Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 2008 American 3D animated military science fiction-space opera film within the Star Wars saga, leading into a TV series of the same name produced by Lucasfilm. The film is set during the three years 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 Cartoon Network on October 3, 2008. The film received negative reviews from critics, and it grossed $68.3 million worldwide against an $8.5 million budget.
Synopsis[]
"A galaxy divided! Striking swiftly after the Battle of Geonosis, Count Dooku's droid army has seized control of the major hyperspace lanes, separating the Republic from the majority of its clone army. With few clones available, the Jedi generals cannot gain a foothold on the Outer Rim as more and more planets choose to join Dooku's Separatists. While the Jedi are occupied fighting a war, no one is left to keep the peace. Chaos and crime spread, and the innocent become victims in a lawless galaxy. Crime lord Jabba the Hutt's son has been kidnapped by a rival band of pirates. Desperate to save his son, Jabba puts out a call for help—a call the Jedi are cautious to answer…"
Plot[]
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 the Jedi are responsible for the situation. Padmé soon discovers that Ziro has actually conspired with Dooku to have Rotta killed 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 him that the tide of war is still in their favor.
Cast[]
- 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
Reception[]
Box office[]
The Clone Wars earned $68.28 million worldwide, including $35.16 million in domestic box office grosses and $33.12 million in foreign grosses. The movie earned $14.6 million on 3,590 screens its opening weekend, including $6.23 million on opening day August 15. It was the third-highest earning film of the weekend, behind the action comedy Tropic Thunder and Batman sequel The Dark Knight, which earned $26 million and $16.8 million, respectively. Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros. Pictures, said the box office performance met expectations because two-thirds of the audience were families, and because the movie 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 $5.7 million in the second week, ContactMusic.com described it as "the first bona fide Star Wars flop."
Critical reception[]
The Clone Wars was almost universally panned by film critics prior to its theatrical release. The Clone Wars earned 19% "rotten" rating among 157 reviews compiled at the Rotten Tomatoes site, as well as 14% among 28 "Top Critics." This is the lowest Rotten Tomatoes ranking of any Star Wars film; the previous six theatrical films ranged from 57% to 97%, and even the made-for-television Ewok movies and the much-derided Star Wars Holiday Special garnered higher ratings. At Metacritic, the movie scored a 35% based on 30 reviews, earning it the status "generally negative reviews."
Ain't It Cool News, a movie review site, 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 reposted on the site 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 "Moriarty" McWeeny pointed out to readers 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 of the same name. 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 he's out to stick it to those too young to know about Jar Jar Binks." Film.com writer Eric D. Snider wrote, "Remember how people talked about the Star Wars prequels like they were the worst movies ever made, when really, come on, they weren't THAT bad? The Clone Wars actually IS that bad." 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.'" Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman gave the movie 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."
Many criticized the animation as cheap, wooden, unengaging 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 of the Chicago Sun-Times and At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper 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 agreed 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 movies 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 Toronto 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 clichéd and "annoying," and Michael Rechtshaffen, of The Hollywood Reporter, said the attempts at humor amid the bickering between Tano and Anakin Skywalker are "strained." Puig, however, said she enjoyed the character and that "her repartee with Anakin enlivens things."
Not all of the critical reaction to the film was negative. In a positive review, Kenny Lengel of The Arizona Republic said the lack of hype surrounding The Clone Wars, as opposed to the 1999 release of The Phantom Menace, allowed him to enjoy the film due to lower expectations. He said of The Clone Wars, "if you're willing to regress to the mental age of 12 for a couple of hours, it's an amusing ride." Whereas other reviewers criticized the fact that it was plugging the animated series, Lengel described it as an asset for the movie, writing "it's not trying to be anything more, so it works just fine." Associated Press film critic David Germain called The Clone Wars "reasonably fun, if generally forgettable" and that it "comes off as rather cute overall," but he said it would be better suited to television and that unlike the previous Star Wars films, it "definitely is not an event."
