My own self

Skywalker is in trouble. You know the drill.

- General Kenobi to his troops

When the prequel trilogy of Star Wars was over and done with - or really, already once episode II was out - there was an odd big hole where everyone had expected the Clone Wars to be. Part of this hole was splendidly filled by the hand-animated Clone Wars-series - a series that I dare say eclipses or at least matches several of the Star Wars-movies proper.

Now, George Lucas has decided to launch a new animated series about the Clone Wars, this one a digital half-hour show rather than the five- and fifteen-minute shorts that comprised the previous series. Set after the old one (thankfully, it seems to very much remain in continuity) this new series is distinguished in title from the previous one by a handy little "the" in the front - it's called The Clone Wars.

Lucas being Lucas, having an ordinary television premiere just wouldn't do, so suddenly, there was a world-wide cinematic release of a new Star Wars movie that also acts as a pilot for the show. (He's also said that the show will have at least 100 episodes before it's done - this before even the pilot had been released. The man is out of control!) I've finally seen that pilot movie, and I must say, I had meagre hopes after the trailer.

You see, I'm no fan of digital animation to begin with. But fair enough, it can be done well. Judging from the trailer, this wasn't going to be one of them. The style chosen is downright ugly. I had very, very low expectations because of this. (Well that, and let's face it, it was a Star Wars-movie, high hopes would seem irrational) Oddly, it didn't bother me mentionably when actually watching it. The clone troopers and the droids all look just like they do in the movies. The problem is only with people's faces, and honestly, you can get past that. The two main problems were Dooku and Obi-Wan, due to their beards. The style was horrid on faces in general, but hair, and especially beards, look like chunks of rock planted on the people's faces.

So, visually, most things looked good or okay, except the faces of actual people, which all looked horrendous. Some more than others. Still, this didn't really bother me that much - it's odd how quickly you accept something like that and stop letting it bother you if what's going on is actually interesting.

To my pleasant surprise, you see, what was going on was interesting. The plot-point I'd heard about (and seen on posters) that was the most horrid-sounding to me actually turned out to work and be well done as well: Anakin Skywalker gets a Padawan, young Ahsoka Tano, a Togruta girl with just enough attitude to be fun without being annoying. The main plots worked very well too, tying together mythology from several of the main movies and, to my immense joy, the previous Clone Wars-series and feeling relatively convincing and real. With all these pleasant surprises, you might be wondering if I'm head over heels at this point.

Well, no. It can't really compete with the best episodes from Clone Wars, and while it doesn't have any scenes as cringe-worthy as some in the original movies, the animation-style simply cannot compete with live-action people on-screen, nor is there any scenes packing the sheer amount of emotion and pathos scenes of the old six had in bunches. There are also some classic Lucas-choices that make no sense, like having the battle-droids have personalities and fumble around stupidly. If they had personalities, the entire premise of clones-are-better-because-they-can-think-creatively that is so central to the movies fall apart. A few jokes, some bad and some a little amusing, are not worth compromising that, Mr. Lucas. Not that the six main movies haven't done so thoroughly already.

The voice-acting was rather good. Mace Windu, C-3PO and Count Dooku are all voiced by the original actors, but the main charactes of the film have gotten new voices. Some are closer to the original than others, but all work. James Arnold Taylor, who apparently voiced Obi-Wan, does a very good job at mimicking Ewan McGregor's voice, but at times a little too well, the dialogue sometimes coming off as almost a parody of himself. Still, these things are minor nuiscances. On the whole, all the characters - and especially my favourite character among the main cast here, Obi-Wan - were very much spot-on.

Still, this was surprisingly enjoyable. A lot of choices I wholeheartedly applaud were made here, like pushing the political plots a little more central stage, playing up the close relationship the Jedi got to some of the clone trooper officers they fought with, keeping in line with the previous Clone Wars-series, and so on. The series that continue on from it is supposed to focus less on the traditional main characters and open up more of the universe. If this movie is any indication as to how, this will be a good thing, as I consider this a very constructive addition to the main mythos. All it really needed was some bigger, more emotional events, and seeing as it used the traditional main characters, it couldn't really do that as all the giant events of their lives are hogged by the old six movies. A series with other people in focus would not have this problem. I'm actually looking forward to checking this series out now. Despite the horrid animation-style chosen.

A very strong and promising 7/10