Released in 2008 to relatively little hype, the Clone Wars movie was designed as a lead in what would go on to be the massively popular The Clone Wars TV series (not to be confused with the 2003 animated micro-series Star Wars: Clone Wars of 2003). Legend has it that Lucas himself, having seen early shots of the show, elected to have the first few episodes strung together and released as a movie. Canonically, the movie would drop in the time period between Episodes II and III, hence its inclusion in this series, but, wonders Greg D. Smith, could it really hold up alongside its live action stablemates as a full cinematic entry in the Skywalker Saga?

When Jabba the Hutt’s infant son is kidnapped, Anakin Skywalker and his new Padawan learner are dispatched to attempt a rescue while Obi Wan Kenobi goes to Tatooine to negotiate terms with Jabba himself for freedom to fly republic forces through the Hutt-controlled Outer Rim territory, and score a decisive advantage over Count Dooku’s Separatist forces.

It’s difficult to know where to begin talking about The Clone Wars as a cinematic entry in the Star Wars saga. Designed initially as a number of pilot episodes for a new TV show set during the Clone Wars, its heritage cannot help but shine through, which jars with some of the things that its oddly inconsistent plot attempts to do. From the off, we know we aren’t in a regular Star Wars film, as the opening crawl is dispensed with in favour of a simple title card accompanied by a quick riffing rendition of a few bars of John Williams’ classic score (Williams replaced by Kevin Kiner on scoring duties). The score itself is actually a nice reflection of the movie, being eclectic and oddly disjointed. There’s a cantina band here too, but the distinctive music so familiar from Mos Eisley is replaced by a conventional enough jazz composition.

Ostensibly, the movie takes place at some point in that three year gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and so you might imagine that it would take the opportunity to give us some more of that time Anakin and Obi Wan spent adventuring together, so that we might see more of that relationship that we heard so much about but of which we had seen very little in the live action movies. Instead, we get a few minutes at the start of the two being together, before the plot artificially separates them, sending Obi Wan off to Tatooine to see Jabba and leaving us to – for the most part – trail around with Anakin and his new Padawan Ahsoka Tano.

Worse, instead of giving us a chance to see the Clone Wars proper realised on the screen, giving reality to an event that holds the status of myth in the Star Wars canon, we get one fairly bland battle (in which for a moment you are fooled into believing that at least the ‘comedy’ element of the battle droids has been dropped) and then it’s off on what feels like a pointless video game side quest – rescuing a baby Huttlet (that’s literally what it’s called) and then reuniting it with its father, Jabba. The really confusing element is that reason for doing so – that the Hutts control the space lanes in the Outer Rim, and the Republic needs to be on their good side. This is a surprisingly sophisticated detail, speaking to a nuanced understanding of war and the necessities which arise from it, and it sits poorly next to the simplistic characters and the execution of the fetch quest itself – the two protagonists, for example, always referring to their diminutive cargo as ‘Stinky’.

It’s one of the main underlying tensions throughout the movie – it wants, you sense, to be like its live action forebears (and the increasingly popular Pixar stable of films) in being a movie that has something for both kids and adults. The issue is, unlike other Star Wars movies, or the likes of Toy Story and The Incredibles, The Clone Wars just throws in elements for kids and elements for adults that don’t mix, leaving a completely uneven tone which will ultimately underserve both – kids won’t have enough here to keep them excited and adults won’t have enough to keep them engaged.

It’s a shame, because there isn’t a lack of effort here – many original cast members, including Samuel L Jackson and Anthony Daniels, lend their voices to the film, adding an extra layer of authenticity to proceedings (but unfortunately also lending to the unevenness of the whole thing as their presence just makes the stand-in soundalikes for everyone else all the more noticeable). There’s some genuine attempt at nuance in what appears at first to be an overly simplistic kidnap plot as we find that Jabba’s Uncle, Ziro has been complicit in the plot with Dooku, as he makes his own grab for control of the Hutt clan, but this is buried deep in the third act, along with Amidala herself whose chief function in the plot is to appear, reveal this dastardly deed and then vanish again before the credits roll.

The plot is in trouble before that though, because it’s perilously close to making absolutely no sense, especially to a younger audience. Oddly, the use of Palpatine is too subtle here, meaning that if you aren’t a seasoned veteran of the series and know full well who and what Palpatine is (i.e. if you are one of the children this film is ostensibly aimed at) then you won’t necessarily understand what’s happening. The convoluted nature of Palpatine’s scheming in the live-action movies here assumes new heights, as we find him asking the Jedi to assist in rescuing a Huttlet that his own apprentice, Dooku has kidnapped, so that the Republic can gain an advantage over Dooku’s separatists in the war that he’s only staging so that he can finally create his Empire. How is this working for him? What explanations has he given to Dooku? Does Dooku even know that Palpatine is Lord Sidious? All these questions and more will trouble you if you’re like me and completely go over the heads of any kids who are watching. Baffling doesn’t begin to cover it.

As far as characterisations go, mostly these are painfully two-dimensional. Obi Wan really isn’t on screen long enough to establish any traits beyond having a beard. Anakin goes from the complex, conflicted, emotionally unstable protagonist of Episode II to a cookie cutter hero character from any kids TV show, all cocky showing off and noble heart, with no hint of the darkness we know is supposed to permeate the character. Tano matches up as the cookie cutter overconfident sidekick with the annoying tendencies, and the rest of the cast are basically… there. Christopher Lee gets one last chance to reprise his criminally under-used Count Dooku (who I always felt we should have seen more of in the live-action movies) but even he can’t do much with what pitifully little he’s given here. There’s actually a part of the film where his character is utterly defeated in what he was trying very hard to achieve, and he just laughs – not a laugh of madness or cynicism, literally like an old man giggling. As for his own apprentice, Asajj Ventris, well, she is also there and doing things, though none of them of any particular interest. In a universe which is based on the crucial (and often tiny) divides between light and dark, and the nuanced heroes and villains that its produces, this feels like a cardboard puppet theatre made by someone who missed the point and just thought that space battles, laser swords and big explosions looked cool. The one character that felt like it could go somewhere (Ziro) is just jammed in at the end, and ends up with very little done.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an odd beast. It feels like the extended cartoon serial it in fact is, but in all the worst ways. The series it spawned would go on to win widespread critical acclaim, but we are here to judge this movie on its own merits, standing as it does as a full, canon entry in the Skywalker Saga. In that regard, it falls rather flat, carrying neither enough excitement for younger viewers, nor enough sophistication for older ones. Its paper-thin plot fails to be hidden by two-dimensional characters and poor writing, and it often feels nothing like the saga from which it was spawned. Viewed through the lens of hindsight, with the TV series over (and the much better Rebels which followed it) and new movies being released now, it represents a curiosity along the lines of Caravan of Courage, or the Christmas Special. It’s there, we can acknowledge that it exists and was a thing, but it’s probably best if we don’t talk about it too much.