Chris Hewitt of the St. Paul Pioneer Press said he enjoyed The Clone Wars more than any of the films in the prequel trilogy, and said the female characters are handled better in this movie than in any of the prior three. He also said the animation heightens the lightsaber battles and although the style was "initially off-putting," he wrote, "there's a kind of logic to having all the 'Star Wars' characters resemble action figures." Baltimore Sun critic Michael Sragow admitted the movie was not innovative, but wrote, "young audiences will lap it up like ice cream, and its good humor and faith in the Force will put adults in a Saturday-morning frame of mind even at midnight showings." Many critics agreed that the return of Star Wars alumni actors Anthony Daniels, Christopher Lee and Samuel L. Jackson as voice actors in The Clone Wars was a positive aspect of the movie. Although Neumaier criticized the artistic style of the film, he described a vertical assault up a mountainside as an exception and called the sequence "creative."
Entertainment Weekly defended the film, saying "The Clone Wars is simply too well produced to justify virulent disdain and too insignificant to prosecute the Lucas-legacy argument. The movie is a small pleasure, which is only a problem when you expect huge things from a Star Wars film." Star Wars: The Force Unleashed actor Sam Witwer felt that the film would have been better received had it aired as part of the TV series.
Dave Filoni commented on the criticism:
"As a fan of 'Star Wars' for so long, I always knew there would be debate. No matter what you do with 'Star Wars,' you're going to have a huge debate about it. I actually think its part of the fun of being a fan; having the big arguments over 'I like this' and 'I didn't like that' or 'this aspect fit with what I thought' but 'this aspect didn't.' I think one of the greatest things is that people are still talking about 'Star Wars.' 'Anakin has a Padawan? I've never heard of that before?' But now everybody is talking about the fact that Anakin has a Padawan and the movie introduced that idea."
It was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award, or "Razzie," for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel, but lost to another Lucasfilm production, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Audience reception[]
Despite low box office and negative critical reviews, audience response over time to the film has proven favorable in some aspects. As of November 13, 2014, the film carries an overall rating of 4.0/5 user-reviewed stars at Amazon.com, with 145/284 reviews giving it a rating of 5 stars and only 43 giving it less than 3 stars. Amongst reviewer statements were that it's "good for what it tries to do" and that it "offers a subpar story but sort of makes up for it with pretty cool battle sequences and decent animation."
At Metacritic, users gave the film a "mixed" score of 5.3/10 with 192 reviews, 94 of them positive. On Rotten Tomatoes, only 38% are listed as liking the film, with an overall rating of 3/5.
Realese[]
At Hasbro's fall 2007 analyst event, it was announced that Star Wars: The Clone Wars would have a "theatrical launch" on August 8, 2008, with it beginning to be shown on TV during that fall. Although Lucasfilm had previously announced that it would produce an animated feature film in 2008, when initially asked for confirmation, an LFL representative replied that "It's one of the many things being discussed but we have no decisions yet. For us it's all about finding a creative way to launch a creative TV series."
At ToyFare 2008, a LEGO official announced that an animated feature film would be released in the UK in September 2008, and would be made up of the first three episodes of the series, with regular episodes airing later on television on an at-the-time unrevealed channel. It was officially announced on February 12, 2008 that the feature film would be released in theaters on August 15, 2008, with the TV series debuting in the fall. Warner Bros. showed a preview of the film in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 13, 2008. Lucas attended the event and held a question and answer session. The first theatrical trailer debuted on May 8, 2008 on five separate Turner Network channels. A second trailer was released in June 2008.
The film premiered at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on August 10, 2008, and was later screened on August 14, 2008 at Los Angeles's Nokia Theater accompanying a Lucasfilm VIP party with special guests John Knoll and Dave Filoni. SpikeTV producer Terry Minogue speculated that his channel would debut the film on television at some point after its theatrical release. The film had its Canadian broadcast premiere on September 5, 2009 on the Canadian TV station Teletoon,[source?] and in the US on Cartoon Network on November 20, 2010.
Merchandise[]
Star Wars: The Clone Wars merchandise was first released on July 26, 2008. Hasbro Inc. released several 3 3/4-inch Clone Wars action figures, an electronic clone trooper helmet, a customizable lightsaber, and an electronic AT-TE. Toys "R" Us mounted digital clocks in all 585 of its stores that counted down to the release of the Clone Wars toys, and more than 225 of the stores opened at midnight for the debut of the Star Wars products. Two of the Toys "R" Us flagship outlets in Mission Bay, San Diego, California and Times Square in Manhattan, New York City held costume and trivia contests on July 26 and gave away limited-edition Star Wars toys with every purchase. A section of the Toys "R" Us website was also dedicated to The Clone Wars.
