Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 2008 American 3D animated military science fiction-space opera film that takes place within the Star Wars saga, leading into a TV series of the same name produced by Lucasfilm. It is the twentieth Warner Animation Group film. The film is set during the three-year time period between the films Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005). Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, which also holds the home media distribution rights to both this film and the first five seasons of the TV series, the film premiered on August 10, 2008 at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, while screening in wide-release on August 14, 2008 across Australia, and August 15 in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The Clone Wars served as an introduction to the television series of the same name, which debuted on October 3, 2008. The film received negative reviews from critics, and it grossed $68.3 million worldwide against an $8.5 million budget.

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During the Clone Wars, Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi lead a small Republic clone army against the Separatist droid army on the planet Christophsis. Awaiting reinforcements, the two Jedi greet a shuttle carrying the young Jedi Ahsoka Tano, who insists that she has been assigned by Jedi Master Yoda to serve as Anakin's Padawan. Anakin begrudgingly accepts Ahsoka's apprenticeship, and the two succeed in deactivating the Separatists' energy field while Obi-Wan stalls the droid army commander, allowing a Republic victory. Ahsoka earns Anakin's respect.

Following the battle, Yoda arrives and informs the Jedi that crime lord Jabba the Hutt's son Rotta has been kidnapped. Anakin and Ahsoka are tasked with retrieving the Huttlet, while Obi-Wan is sent to Tatooine to negotiate with Jabba over a potential treaty between the Hutts and the Republic. Anakin and Ahsoka find Rotta on the planet Teth, where they are ambushed by Separatist forces led by Count Dooku's apprentice Asajj Ventress, discovering that Dooku hopes to frame the Jedi for Rotta's kidnapping. The Jedi manage to escape the trap along with R2-D2 and hijack a derelict transport with which they travel to Tatooine. Obi-Wan, alerted by Anakin, arrives on Teth and defeats Ventress in a lightsaber duel, though she manages to escape.

Meanwhile, Senator Padmé Amidala, Anakin's secret wife, learns of Anakin's mission and fears for his safety. She decides to contact Jabba's uncle Ziro in Coruscant. The Hutt refuses to cooperate, apparently believing that it is the Jedi who are responsible for the situation. Padmé, however, soon discovers that Ziro has actually conspired with Dooku to have Rotta killed in order for Jabba to have Anakin and Ahsoka executed in return, which will force the Jedi Council, led by Yoda, to take Jabba into custody and allow Ziro to seize power over the Hutt clans. Padmé is discovered and detained, but a chance call by C-3PO enables her to summon a squadron of clone troopers, and Ziro is arrested.

Upon their arrival on Tatooine, Anakin and Ahsoka are shot down by MagnaGuards. Anakin devises a ruse to confront Dooku while carrying a decoy Rotta, leaving Ahsoka to take the real Rotta to Jabba's palace. While Anakin fights off Dooku, Ahsoka is ambushed by the MagnaGuards, whom she defeats. The two deliver Rotta safely to Jabba, who nonetheless orders the Jedi's execution for their supposed attempt to kidnap him. However, Padmé contacts Jabba in time and reveals Ziro and the Separatists' responsibility for the kidnapping. Acknowledging the Jedi's heroism and allowing the Republic to have Ziro punished for his betrayal, Jabba agrees to the Republic treaty while Anakin and Ahsoka are retrieved by Obi-Wan and Yoda. In the meantime during his escape, Dooku reports to his master Darth Sidious about the failure of their plot against the Jedi and Jabba, but the Sith Lord assures to him that the tide of war is still in their favor.

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 * Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
 * Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
 * James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, 4A-7
 * Tom Kane as Yoda, Narrator, Admiral Yularen
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Captain Rex, Commander Cody, Clone troopers
 * Christopher Lee as Count Dooku / Darth Tyranus
 * Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu
 * Anthony Daniels as C-3PO
 * Nika Futterman as Asajj Ventress, TC-70
 * Ian Abercrombie as Palpatine / Darth Sidious
 * Catherine Taber as Padmé Amidala
 * Corey Burton as Whorm Loathsom, Ziro the Hutt
 * David Acord as Rotta the Huttlet
 * Kevin Michael Richardson as Jabba the Hutt
 * Matthew Wood as Battle droids

Development[edit]
Director Dave Filoni Star Wars: The Clone Wars was made to serve as both a stand-alone story and a lead-in to the weekly animated TV series of the same name. George Lucas had the idea for a film after viewing some of the completed footage of the early episodes on the big screen. Those first few episodes, originally planned for release on television, were then woven together to form the theatrical release. Warner Bros. had tracked the series' development from the beginning, and Lucas decided on a theatrical launch after viewing early footage declaring "This is so beautiful, why don't we just go and use the crew and make a feature?" This decision helped convince WB parent company Time Warner to distribute the movie, and to encourage its subsidiary Cartoon Network to air the series. Lucas described the film as "almost an afterthought." Howard Roffman, president of Lucas Licensing, said of the decision, "Sometimes George works in strange ways." Producer Catherine Winder said the sudden decision added to an already large challenge of establishing a show "of this sophistication and complexity," but she felt it was a good way to start the series, and thought budgetary constraints forced the production team to think outside the box in a positive way.

The story of the kidnapped Hutt was inspired by the Sonny Chiba samurai film titled Shogun's Shadow.

