Clone Wars

Viewed: DVD

After the Star Wars prequels, I lost a lot of interest (maybe all interest) in any Star Wars story taking place in the pre-New Hope time. George Lucas just so terribly screwed up the story and characters and well, everything, that watching the movies actively annoys me. Yes, I really dislike the three prequel movies that much.

I’ve mentioned that Calfgrit8 has seen A New Hope with me — we still need to see Empire and Jedi — and recently he asked to see Clone Wars. “My friends have seen it,” he told me.

So I rented it and watched it Saturday night. I wanted to see if it was suitable for an 8-year-old. I sat at my computer with my headphones, after everyone else was asleep, and I watched this movie. I determined that the content was okay for Calfgrit8 to see.

Probably 70% of the movie time is showing warfare, but the only deaths are robots and faceless clone troopers. There’s no blood and guts.

But, there’s also no attachment for me. It didn’t move me at all. It was just a lifeless, shell of a film, to me. In fact, after watching the first 30 minutes (out of 98 total minutes), I started fast forwarding. I’d fast forward a couple minutes, watch a minute, then fast forward several minutes, watch a minute, then skip to the next chapter, watch a minute, etc.

So Sunday afternoon, while Calfgrit4 took his midday nap, Calfgrit8 and I watched this movie together. For me, watching this was like watching the boys’ What’s New Scooby Doo videos — nothing of interest to me whatsoever. But for CG8, he loved it. He *loved* it. I can see why he loved it, and I figured he would judging from the bits I watched the night before.

I’m glad he got to see it. I’m glad he enjoyed it. And I’m glad I was with him when he experienced it. But it showed that prequel Star Wars is completely dead to me. The only emotion it got out of me was . . . well, I don’t think it got any emotion out of me.

There were many parts that had me rolling my eyes — the clone troopers leaving cover to charge into the robot army and fight literally muzzle to muzzle; the battle robots having vocal personalities that were stupid for comic relief; Anakin Skywalker being so damned aggressive and ornery, yet so highly thought of among the Jedi masters; a very young padawan learner being so powerful in the force — that I wanted to shoot the computer monitor and TV screen with a blaster.

Basically, this movie is purely for Star Wars fans under 12 years old. If that was the intention for the film, (and I suspect it was), then it is successful at hitting it target.

Bullgrit