Well, I've been fortunate to be invited for the press conference of The Clone Wars today. I don't need to tell you that my review may contain spoilers.

The story is pretty much the same of what already appeared on TFN. Those of you who have read the novel (I'm still reading Coruscant Nights) will already know the story so I won't elaborate on it too much. The story is straightforward, it has a great mcguffin and it moves on like a train. People travel from planet x to planet y and it goes pretty fast. The story is not too complicated and politics are nearly absent. Children will be able to understand it with ease.

It sure feels strange to see the WB shield appearing before a SW movie and it has a neat prologue. You can hear Obi-Wan and a Clone (I guess Cody) speaking to each other without seeing anything but the LFL logo. Suddenly the CW logo appears and moves on into the oblivion of space. No opening crawl and the Main Theme is also a bit different (you may have heard it on the soundtrack). The opening crawl is replaced by a small intro such as the one in the Clone Wars cartoons. We see Rotta get kidnapped and everything is set in place for the movie to start. Since I 'knew' the story I was surprised to see the Padmé part appearing so late in the movie. I almost began to fear they had cut it out. When you think you know what will happen, Padmé appears and the plot moves on. After all, I thought it was a neat move. It would have spoiled the plot as well if they'd brought it earlier.

The known characters are depicted with great care and feel very familiar. Somehow, Obi-Wan surprised me the most because I felt he wouldn't have a very large role. The same goes for Dooku. Of course Ahsoka is the most important new character and not only does she have to face the Clone Wars, she's a Padawan growing up. Gradually, you begin to care for her and she develops quickly into a likeable character. She's just as reckless as Anakin and the two form up a good duo. Rotta is what you can expect from a Huttling, he's a cool mcguffin and for a baby, he does have his moments. Ziro the Hutt is pretty cool as well. He reminds me of the purple caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. Asajj Ventress is not a new character but the general audience will probably not have heard about her. She is what she is in the movie: Dooku's main assassin. Don't expect anything from Asajj what she doesn't or can't do in the comics or cartoons.

Clone Wars is a rather funny movie with some situation humor. I hope you liked the B1 Battle Droids in the prequels for in CW, they seem to have gotten an intelligence boost. They have a few funny moments that are not stupid but reminded me of some of the jokes from The Simpsons. General Loathsom has a great assistant Droid as well!

I really liked the voice acting. The voices that aren't done by the movie actors are great. Especially Obi-Wan really sounds like Ewan McGregor. Mace Windu has a small role and so does C-3PO. Dooku (Lee) has a much larger role than I expected. It's always great to hear his fantastic voice. I'm not very into technique but I thought the CW was very well done. Maybe it's not the same quality as Pixar's WALL-E but rest assured, Lucasfilm Animation has done a great job. You'll get used to the style in less than one minute.

What I also discovered about the movie is that the perfectly kept the balance between fans and rookies. Clone Wars is great for fans! It has a lot of small links to the Saga (droids, characters, quotes, species, creatures, etc...) that fans will love (even the B'omarr Monks are named in the movie). But then again, when you have never seen a SW movie, you will be able to watch this movie without any problem at all.

Conclusion: I enjoyed watching The Clone Wars very much. It's filled with action from beginning to the end and that's why it's called CW. It's pretty long for a cartoon ('98) and it didn't get any boring for one second. It doesn't have any lame parts or scenes in it. I will surely go and watch this again. The Clone Wars series can become great. If they are able to present a show with different stories, different characters and nice locales, the series could become what we had hoped for.

Now, I have always liked the prequels but I do know there are some people who still live in 1998 and believe SW only has 3 episodes. Please keep away from Clone Wars. Luckily you can't blame Lucas for ruining your childhood for a second time. Dave Filoni is the Supervising Director and I thought he did a great job with Clone Wars.

Oh yes, be sure to rest seated till the end for a small but cool ending