Latest Updates: Thursday, July 17, 2008
The reviews are starting to come in as press screenings for the Clone Wars movie are starting up. The AP has posted up their review.
Here's what they had to say:`Clone Wars' revives old-style `Star Wars' fun
By DAVID GERMAIN – 2 hours ago
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) — A tinge of Anakin Skywalker's coming dark side clearly is visible in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." Yet the animated adventure mostly harks back to the fun, swashbuckling times of the original "Star Wars" trilogy.
Lucasfilm Animation, which screened the movie Tuesday for The Associated Press in advance of its Aug. 15 theatrical release, has crafted a movie nicely tucked in to Anakin's early heroic days, before his transformation into the evil Darth Vader.
Along for the ride are noble-hearted clone soldiers with the camaraderie of Marine grunts, inept android warriors as idiotic as the Three Stooges and a young protege who rivals Anakin for cockiness and affectionately calls him "Sky Guy."
Dave Filoni, director of the movie and supervising director for "The Clone Wars" animated TV show debuting this fall on TNT and the Cartoon Network, said the idea was to return to the wisecracking tone of the original "Star Wars" in 1977, before the gloom of Anakin's fall.
"I wanted this to have the banter. I wanted this to be funny," Filoni said in an interview at Skywalker Ranch, home to Lucasfilm Animation, a division of "Star Wars" creator George Lucas' filmmaking empire. "Telling that dark story of Anakin Skywalker was important for George, but this was a chance to show Anakin before that. Anakin as a hero, Anakin as the good guy, Anakin more like his son," Luke Skywalker, of the original trilogy.
The Anakin in "Clone Wars" is a hybrid of Luke and his rascally ally, Han Solo, Filoni said.
"He's cocky like Han, he can do a lot of things like Han, he's clever with machines like Han. But he's naive like Luke. The whole galaxy is a bit overwhelming," Filoni said.
The movie presents all of the key characters from Anakin's world: Jedi masters Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu and Yoda; Anakin's future wife Padme Amidala; androids R2-D2 and C-3PO; gangster Jabba the Hutt; villain Count Dooku; and Palpatine, the galaxy's evil emperor in waiting.
Characters not seen in the live-action movies include conniving assassin Asajj Ventress; Jabba's sinister uncle, a giant slug that speaks with a Truman Capote-like Southern drawl; and Captain Rex, a loyal member of Anakin's clone crew.
Full article
Labels: Reviews, The Clone Wars
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