Count Dooku unleashes dark side lightning in a scene from "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." Photo: Warner Bros. & Lucasfilm Ltd.
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars (PG) No stars
By Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News
With Star Wars: The Clone Wars, George Lucas succeeds in fulfilling a long-time goal -- removing pesky actors from the filmmaking equation -- and continues along the infantile, idiot-friendly path he trod so ingloriously with the Star Wars prequels.
The ugly-looking movie is a straightforward, unapologetic cash grab, taking footage intended to be part of Cartoon Network's upcoming Clone Wars TV series and slapping it together to lure in the few who haven't already torn up their fan club membership cards in disgust.
And if you're still buying the limited vision that George the Huckster is shilling after all these years, then, to paraphrase Jar Jar Binks: Mooey, mooey, me-sa thinks you-sa have some kind of battered-Jedi syndrome, okeeday?
The Clone Wars events take place in the uncharted three-year time period between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, before Anakin became Vader and was still just a brooding bad boy whose image could adorn the bedroom walls of mooning, tween-age Jedi lovers.
One such girl, Ahsoka Tano, ends up here as Anakin's apprentice. Dressed like a Bratz doll with a light-saber, the headstrong Ahsoka fills a nice hole in Lucasfilm's merchandising line and, by calling Anakin ''Sky Guy,'' further diminishes whatever danger the character once possessed.
Anakin and Ahsoka get in lots of battles -- the torrents of their blazer blasts are exceeded only by the hail of blabby, expositional dialogue every character must utter. The chief plot line involves the kidnapping of Jabba the Hut's larva-like, infant son to turn Hut against the Jedis. Said plot also includes Jabba's uncle, Ziro, imagined here as Truman Capote crossed with Blanche DuBois.
There are already 30 Clone Wars episodes banked with at least another 70 planned. Watch them if you must. I'll be switching from the Cartoon Network to PBS Kids for the Boobah marathon. Gotta feed the mind, you know.
Voices: Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein
Director: Dave Filoni
Screenwriters: Henry Gilroy, George Lucas, Steven Melching, Scott Murphy
Producers: George Lucas, Catherine Winder
A Warner Bros. Release. Running time: 98 minutes. Sci-fi violence, brief language. Playing at: area theaters.
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