Due to the Lucas's sudden decision to make a Clone Wars film after viewing footage of the television show, Lucas Licensing did not have time to enter into agreements with previous Star Wars marketing partners like Pepsi, Burger King and Kellogg's, with which the Lucasfilm licensing company had a 10-year marketing plan for the other films; when questioned by The New York Times for a Star Wars merchandising in July 2006, a Pepsi spokesperson was unaware a new Star Wars film was even being released. Target and KB Toys also devoted shelf space for Clone Wars toys, but did not hold midnight releases or pursue the branding opportunities Toys "R" Us did. The McDonald's fast food restaurant chain held its first ever Happy Meal promotion for a Star Wars movie starting on August 15. For four weeks, 18 exclusive toys came in specially designed Happy Meal boxes.
DK Publishing and Penguin Group released tie-in books, activities and other merchandise, including Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Visual Guide (published by DK) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (published by Puffin in the UK and by Grosset & Dunlap in the U.S). The publishers also released storybook, picture books and an activity book. At the American International Toy Fair, LEGO announced a product line for the film and the TV series, to be released in July 2008 in the United States and August 2008 in the United Kingdom. LucasArts adapted the movie into Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Jedi Alliance for the Nintendo DS and Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels for Wii. A reviewer from PocketGamer.co.uk said his expectations for Jedi Alliance were low due to poor Clone Wars movie reviews, but he found the game "a varied and well-paced experience."
Dark Horse Comics published a six-issue digest-sized comic book mini-series. Randy Stradley, vice president of publishing for Dark Horse, said the sudden decision to release the Clone Wars film required the company to temporarily delay plans for two other Star Wars comic book series, Dark Times and Rebellion. The Clone Wars comics did not receive the promotional campaign it otherwise would have due to the abruptness of the theatrical and comic book releases. Topps, the trading cards company, released a series of 90 Clone Wars cards on July 26, which also included foil cards, motion cards, animation cel cards and rare sketch cards by top Star Wars artists and Lucasfilm animators.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released by Sony Classical on August 12, 2008. The disc begins with the main theme by John Williams, followed by more than 30 separate music cues composed by Kevin Kiner. Kiner is known for his work on such television series as Stargate SG-1, Star Trek: Enterprise, Superboy and CSI: Miami. The soundtrack uses many instruments never heard before in a Star Wars score, including synthesizers, electric guitars, erhus, duduks, ouds and taikos.
A Star Wars: The Clone Wars open wheel car for the IndyCar Series was unveiled at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con International. The #26 car, which also included Blockbuster Inc. decals and was driven by Andretti Green Racing driver Marco Andretti, ran August 24 on the Infineon Raceway in the Sonoma Mountains in California; Andretti said, "I'm hoping that my upcoming battle at Infineon will be as exciting as anything in a Star Wars movie so I can win it for both Blockbuster and Lucasfilm." The car finished 14th at Infineon, which Andretti attributed to a slow pit stop early in the race; he added, "I just don't think it was a very good performance for us today." The Clone Wars car was the second collaboration between Lucasfilm, Blockbuster and Andretti Green Racing, which premiered an Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull car in the Indianapolis 500 in May 2008.
A Star Wars: The Clone Wars MP3 player was released in August 2008 for $59.99. The player includes one gigabyte of memory, which holds 1,630 songs or 64 hours of music and comes with three interchangeable faceplates: a green one with Yoda and a lightsaber on it, a silver one with a Captain Rex and a Galactic Empire logo on it, and one with two clone troopers on Coruscant. One review claimed it improved upon a Darth Vader MP3 player released in July 2008, which featured only 512 megabytes of memory and a dated visual display. A Star Wars iPod iSpeaker (a speaker/dock for iPods, iPhones and MP3 players) also released for $19; the speaker includes an image of Captain Rex and three other Clone Troopers.
Home video[]
Warner Bros. also has the home video rights, and had planned a DVD release of the film and TV series as early as February 2008. Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released on home video on November 11, 2008, as a single-disc DVD, a two-disc Special Edition DVD set, and a two-disc Blu-ray set. The single and double-disc standard-definition versions both include the widescreen film with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX sound, and the feature-length audio commentary.
