First things first. You’ve got to check out the Star Wars: The Clone Wars official site. It is jam packed with all things Clone Wars such as videos, games, downloads, characters, screen shots, etc. You could spend days playing around on it. Loads of fun. In fact, I’ve spent more time on that site in the past week than I have on my wife (it’s a married thing – some of you will understand.) Sadly, I wish I could say I was just joking.

The website also gives you the ability grab the following widget for your own site, MySpace, Facebook, or whatever.

Spoiler Alert: Anakin Skywalker turns to the dark side and becomes Darth Vader. But that doesn’t happen in The Clone Wars. I know, that was probably a bit mean to trick you like that.

The Essentials

Title: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Official Site)
Directed by Dave Filoni
Written by Henry Gilroy, George Lucas, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy
Running Time: 98 mins
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language and momentary smoking.

The Plot of The Clone Wars

As the Clone Wars sweep through the galaxy, the heroic Jedi Knights struggle to maintain order and restore peace. More and more systems are falling prey to the forces of the dark side as the Galactic Republic slips further and further under the sway of the Separatists and their never-ending droid army.

Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan learner Ahsoka Tano find themselves on a mission with far-reaching consequences, one that brings them face-to-face with crime lord Jabba the Hutt. But Count Dooku and his sinister agents, including the nefarious Asajj Ventress, will stop at nothing to ensure that Anakin and Ahsoka fail at their quest.

Meanwhile, on the front lines of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Master Yoda lead the massive clone army in a valiant effort to resist the forces of the dark side. (Taken directly from The Clone Wars Official Site. Hey, work smarter not harder)

The Review of The Clone Wars

Visually and artistically, the movie is stunning. Viewers will quickly recognize several buildings and familiar rooms in this animation. The colors are bright and modern and the vehicle movements are spot on. Since there were a ton of CGI scenes in Episodes 1-3, there are moments when you wonder if they just used the same files. The strong angled beards and hair were tough to get used to on a few of the characters though. I immediately thought of the stylized sculptures of the ancient Greeks like the Dying Warrior. My art background forces me to wonder if this time period inspired the character designs a bit. See below:

The storyline was decent. I mean, we all know that one doesn’t become a Star Wars geek solely based upon the acting and directing. At least with the computer animated backdrop of the movie, there are no real expectations of great acting (not that there would have been anyway) so George Lucas didn’t necessarily get in the way of the story aside from one minor annoyance – but more on that later. The Clone Wars did not really add much to the original storyline, nor did it take anything away from it. There is very little in the movie that seem to attempt to elaborate or further any of the subplots of the original live action movies. That being said, it’s completely acceptable. We know the story. We know what happens at the beginning, in the middle, and of course at the end. All in all, there seems to be just enough connection in The Clone Wars to have it included as part of the Star Wars story but plenty enough different that we are okay with the animation.

The movie doesn’t disappoint in regards to humor. You could always count on that good ol’ George Lucas humor. There are some moments of funny dialogs between droid superiors. R2-D2 celebrates some sharp shooting. And Anakin’s struggle with his young Padawan learner, Ahsoka Tano, is reminiscent of the relationship between Obi-wan and Anakin during his apprenticeship. However, a minor part of the movie that is not very amusing is the appearance of Ziro the Hutt. Feelings reminiscent of the introduction of Jar Jar Binks come to mind. It’s not so much the character or the fact that he is Jabba’s uncle. It’s the voice that’s annoying. There are grumblings that Ziro is the first overtly gay alien. I didn’t initially think of that. I was too busy trying to use jedi mind tricks on myself in order to block out the voice. It’s just the Lucas way I guess. Rumor has it that Lucas explicitly asked for Ziro to sound like Truman Capote. Although, at one point, he (or she) sounded like Adam Sandler to me. Ridiculous. But that’s really the only negative and he has only a small part in the movie unlike Jar Jar.

All in all, the movie is a fun experience for a Star Wars fan like me. I was fortunate enough to be able to load up my two sons on The Clone Wars opening weekend for a little boys only time. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t understand the power of the Force. She has yet to watch a single Episode of Star Wars all the way through because she can’t, and I quote, “stay awake.” Eh, she doesn’t deserve to be a Star Wars fan anyway. But somehow she manages to stay awake during Mama Mia!, The Notebook, Kate & Leopold, You’ve Got Mail, etc., etc., etc.

