Well, after seeing The Clone Wars tonight… I have to say that the critics were once again, full of shit.

Apparently, since 1999 it has become hip and popular to crap all over Lucas and Star Wars. Because nothing on that film warranted headlines such as “Dear George Lucas: Stop ruining Star Wars!” or “Star Wars is dead”. Nothing at all, unless they had reviewed the film expecting a PG-13 rated “Episode VII”. Or worse, expecting something that would 1-up “A New Hope”. Something that the film never was and something it never intended to be.

Upon watching the film it became pretty obvious to me that the writers behind The Clone Wars wrote it with “younglings” in mind. And that’s why the film had those silly nicknames and the typical humor you find in Saturday morning cartoons. But the critics didn’t find that acceptable.

I mean, the critics hated it because it really wasn’t a geek movie but a kids movie. It wasn’t “cool” and “badass” enough for the 35-40 year old virgin crowd to go geek at.

Now, the animation wasn’t something that would make Pixar lose any sleep. But it was more often than not, very good. Some shots looked amazing on the big screen and the stylized character designs had me eye-ballin’ them the entire time, specially during close-ups. Ahsoka didn’t seem as annoying as the critics had said. She was in fact, no more annoying than the typical rookie trying to prove her worth. And in that context, she was perfectly fine. And Ziro the Hutt, didn’t bothered me in the least. So he was gay and wore make-up, big deal.

I also liked how Padme and Mace Windu looked in the film. Those two looked the most like the actors that played them IRL. And I really enjoyed listening to Christopher Lee’s voice. I think he had more lines in this film than on his last live-action SW flick. The fight with Anakin was one of my favorite sequences. My other favorite scene was when they were storming the temple where a particular hostage was kept prisoner. That whole part was downright amazing.

I also noticed that the jedi space cruisers had officers/personnel that spoke and dressed similarly to the way the Imperial officers did in the OT. That was neat. And the movie did mentioned the FORCE. Twice if I remember correctly. I say that because a critic said that the film didn’t even mentioned it. Goes to show that they weren’t paying attention, eh?

The music score was okay. I liked some of the new arrangements. But I’ll be lying if I said that I didn’t missed Johnny Williams musical touch.

Now the film does have some negative aspects. The intro needed a bit more work. It went too fast. However, the Battle in the beginning can drag a bit too long. Watching lookalike clones fighting lookalike droids can become tedious after a few minutes. And I wished that there had included more space battles instead of mostly ground assaults.

But it was a good show overall. Even my brother who dislikes space flicks told me that he liked it (his gf wanted to see it, thus he had to go). And the half-full theater (we went to the 6:30pm showing) applauded at the end (with shouts of glee & satisfaction included, I kid you not).

Well, that was my review/rant

P.S. Sorry if I made any typos… It’s quite late here in California. But I wanted to add my review while the film was fresh in my mind.