CAUTION: This is a long-winded, spoiler-filled post that is very incoherent, grammatically incorrect and filled with minor spelling mistakes and hazy details. I'm just posting about my experience as it seems there's not much out there yet about this "movie". Have fun reading if you can!
I saw this on Monday night (pre-screening for Warner people and some other various people/etc). I have to say, please don't treat this thing as a "movie".
It is a feature-length pilot that they decided to put into theatres to make some extra money. When they made this decision doesn't concern me. It is in a wide aspect ratio and it doesn't seem compromised in terms of framing.
Anyway, I only saw this thing because I was invited and it was free. When I turned up to the cinema I could see some TV host guy off to one side with a camera crew. He had a British accent and was spouting off numerous takes of something like "And now, we're here for a sneak preview of Star Wars: The Clone Wars!" You know, the type of over-the-top announcing that they do for kids afternoon shows and MTV programs.
The interesting thing was that a few members of the 501st were there. They had a girl dressed in what looked like the snowstorm get-up Padme had in the animated Clone Wars microseries (which I loved) which thoroughly confused me. The other people were dressed up as: Stormtrooper, Imperial Guard, Sandtrooper, Scout troopers and one or two others.
So, I walked past all that and went up to the screen that was for the Clone Wars screening. They had another dressed-up person and an usher or whatever. I had to get ticked off and hand in my phone & camera. In retrospect I probably could've snuck it in and taken some pics/video. Ah, well.
When I went in I was unsure what to expect audience-wise. See, I work for an entertainment store, the chain had a few seats allocated and staff from the DVD dept of all the stores in my state were invited. First come, first served. From what I could guess some Warner people were there and their kids/friends/families? Not sure. There was a couple behind me and the woman was definitely a Warner representative as I overheard her talking about distribution nonsense.
Anywho, the dressed-up 501st members came upstairs and stood down the front with the "host". He had a microphone and said a little bit about Star Wars and its statistics as a franchise and how much licensed merchandise has sold worldwide. He confirmed that this was the kick-off point for a new Star Wars series that would air here (in Australia) in November. Stuff I already knew, basically. He said he hoped we would "enjoy this special advance screening" and then toddled off.
After all that and all the little kids were done running up to get pictures taken with the troopers and ask them questions things got started. The 501st members in their trooper get-up made their way into seats all over the cinema. Two of the guys sat smack bang in front of me. Luckily (unluckily?) they removed their helmets and I was able to see the screen.
First things first; the music is off. It's the Star Wars opening... but its a horrible variation/rendition of it. Of course you've heard this already. Then we have the announcer instead of the crawl. Really odd out-of-place voiceover that doesnt suit Star Wars at all. I would've preferred a visually different crawl to this method.
The opening shots convey vaguely when we are and what's going on. We see the squid-like ship approach Tatooine and then on the surface of the planet, snatch up a sail-barge. We soon realise that Jabba's son has been kidnapped. The Chancellor talks to Windu about this and how rescuing Jabba's son will allow them to use the trade routes in the Outer Rim to gain a foothold in the Clone Wars. Windu is apprehensive and makes mention that there's more to this than there seems.
Windu says they can't spare any Jedi as they're spread too thin fighting the Separatists (we see flashes of this in the opening montage). Then says that Obi-Wan and Anakin could do it as they've just finished a battle on Chrystosis (sp?). Yoda says to send an urgent message down via ship as they cant get through via normal transmissions. They receive transmissions from scout troopers on a planet in wild space. They've been following Bounty Hunters that Jabba hired to find his son. They tracked them to an abandoned monastery on this planet and have been told to await further instructions.
Cutting away to the pair we find that things aren't over battle-wise. Anakin and Obi are trying to push back enemy forces (read: lots of droids, droidekas, tanks, etc) from the main city. Anakin and some troopers start taking out some of the bigger machinery. Decent action. A fair few troopers get knocked down or blown away. We see lots of cannon-fire from the Jedi/Troops side of things. The scottish-accented alien pops out of his tank and tells the troops to move back ("Cannonsh?! Thish will not do! Fall bahck!". The droids become the apparent comic relief here when the commander yells "Retreat!".... oh, boy.
So, they retreat and our Jedi pair see that a ship has arrived. The reinforcements they were trying to call for earlier? No... a little girl that is obviously the same race as Shaak Ti. Ahsoka (derived from Japanese?) Tano. She's what... like 12? They're confused. She delivers the message about the two needing to go and rescue Jabba's son and explains why. Obi-Wan tells her they need reinforcements to win this battle and then they'll be able to go look for Jabba's son.
Obi-Wan thinks that Ahsoka is the new Padawan that he requested. To the boys' surprise, she tells them that she is actually Anakin's new Padawan. Anakin firmly believes this to be a mistake and resolves to not treat her as a Padawan but a Youngling. She resents being treated like a kid. Obi-Wan goes to send a transmission through the ship that Ahsoka just arrived on, while Anakin and Ahsoka go to see if they can find out what the enemy is doing now.
Anakin and his new protege discover an energy field. The enemy troops are looking to expand the field as they march onward. Basically: take the city by approaching the cannons unharmed and then taking them out. Anakin decides they need to do something about this. So while Obi-Wan prepares the troops to defend the city once again and await reinforcements from Yoda et al, Anakin and Ahsoka try to get past the energy field to get to the generator and destroy it. This will allow the troopers to take out the enemy.