Spoilers: This isn’t going to destroy your movie experience by any means. But, one of my favorite scenes involved a confrontation between battle droids and clone army troopers. The clone army commander told a battle droid leader, “Your outnumbered!” In the scene, it was clear that the clone army was actually outnumbered. The droid started to count, “Wait, one, two…” Then boom! Reinforcements arrive in battleships to blow up the sidetracked droids. Trust me, it’s funny. You also find out what a baby huttling is in the form of Jabba the Hutt’s son. Oooo, nasty!

Watch The Clone Wars If…

You enjoy computer animation and are at minimum a casual Star Wars fan. If you even remotely want to see this film, go ahead and buy a matinee ticket to save some money. This movie is worth the big screen experience for any Star Wars fan.

Rating: 5.5/10

ThinkBox gives it two Sith Lords and a droid – which is a few Jedi Knights short of a must-see.

In the second week of our summer blockbuster season, Speed Racer is looking like it could be a flop. Right now it’s tracking on Rotten Tomates with a 34%…egads. My wife said USA Today gave it 1.5 out of 4 stars.

Now, the Cap’n can back me up on this, but I am certainly not surprised by this. I told him on Monday I was planning on writing an article about how I thought it might not do well. In fact, over a week ago in our Summer Box Office predictions article, I didn’t even include the movie in my Top 10.

I had zero desire to see this film once I started seeing more and more trailers for it. I never got into Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or Cool World, and the scenes I saw in the Speed Racer previews with real actors in the middle of CGI effects made me think of those two movies.

I guess it’s part of why the new Star Wars films annoyed me. CGI is cool, I love it, but nothing can replace “real” stuff. George Lucas started thinking that he could paint an entire canvas exactly how he wanted out of CGI, and not ruin the integrity of his movies.

But he was wrong. All those special effects and computerized characters just left us disconnected. Jar Jar Binks? Really?

And seeing the racing scenes in Speed Racer just looks like a computer game with Emile Hirsch’s head stuck on a body.

Anyways…I’m really curious to see how much money Speed Racer will make. I could look like an idiot on Monday after writing this, because a lot of the time bad reviews can have ZERO effect on what moviegoers want to see.

Do you still want to see it after hearing the 34%? Do you ever care about reviews? Do you watch movies based solely on your own interest, without listening to what others say?

The theatrical release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars tells an all-new story that leads directly in to this fall’s premiere of a weekly, animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series on Cartoon Network, followed by airings on TNT.

The trailer for the film will be released tomorrow across five Turner networks simultaneously. At 7:58 p.m. in all U.S. time zones, Cartoon Network, TNT, TBS, CNN, and Boomerang will debut an action-packed, two-minute preview of the animated adventure from creator George Lucas and Lucasfilm Animation. It marks the first time a theatrical trailer has received a simultaneous, cross-network airing on Turner Networks. The trailer debuts in theaters on Friday, May 9 (and probably around the same time on the web).

Star Wars: The Clone Wars will hit theaters on August 15, 2008.

While there, however, he offered up some new tidbits of knowledge concerning the new live-action Star Wars TV series.

The live-action has [none of the characters from the movies], because it’s after Episode III, so everybody’s dead, basically, or hiding somewhere. You hear about the Emperor, just like you do in Episode IV, but it’s mostly about a whole different world. I mean, there are a million stories in the big city â€â€? you’ve only seen one of them. [Lucas Laughs].

…Some of the characters from the features find their way in there, so it’s not completely divorced. It’s as if we just went down the street and told a different story. You know, we were doing, I don’t know, 24, and now we’re going to move down the street here and do The Wire. Same thing, it’s just different people doing the same thing in the same city.

…all the same rules, all the same places, all the same stuff, and a lot of the same species. So it’s a familiar world, it’s just that you’re seeing a completely different side of it.

Lucas confirmed the show would have at least 100 one hour episodes.

Yeah, I’m going to 100 episodes no matter what.

He also spoke a bit of how things are done when you’re George Lucas and you have enough money to pay for the whole series yourself and don’t have to do things the way the networks do.

