 20 minutes on an episode.

My worst fears were realized (see 2nd paragraph)... double ugh. The character animation style... triple ugh. Story... quadruple ugh. They turned General Grievous into a stereotypical comedic enemy. Dialogue... quintuple ugh. Awkward and forced. Pacing... sextuple ugh. Too slow. Voice acting... septuple ugh. It sounded flat.

As I said I only caught the last 20 minutes of a single episode... nevertheless nothing I saw makes me want to watch it again.