When I first saw Star Wars at age 11, I was completely captured by its magic. I began watching the movies obsessively, collecting action figures and other memorabilia, and reading the novels. I became very excited about Star Wars and drew a lot of inspiration from it. As I got older and the prequels came out, I still had a lot of enthusiasm for Star Wars, but it started to ebb. Shortly after Revenge of the Sith came out, my interest really dropped off.

When I heard that the Clone Wars television series was going to debut on the big screen, I was intrigued, but not terribly excited. Nonetheless, I did my duty as a loyal fan and made my way to the cinema last night to see the movie. Overall, I’m glad I went to see it, but to be brutally honest, it was terrible. The movie combined all of the cheesey lines of the prequels with stiff animation, a lame plot, and less-than-stellar voice acting.

It’s terrible to say, but I wish George Lucas would just relinquish his grip on the Star Wars universe. It’s like he just doesn’t care what people think of his projects anymore, like he’s only out to please himself, and the results have not been good. The dialogue, as expected, was terrible, especially between Anakin and Ahsoka, the animation was passable, and the plot was just stupid. And what was the deal with Ziro the Hutt? That was just unsettling.

Now, despite the fact that the movie was pretty awful, there were a few bright spots. First of all, there were some very cool lightsaber duels and battle scenes. Second, many of the children in the audience seemed to enjoy it pretty well, so this might be a good movie to take your kids to.

Overall, I’ve got a bad feeling about the television series. My expectations are pretty low at this point, but I still plan to give it a chance.