When Luke Skywalker first learned that the "old hermit" Ben Kenobi once fought with his father (Anakin) in the Clone Wars, excitement filled his voice and my imagination. What were the clone wars? When episodes 1-3 were announced, again I felt excitement at seeing Jedi versus endless platoons of clones in battle for 3 whole movies! Oh how wrong I was. Not only were the killer clones the good guys, but the clone wars were scarcely even shown in the films. For shame! These epic battle took place between episodes 2 and 3, off screen. We got Jar-Jar, we got young Boba Fett, we even got lots of clones in the prequel saga, but we did not get our fill of honest to goodness clone wars. That's were this movie fills in.

Fortunately, Cartoon Network along with Lucasfilm was able to create an animated "microseries" filling in on some of the events taking place after the clones attacked, but before the Sith got their revenge. Originally aired as 20 3-minute episodes (each installment complete with a recap and sneak peek of the next episode), this first volume of Clone Wars has been edited together into a 60 minute film on DVD. If only the content here could be translated into live action. This volume pretty much does a better job of satisfying fans expectations of what more Star Wars movies should deliver than do the actual films. I should mention that a second volume followed depicting the events immediately preceding Episode III. Stay tuned for that review eventually.

Clone Wars delivers a highly stylized, and surprisingly light on dialogue (which for Star Wars is ALWAYS a good thing (for example "sand is rough..." from AOTC)), depiction of several key battles. Obiwan leads some clone troopers against a droid stronghold supported by the bounty hunter Durge, Anakin chases after the Sith wannabe Asajj Ventress, Kit Fisto impresses in an underwater battle, and Mace Windu shows why he is deemed Yoda's equal. In addition, the dreaded General Grevious is introduced, and he is actually a worthy foe. For delivering massive space battles involving hundreds of little digital ships instead of too-long pod races, and fast-paced Jedi skills instead of Jar-Jar antics, Clone Wars Volume 1 earns an A-.

When I first saw this, I was expecting some sort of meaningful narrative...but it's all eye candy.

Each segment follows the same pattern. There are a few lines of plot-development dialog, usually very typical stuff that a fan-fiction writer could have been more original with, and mostly painfully-apparently not voiced by the movie actors.

this is followed by a high-energy battle scene full of amazing and awesome Jedi moves. Ooh!

That's about it.

Anyone remember the Mean Joe Green coke commercial? I was expecting Mace Windu to toss the kid a jedi robe after he shared his drink with him.

Anyway, like I said, it's just eye candy. But its GOOD eye candy. Star Wars fans should have a peek.