Star Wars: The Clone Wars

(Quick pencils by Daddy. Crayons by Kassidy. This one was already cut into a paper doll before it made it to the scanner.)

(Quick pencils by Daddy. Crayons by Kassidy.)

(Quick pencil sketch by Daddy. Crayons by Kassidy.)

(Quick pen sketch by Daddy. Crayons by Kassidy.)

I took my six year old to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Saturday and we both loved it. My opinion on the flick really does not matter because I'm a grown up and it's a kids movie but my kid was literally on the edge of her seat from the second the girl Jedi, Ashoka, hit the screen until the end. When we got home she wanted to play with my toy lightsaber and watch one of the Star Wars movies. She was excited that my toy lightsaber is green just like Ashoka's. Now she wants me to draw the characters so she can color them and cut them out into paper dolls. I liked the Clone Wars cartoons that Cartoon Network put out a few years ago so much that I thought I would be disappointed by this movie but I really liked it. I thought the Lucasfilm guys did a good job with most of the animation. The action stuff was amazing but they were clumsy with some of the same things Pixar was clumsy with on their first few films. Grown humans walking and cloth always see to be a problem in these things. Yeah, Wall-E is a better looking movie (I''d guess Wall-E's budget dwarfed Clone Wars') but at least things happened in Clone Wars. I really like it when things happen in movies. It makes it much less boring. I also really liked how they took the music in a different direction than the live action movies. It wasn't trying to be the live action movies. It was it's own thing for kids. Oh, wait, there I go with my dumb grown-up opinions. Ignore all of that and just remember that yes, the six year old liked it.

Weird timing on WB's part to release this thing now. Your adult nerd audience is occupied by Batpants and Tropical Thunder and your kid audience is probably stuck at home because their chauffeurs (a.k.a. parents) have already spent all their money on back to school supplies. Other random thoughts on the movie going experience: Almost all the trailers before the flick were inappropriate for a kids audience. There was this horrific trailer for a horror movie, I forget the title, something about Hairy Porter, that was too terrible for a kid audience. There was this Vin Deisel vs. the universe thing that was too terrible for any audience. Even the commericals (don't you just hate paying to watch TV commericals at a movie?) were totally sex based and not right for kids. In short, yeesh!

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith