The Star Wars Celebration Japan event in July wasn’t just celebrating 30 years of Star Wars in Japan but was also about promoting the new animated movie ‘The Clone Wars‘ (released in Japan on August 23rd) which was originally intended to be a TV series pilot filling in the gaps between ‘Episode II: Attack of the Clones‘ (2002) and ‘Episode III: Revenge of the Sith‘ (2005).

I do remember from the aforementioned event that director Dave Filloni did say that he had become interested in the Clone Wars from the moment he heard Luke Skywalker ask Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi “You fought in the Clone Wars?” in ‘Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope‘ (1977). Can’t say that it got me thrilled or that I was too concerned about these blanks so it was with fairly low expectation that I went to the cinema last Friday to see how things were developing in this latest part of the Star Wars saga.

 

Myself and Gideon weren’t the only Star Wars geeks there as there was a single line of loner ‘otaku’ (nerd or geek) going down a fair few rows with them all sitting in the middle of the row. The plot is a bit thin, desperate and fairly forgettable but with no expectatation and hype surrounding the movie I was able to enjoy it. Of course if you’re not a Star Wars fan then it obviously won’t appeal and I’m sure its not even designed for us original trilogy generation fans either.

The dialogue was inevitably cliched but I thought that about ‘Revenge of the Sith‘ (2005) so no real change there! The addition of new female character Ahsoka Tano was not as bad as I thought it would be and it was actually quite enjoyable watching her banter with Anakin at times. The storyline involving Jabba the Hutt and his kidnapped son Rotta did slightly remind me of the far, far superior Dr Evil and Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies but overall I would have to say that I didn’t mind the film. High praise indeed!!