…what we do in our TV series is we write the entire first year and finish it as a script. Then we start getting ready to shoot it, then we start casting, and then we do it. We know where the whole first year is before we even start to work on it. I mean, I can do that because I’m financing the whole thing. So I’ve got it pegged out for 100 episodes, and I know exactly what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it and what the risks are.

When can we expect to see the new live-action Star Wars series?

…it should take another couple years. The live-action TV series probably won’t go on until around 2010. It’ll take this year just to get through all the scripts and then another year to get them all shot.

Lucas doesn’t expect to be too incredibly hands on for this project, though.

I’m doing it just for fun now. You know, I’m an executive producer now â€â€? I don’t do the day-to-day work. I check in once a week, maybe, and it’ll be the same thing on the live-action show. I’m also [producing] Red Tails [his long-in-the-works project about WWII's Tuskegee Airmen] â€â€? I’m producing all these things now. And then, hopefully, in a year or two I’ll be completely removed and I’ll just be able to go off and do my own movies again.

But we do know that the Star Wars movies are definitely finished. When asked if there would be anymore Star Wars feature films, Lucas was pretty adamant about his response.

No more, no more. I mean, except for this kind of stuff, which is sort of spinoffs of TV shows.

I encourage you to read the entire interview at EW.com. I guess I should also point out that it was reported last week that Lucas said he will consider the live-action series a part of the “official canon” of Star Wars mythology.

The series is being shopped to HBO and Showtime, but will end up on whatever network is willing to pay George Lucas the amount of money he wants to make. That’s how it works.

“If you don’t know this hair style, then you’ve been living on some moon on the other side of an M-Class planet on Star Trek somewhere.”

Thanks Star Wars freak with the Princess Leia hair! She says staying in her home town offers nothing but the chance to be a correction’s officer. Somehow, she seems pretty cut out for it. “Duh!”

But not only did Star Wars fans probably close their eyes when they saw her, but then the guy came in wearing the Princess Leia bikini from Return of the Jedi. Not only was it beyond disgusting, but when Paula asked him to shave his chest and come back, the dude went and did it!

He returned looking like a shaved cat, but sadly didn’t change his outfit. Simon didn’t even let the guy open his mouth to sing before he ousted him from the room.

Still, perhaps the best WORST audition came from the guy with the deep voice.

“LET MY PEEPOL GOOOOOO.”

And what about the Janis Joplin sounding freak who flipped off the camera for what had to been a world record. And the guy who really scared the crap out of me who sang to Paula with the “stalker” song? Yikes…

But there were some good auditions scattered throughout the night.

Kristy Lee Cook was probably my favorite so far, but it’s mostly because I have a soft spot for country chicks. I loved Carrie Underwood of course and Kristy was great. And it sure helped that she sang Amazing Grace, a favorite of mine.

What did you think of the first episode? Good to have it back, or were you sick of it after the first hour?

Sunday Bites

David Letterman and his Worldwide Pants company are negotiating directly with the WGA to get their writers back working in January. An interesting tactic, which CBS hasn’t been pumped about, as they still say they stand by the AMTPT in these negotiations. Read the entire story at Variety.com

On New Year’s Eve, starting at 3:30am ( eastern time I assume ), HDNet Movies will be running an all-day Alfred Hitchcock marathon. Awesome. Psycho, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Birds, Rear Window and more. I’ve seen each one of those I listed and they are fantastic. However, the one I really would love to see is “Rope”, but it doesn’t look like they will. You can see the entire schedule here for December.

Thailand is on the verge of instituting a new PG-25 rating on movies. That’s right, PG-25…and you thought we were strict here in America. Can you imagine being in your senior year of college and needing to ask your parents to take you to see Saw III?

A geeky nerd contest (which not surprisingly I find totally cool) pitted model builders to construct awesome looking wreaks of starships or sci-fi vehicles. You can see the winner here, which you have to admit, looks pretty frakking cool. Also check out this Star Wars Photoshop contest that had graphic designers turning celebrities into Star Wars characters. Some of them are downright amazing.

Also, thanks to Cap’n Schwartz for this link. A top 10 list of the best and most addictive online flash games. Click the link at your own discretion…you may never return.