What do they do? Hide under a container of some sort and wait, the troops passing over and around them. Once they're inside the energy field and the troops have passed them they make their way toward the generator. I'll interject here and say that all this stupid banter between the two has been ongoing. He calls her "little one", "young one", "youngling". She calls him "Sky Guy". Ugh.
She's like Anakin a bit (from Episode II) in that she's impatient and reckless, desperate to prove herself. So, when she sees the generator she runs at it, full-bore and trips a trap. Five or so bulky droids shoot up from the ground and start to attack her. Anakin rushes in to help out. Somehow she manages to set off even more droids by accident while placing charges on the generator. Anakin gets surrounded and she actually manages to save him by bringing down a ruin wall with a conveniently placed window/hole. It crushes the droids surrounding Anakin and he is unscathed.
After all that, Anakin gets annoyed with her and asks her to blow the charges. All the action that's been going on back near the city has been intercut with the above. Basically Obi-Wan and the troops move forward and start attacking the enemy forces within the field but ahead of their cannons. In order to prevent their cannons being destroyed and to stall for time, Obi-Wan surrenders himself.
He sits down to negotiate terms of their surrender with the Scottish Alien. It works at first, allowing Anakin and Ahsoka more time, but Scotty McLongface gets impatient. He demands that Obi-Wan call off his troops immediately or be imprisoned or whatever. About this time is when Anakin and Ahsoka destroy the field generator. Obi-Wan does some Jedi acrobatics and takes out droids and guards and manages to get Scotty hostage. Yoda appears with his reinforcements. The droids obey Scotty's orders to lay down weapons and the planet has been taken.
Yoda and Obi converse as Anakin and Ahsoka make their way back. Yoda confronts Anakin and asks if he is indeed having problems with his new Padawan. Ahsoka stands there sheepishly and Anakin, the little pest has grown on him a little by now as she's not as useless as he thought, defends her. Anakin and Ahsoka head off with the troops to the planet where Jabba's son is believed to be held at the moment. Obi and Yoda exchange talk. Yoda believes that Anakin may be ready to teach a Padawan but the real test is when he will have to let her go (does this set up for Ahsoka to get killed off at the end of the TV series? I think so).
NOTE: I'm getting tired here so I sort of stuff up the order and give less details from this point on, sorry.
Anakin and Ahsoka arrive on the monastery planet and plan their attack with the troopers that have been keeping watch. They plot their attack and make their way to the base of the cliff that the monastery is located on. They get attacked by droids and the like. They use those cool tank-like things to crawl up the cliff-face and some sweet action ensues. Anakin saves Ahsoka from falling once or twice and there's some competition between the two as to who can make it to the top first.
Anakin manages to steal one of those sky-scooter things and speed his way to the top. Here he takes on several droids, yet again in a pinch. The tank Ahsoka was riding to the top appears and blasts away the enemy to save his ass yet again. Some point around now we cut to Jabba's Palace. The bounty hounters (whom the troopers had seen no further sign of) are reported to have arrived back. Jabba demands to see them and out comes a stretcher with 4 or 5 recognisable species of alien... heads only.
Outraged that there is now nobody looking for his son, Obi-Wan shows up at just the right time and promises to find and rescue Jabba's son if he will allow them passage through the Hutt trade routes. Jabba agrees and gives them one solar cycle to do so. Obi contacts Anakin and they decide to enter the monastery.
NOTE: I'm more tired now. Can't be bothered going on in detail. What follows is a summary of the rest of the events. Shame because there's some good stuff in this last part. Feel free to ask questions I suppose if you must know anything before Friday. :P
So, together they enter the monastery and find Jabba's son. Yes, Ahsoka names him Little Stinky and he does look like a cross between Slimer and a turd. Anyway, they found him way too easily. It's all been a setup by Dooku to frame the Jedi for the kidnapping so that the Separatists can gain passage through the trade routes and alliance with the Hutts.
They are attacked by Ventress and end up having to backtrack to an unguarded landing platform. From there they escape Ventress and get across to an isolated landing platform with an old ship. Anakin pilots this through a space battle and regretfully leaves the clones behind to await Obi-Wan and the reinforcements. He heads to Tatooine.
Little Stinky has been growing sick throughout this whole ordeal and the race is on to get him back to Jabba alive. However, the medkit onboard the ship restores his health somewhat. Once they reach Tatooine they must deal with Dooku and those Grievous guards. However, they evenutally make their way in and convince Jabba that his son was kidnapped by Dooku who used Jabba's uncle Zero... yes, his uncle to help do so.
I should've written this during the day. I've just realised I left out the whole subplot of Padme finding Zero in Coruscant. She wanted to try and reopen communications with Jabba to convince him that the Jedi were not behind the kidnapping. She discovers Zero to be a co-conspirator and manages to get C3P0 dragged in as well to help rescue her.
I am sorry this post is all over the place. That's a big bulk of the story there though. Just... yeah, tired and there are story details that I'm blurring from not caring too much about the "movie". I'll probably give the show a chance. It is what it is, but you know, Star Wars fix and all. It's a shame that they didn't just employ the Clone Wars microseries team to do an animated show set between Episodes III and IV or something. Anywho. there you go... i'm off to bed now, goodnig..... *snore*