The single-disc DVD includes as a special feature only an audio commentary by Director Dave Filoni, Producer Catherine Winder, Writer Henry Gilroy, and Editor Jason Tucker.
The two-disc editions include the above commentary plus:
- The Clone Wars: The Untold Stories: Preview stories, vehicles, planets, and battles from Season One of The Clone Wars television series.
- The Voices of The Clone Wars: Voiceover actors and animated characters in split-screen performances.
- A New Score: Composer Kevin Kiner establishing a new musical identity for the series.
- Gallery of Concept and Production Art
- Webisodes: Six making-of featurettes, as seen on StarWars.com
- Deleted Scenes: Cargo Bay, Platform Droid Fight, Rancor Pit, and Through the Tanks
- Theatrical and video game trailers
- Digital copy of the film on the second disc
The Blu-ray editions include all the above features in 1080p high definition (deleted Scenes and certain trailers are not in HD) on a single 50GB disc. Audio commentary is not present.
- A Creative Conversation Video Commentary: Director Dave Filoni, Producer Catherine Winder, Writer Henry Gilroy, and Editor Jason Tucker discuss bringing the Star Wars legend on the big screen again
- Take the Hologram Memory Challenge: Test your skill and memory and unlock three hi-def TV series sneak peeks
- Digital copy of the film on a second disc
Availability[]
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is also available on is available on the Disney+ streaming service, which launched on November 12, 2019.
Transcript[]
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Director Dave Filoni originally proposed for Ahsoka Tano to be Obi-Wan Kenobi's new Padawan, but George Lucas insisted that she would be Anakin's apprentice.
- First Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi (1983) to feature an in-cockpit view of the jump to hyperspace. George Lucas purposely did not use this iconic shot in any of the prequels, so as not to lessen the impact of seeing it for the first time in Star Wars (1977) (assuming one watches the movies in numerical order).
- This movie is comprised of four episodes that were originally produced for the first season of the TV series from 2008. Had they been shown as separate episodes, they would have had the following titles:
- "The New Padawan", directed by Brian Kalin O'Connell, production number 118, Jedi fortune cookie: "To teach is to learn twice".
- "Castle of Deception", directed by Dave Filoni, production number 101, Jedi fortune cookie: "The wise Jedi does not trust appearances."
- "Castle of Doom", directed by George Samilski, production number 103, Jedi fortune cookie: "Nothing worth having is easily gained."
- "Castle of Salvation", directed by Dave Bullock, production number 104, Jedi fortune cookie: "The confidence we have in ourselves can easily give birth to confidence in others."
- When Matt Lanter auditioned, he was told he was reading for the part of "Deak Starkiller" and to play him as a cross between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Only when he got the part was he told he would be voicing Anakin Skywalker.
- Ashley Eckstein originally auditioned for the voice of Padmé Amidala, but was told she sounded too young. However, the producers called her back and asked her to play around with different accents. After a few more auditions, she was hired, and was told to use her normal voice for the part of Ahsoka Tano.
- In original concept art, Ahsoka Tano was named Ashla, which is the name of the Youngling of the same species (Togruta) seen in Star Wars. Episode II -The Attack of the Clones (2002). However, the link between these two characters was soon drop
- The movie went out of print in 2013 after original distributor Warner Bros. allowed their rights to expire (the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm the year prior didn't help), and both Blu-ray and DVD copies tend to go for insanely high prices online. Netflix streamed it along with the series for a while (though bad luck if the Netflix feed in your country didn't have it), and then both would move to Disney+ upon that service's launch in 2019. Since then, D+ is the only place where it's legally available to view.
- Combined with The Original Darrin; Count Dooku and Mace Windu's lines were originally recorded by Corey Burton and Terrence C. Carson respectively, who had voiced the roles in Star Wars: Clone Wars and various video games. When the originally-intended four episodes were edited together for a theatrical release, their live-action actors, Christopher Lee and Samuel L. Jackson were brought back to re-record the lines. Then, when the actual series began airing, Burton and Carson resumed the roles.
References[]
See also[]
- Star Wars: Clone Wars
External Links[]
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