Animation[edit]
Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm Animation used Autodesk software to animate both the film and the series using the Maya 3D modeling program to create highly detailed worlds, characters and creatures. The film's animation style was designed to pay homage to the stylized looks of both Japanese anime and manga, and the supermarionation of the British 1960s series Thunderbirds. At a Cartoon Network-hosted discussion, Lucas said he did not want the Clone Wars film or television series to look like such movies as Beowulf, because he wanted a stylized look rather than a realistic one. He also felt it should not look like the popular Pixar movies such as The Incredibles, because he wanted the film and characters to have its own unique style. Lucas also decided to create the animated film and series from a live-action perspective, which Winder said set it apart from other CGI films. Essentially, it "meant using long camera shots, aggressive lighting techniques, and relying on editing instead of storyboards." Animators also reviewed designs from the original 2003 Clone Wars series when creating the animation style for the film and the new series. In charge was Steward Lee, working as the storyboard artist during filming. Some actors from the live-action films returned to vocally reprise their roles of their respective characters: Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Matthew Wood as B1 Battle Droids, Christopher Lee as Count Dooku, and Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu. However, Lee and Jackson did not reprise their roles in the subsequent television series.

Critical response[edit]
The film received mostly negative reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 18% based on 170 reviews, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Mechanical animation and a less-than stellar script make The Clone Wars a pale shadow of George Lucas' once great franchise." This constituted the lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating of any Star Wars film; the previous six theatrical films ranged from 52% to 95% and the made-for-television Ewok films and the Star Wars Holiday Special garnered higher ratings, although their averages encompassed far fewer reviews. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 35 out of 100 based on 30 critic reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.

Entertainment Weekly listed Star Wars: The Clone Wars as one of the five worst films of 2008 with critic Owen Gleiberman saying,

Ain't It Cool News posted two reviews of the film during the week before its release, but pulled them down due to an embargo placed on those attending the screening its writers attended. The same reviews were re-posted on the site, on the day of the film's release. The retraction prompted some readers to allege a conspiracy by Lucasfilm to keep negative press out of circulation until the release of the film, but although the review by site creator Harry Knowles was negative, Drew McWeeny said that his review was positive and that no such conspiracy existed.

Several critics compared The Clone Wars to a Saturday morning cartoon and described it as little more than a plug for the upcoming animated series. Linda Barnard, of the Toronto Star, said the movie "pretty much drives a stake into the heart of every loyal fan of the movies. And now [George Lucas is] out to stick it to those too young to know about Jar Jar Binks." Variety magazine reviewer Todd McCarthy said, "This isn't the Star Wars we've always known and at least sometimes loved." Joe Neumiar, of the New York Daily News, wrote, "If this were a true Star Wars film, right about now somebody would say, '...I've got a bad feeling about this.'" In his review for Entertainment Weekly, critic Owen Gleiberman gave the film an F grade and wrote, "George Lucas is turning into the enemy of fun." Carrie Rickey, of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said, "The best that can be said about the movie is that it's harmless and mostly charmless. The Clone Wars is to Star Wars what karaoke is to pop music." The main criticism toward the film was the animation. Many criticized it as cheap, wooden, non-engaging and out-of-date; some reviewers drew negative comparisons to 1960s marionette-based shows Thunderbirds and Fireball XL5, although George Lucas previously said the animation style was a deliberate homage to such shows. Tom Long of The Detroit News said the animation "is downright weak compared to what's generally seen on screens these days" and said the characters are so stiff they look like they were "carved by Pinocchio's father." Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and said "the characters have hair that looks molded from Play-Doh, bodies that seem arthritic, and moving lips on half-frozen faces—all signs that shortcuts were taken in the animation work." McCarthy said "the movements, both of the characters and the compositions, look mechanical, and the mostly familiar characters have all the facial expressiveness of Easter Island statues." But some of the same reviewers who criticized the animation acknowledged some positive elements about it; McCarthy said it allowed for "somewhat more dramatic compositions and color schemes," and Carrie Rickey, of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said the scenery and backgrounds were "vivid and alive", although she said the characters "move as you would imagine the statues at a waxworks might."

Reviewers also criticized the dialogue, which Ebert said was limited to "simplistic declamations" and Claudia Puig of USA Today described as "stilted and overblown, a problem also in some of the live-action incarnations." Many critics also said that the battle scenes were repetitive and lacked tension; McCarthy described the action sequences as "a little exposition, an invasion; some more exposition, a lightsaber fight; a bit more blah-blah, a spaceship dogfight, and on and on." Linda Stasi, of the New York Post, also described the lack of character development in the film, writing that whereas the original Star Wars films dedicated time to allowing viewers to get to know the characters, "Director Dave Filoni is so concentrated on the action that we're never given the chance to care who lives and who is blown into spare parts." Jason Anderson, of the Globe and Mail, wrote that although The Clone Wars is intended for younger audiences, "parents may be perturbed by the film's relentless violence." Ebert also found protagonist Ahsoka Tano "annoying," and Michael Rechtshaffen, of The Hollywood Reporter, said the attempts of humor amid the bickering between Ahsoka Tano and Anakin Skywalker are "strained". Puig said she enjoyed the character, and that "her repartee with Anakin enlivens things."

Box office[edit]
The Clone Wars earned $68,282,845 worldwide, including $35,161,554 in North American domestic box office grosses and $33,121,290 in international grosses. The film earned $14,611,273 on 3,452 screens in its opening weekend, including $6,228,973 on its opening day, August 15. It was the third-highest earning film of the weekend in spite of negative critical reception, behind Tropic Thunder and The Dark Knight, which earned $25.8 million and $16.3 million, respectively. Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., said that the box office performance met expectations because two-thirds of the audience were families and the budget for the film was $8.5 million, frugal considering it was a CGI film and because the film was meant to introduce the animated series. Fellman said, "It was targeted to a specific audience for specific reasons. We accomplished that mission, and it will continue in another medium." When The Clone Wars dropped to $5.6 million in its second week of release, ContactMusic.com described it as "the first bona fide Star Wars flop." The film also earned $23,428,376 from DVD sales in the US.

Accolades[edit]
The film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award in the category "Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel", but lost to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.