Ok got back from seeing it, I guess its a mixed bag. Was I entertained, yeah, was it really Star Wars, not so much. Lets start with the beginning which got my inner nerd rage boiling. So the "A long time..." sign comes up, you think the logo is about to hit but no its the clone wars logo and it plays with a crap version of the main theme playing in the background. So the crawl comes next right, nope, it goes into a montage of action scene with a voice over guy detailing what is going on... A VOICE OVER GUY?! Isn't that what the opening freaking crawl is for, so you can summarize what is going. It was terrible.

There are a lot of things that bugged me, for one the music was awful. Is there some rule where these guys can't use SW music, what the hell is this crap. It was like some egyption techno music mixed with rock, it was so wrong, it was not Star Wars music. Anyone that has watched SW knows the music is a huge part of the experience. Also the animation wasn't so great, they are a bit stiff. Some parts looked impressive but some areas did not, like lightsaber battles, they were handled so much better in the first cartoons.

Then there are the new characters introduced, all bad really. I guess the main new character of this show will be the new Twilek girl named Asoka. She seems like a character created just for little girls to get into SW. She creates stupid nicknames for everything, like calling Anakin "skyguy" and R2 "artoiee". The only interesting aspect about her is that its interesting to see Anakin teach someone, though that was not really showcased at all in the movie, but if handled right it could be interesting. This girl has to die or something so they can do whatever they want with her, I just don't think they have the balls to do anything and she will remain the same shallow sassy sidekick that she was in this film.

The main plot of the movie revolves a plot about kidnapping Jabba's son, so new Hutts are introduced. The first is the son which is nothing more than a tiny worm like Hutt which Asoka nicknames "stinky". Stinky does not talk or anything so its not that annoying, it makes cute faces every once and a while, whatever, didn't bother me at all. The next character will be the one everyone talks about Ziro the Hutt which is a flamboyant gay cross dressing Hutt. When you hear the voice for this supposedly male Hutt its unlike anything you have heard in SW, that was weird. And that runs down the new cast of crappy characters, which is part of my main issue with the movie, it adds nothing to the storyline.

If you have any interest in seeing this movie I suppose you have seen the previous Clone Wars cartoon. I thought those were excellent cartoons, it was stylized, it exaggerated the Jedi's powers so it made things interesting and fresh. Each episode focused on a character, a well known character or a new well defined character like Assaj or Grevious. It covered important milestones in the SW universe like how Anakin got his scar, when Anakin became a Jedi Knight, and the introduction of Grevious. When you watched this cartoon you felt like you were watching a true Star Wars story just in a different medium, the story had weight to it and effected the universe.

All that is gone from this movie, it feels like a "problem of the week" episode of any random cartoon show. The plot leads to nowhere, literally, at the end the emperor simply brushes away everything that happend in this movie. Nothing happens with the established characters other than Anakin taking on an apprentice angle. Other than that Anakin is still Anakin, Obi-wan is obi-wan, yoda does his backward speech, R2 is everywhere for no reason, and Padme shows up at the end just to stick her in there. Nothing happens with anyone. Even the villains fall flat, I really like the Assaj Ventress character, she wasn't that great in this (I read the voice actress changed and now that I think back that was probably part of it). Dooku voiced by the excellent Lee, is in character but his rematch with Anakin lacked any punch. The biggest problem with this movie is that it felt like a throw away episode of saturday cartoon series.

I don't know what this means for the upcoming series but it does put me on edge. It has none of the Jedi exaggeration that made the Tartakovsky series so fun to watch. It seems to have no place to go storywise cause all the important stuff was already done. I hope to god this is not the best they could do, cause its not that good. There is potential for great stories to be told but they must be character driven, I hope thats what the series focuses on rather than a weekly evil plot that must be foiled.

So to this point I have pretty much done nothing but bash this movie to hell, so why did I say I liked it, cause it was action packed. This is a non-stop action movie from beginning to end, and I really mean it, its just action scene after action scene. So if you want to see huge battles, lightsabers all over the place, then this is for you, the kids are going to go nuts for this. I will say that a few of the action sequences were really well done. Also I laughed a few times, the battle droids are used as comedians now and they say some funny stuff. In the end I had a good time in terms of mindless action which I don't have a problem with.

To put it simply, the first Clone Wars series was better than this movie, I don't even think its close. I hope the series improves dramatically cause this is not a good start. If you have kids, go ahead and take them, if you like lightsabers you will be entertained slightly as well. If you are a diehard SW fan you probably already saw this film. If you are a casual SW fan I say pass, I don't think there is anything here worth seeing for you. If you are not a SW fan well you don't want to see this anyway. Thats my advice for everyone.

Ok movie, I went in with no expectations so I am not mad or sad,I had a good enough time watching it. I just fear for the cartoon series, that is biggest concern right now.