While Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, like Episode I, polarized the living hell out of movie critics and fake series fans, the introduction of the Clone Wars, the backstory conflict mentioned exactly once in the Original Trilogy, it nonetheless led Lucasfilm to explore the conflict more, starting with Genndy Tartakovsky's Star Wars: Clone Wars, which would be rendered noncanon after Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm. The success of that micro-series would lead to another series elaborating on the conflict, beginning with the pilot film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which premiered in 2008.
During the titular conflict, Galactic Republic forces are stranded across the Outer Rim, with the Separatists gaining more control of hyperspace lanes and Anakin Skywalker leading forces against Count Dooku's army on Christophsis with his master Obi-Wan Kenobi and clone captain Rex. Anakin gets his own padawan, Ahsoka Tano, and works with her on a mission to rescue Jabba the Hutt's kidnapped son Rotta. While it's interesting to learn that Jabba had offspring, we seem to never hear from him again in the series. We also learn that Jabba has an effeminate uncle, the purplish Ziro, who conspires with Dooku.
Overall, the movie is a good intro to the main Clone Wars series but is easily one of the weaker entries of the series due to the typical franchise flaw of tons of things occurring offscreen, and the invalidation of Tartakovsky's series definitely didn't help matters. The music, as always, is one of the high points of the movie, with the battles and visual effects being pretty as well. The voicework is further well-executed, but some of the performances are odd, with the occasional off dialogue not helping. In the end, it doesn't achieve masterpiece status (but again, I don't think the entries of the Original Trilogy are as infallible as "fans" claim), but it is a must-see for those who want to dive into the CG series proper.
| The Good | The Bad |
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| The Bottom Line | |
| One of the weaker canon Star Wars films. | |
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