CLONE WARS

Once again Lucasfilm throws us right into the midst of robotic-human-creature battles, this time with the use of dazzling, light saber and laser filled digital animation. And the question that everybody stifles inside is: how much more can Dave Filoni achieve with an animated movie?

This time the faithful saga maniacs have to set their minds in a slightly different dimension and prepare to accept the animated incarnations of their screen idols. Perhaps acknowledging the potential shock this shift might bring, Filoni opens Clone Wars with a mishmash of a special-effects-filled, droid-populated battlefield and stuffs the opening scenes with a nutshell of familiar Star Wars elements, bombarding the close-to-palpitation audience with leitmotifs; from the famous stellar opening to slogans like “dark side of the force,” “the welfare of the Republic” and “Jedi do not run.” But even those lines heard from the hard-to-associate, angular-faced (beautifully drawn) characters miss the purpose when there are no significant plot lines. It’s a tough task to develop the same saga ambience using animation and not disappoint the expectations of the light sword waving audience; and Clone Wars grows to those expectations through the first 15-20 minutes of the 98-minute film, until, finally, Lucas’ spirit shows in an array of meshy political intrigues, secret missions, spying and diplomacy, which finally kicks off with its good ol’ Star War-ish je ne sais quoi.

The never ending struggle of the good guys, the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic with equally unvanquishable separatists and their army of quarter-brain droids unfolds with indispensible Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor, who lends a tone of a second generation Brit mixed with a blasé psychoanalyst), Yoda (Tom Kane), the Clones and the utterly diplomatic senator Amidala (who looks amazingly like Natalie Portman, even though played by Catherine Taber). Clone Wars also introduces a young Jedi apprentice- Ahsoka Tano, (Ashley Eckstein), aka Snips, an adorably ardent Padawan who goes into a breathtaking fight side by side with the invincible, heroic and frat-boy-faced Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter); compensating her lack of experience with youthful enthusiasm and overly mature sarcasm. Together, they struggle to save the day and the Republic by rescuing the kidnapped son of Jabba the Hutt. They also face dark side of the force embodied in villainess Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman) and her master, the obscure Count Dooku (Christopher Lee).

Though the clashes between the hardass General Skywalker and his young Padawan have a great potential for humorous lines, only in few cases do those exchanges offer the desirable amount of wit. Instead, the absent-minded droids are the main source of humor and cause the audience spontaneous bursts of laughter. Meanwhile, Anakin and Ahsoka provide a gender accent which is not absent throughout the movie (that including Jabba’s cross-dressing uncle). The moment Skywalker and his apprentice manage to rescue Jabba’s son (who is only a baby and almost dies throughout the film), the eternal problem appears—who takes care of the baby? And though after almost 90 years, Hollywood is finally slowly starting to apply certain rules of gender correctness, the issue is still present, even among the Jedi.

“Great, you woke up the baby,” scorns Ahsoka after Skywalker performs a breathtaking swirl with their spaceship pursued by separatist ships.

“I’m kind of busy here,” he hisses back, while trying to shoot down the enemy.

What’s interesting, the main conflict of the film is a result of nothing else but a lack of diplomatic communication among the planets. Hint hint. But when Skywalker and the entire Republic is in trouble due to a miscommunication, it takes senator Amidala-- apparently most skillful diplomat and the only one thinking in terms of realist politics-- to come up with the “let’s talk this over” initiative in 2/3 of the film. Well, it wouldn’t be the American way if there was discussions instead of heroic action (plus, it would be quite boring), so when Amidala goes on a UN-like mission in order to save her beau Skywalker, khem, and the Republic; she has to get caught right away and be rescued by Marines of the Republican army. For purely cinematic reasons, it makes more sense to get into war and perfect the skill of light-swordsmanship instead of the skill of negotiating and understanding your enemy. But Clone Wars will never raise savvy politicians. Just saying.

I was particularly excited about the Asajj’s character, who, nota bene is created in a purely Disneyesque style of an evil woman—with her tall and extremely skinny silhouette and a weird skin color; and who particularly brings to mind a character once voted the most scary villain in Disney productions—the witch from Sleeping Beauty. Sadly, the gloomy villainess is only a tool in the hands of her big-fish patriarchal boss, Count Dooku; and the sword fights are restricted in general, in the name of more robotic/spaceship skirmishes.

To prove that there is nothing that digital animation cannot do these day, the makers “shoot” Clone Wars like a movie. Not only does the “camera” show the characters from different directions and semi-circulates around them, which could be assigned solely to the 3D video game techniques; but the movie applies high and low angles of perception (for example, if Master Yoda comes on the screen, everything is shown from a low angle). Plus, the animators obviously indulge in what costs huge amounts of money and effort in real life-- bombastic special effects, marches of gigantic war machines, breathtaking space battles and Jedi fly-jumping with the audience’s perspective fallowing from behind their backs. The way in which the “camera” quests through the battlefields (or battle-spaces) in long “tracking shots” gives an exciting notion of 3D reality and participation in the sci-fi disorder and Star Wars reel. Though, as I said, the sluggishly developing and a bit cliché plot might not catch you right away, the visual aspect will.

With all the state-of-the-art techniques, Clone Wars joins the ranks of made-in-Hollywood animated masterpieces that have been invading the market for a few years with a power of a digital tsunami; and becomes the season’s main competitor of Wall-e. Will the Star Wars-mania become a stronger publicity factor than sympathy for an “adorable” robot and bring the film the grandeur of such recent productions as Academy Award winning Ratatouille? Though I doubt Clone Wars would get much of the Academy’s appreciation, what really matters is the internal Star Wars affairs world and trillions of fans who constitute a never-critical audience and a piggy-bank that Lucasfilm can always rely on. Star Wars’ magic works, and though death reigns throughout the PG-Rated film in various forms (from death on the battlefield to triple decapitation), the 75% kids audience and the 20% parents audience in the New York advance screening (during New York International Children's Film festival) was nothing but delighted.