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The Clone Wars Film DVD Reviews

Posted By Mike on November 18, 2008

Reviews for the The Clone Wars film DVDs are starting to pop up. Check out the links and excerpts below...

Oh, and make sure to shoot us an e-mail if you come across other reviews and we'll be sure to get them posted.

IGN reviews the 2-Disc Special Edition:

"The look of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been very debated on several levels, with some vehemently disliking the puppet/wooden look of the characters, though I'm not among them - it's heavily stylized, to be sure, but works within the context of this animated world. However, it is true that the animation quality of the movie was lacking? for a movie. As a TV series however, the animation is top notch, which is perhaps why The Clone Wars movie looks very good at home, as it was originally intended. The colors are crisp and clear, as is the atmospheric visuals in much of the film. There are occasional moments where some background characters have a bit of a more notable digital look to them around the edges (though, to be fair, they are in fact digital), but in close up shots the characters and vehicles look very impressive."

DVDTown.com disliked the film to begin with so the DVD review isn't much better. Therefore, I'll just show an excerpt of the description of Extras: (Thanks Shannon!)

"Disc one of this Two-Disc Special Edition contains the feature film plus an audio commentary by director Dave Filoni, producer Catherine Winder, writer Henry Gilroy, and editor Jason W.A. Tucker. In addition, we get an unaccustomed forty-six scene selections; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; French and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Disc two contains the rest of the extras. Here we find "The Clone Wars: Untold Stories," a twenty-five-minute documentary on the filmmaking, with plenty of background material. After that is a ten-minute featurette, "The Voices of the Clone Wars," on the voice talent involved. Then, there's an eleven-minute featurette, "A New Score," dealing with Kevin Kiner's music for the film. Following that is a gallery of concept and production art, followed by six Webisodes, little making-of featurettes totaling about twenty-one minutes with chapters titled "Introducing the Clone Wars," "Epic Battles," "The Clones Are Coming," Heroes," "Villains," and "Anakan's Padawan." Next, there are four deleted scenes: "Cargo Bay," "Platform Droid Fight," "Rancor Pit," and "Through the Tanks," totaling about eleven minutes. Things finish up with access to a digital copy of the movie (compatible with iTunes and Windows Media devices), two theatrical trailers, and a video-game trailer.

The two discs come housed in a double slim-line keep case, further enclosed in a cardboard slipcover with a holographic picture on the front."

UPDATE:

Our good buddy Scott over at ComingSoon.net offers up his review on TCW Blu-Ray:

'"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is a great start to the TV series but maybe not the best feature film. Nevertheless, kids will love it and adult "Star Wars" fans will want to check it out. I'm going to give it 7 out of 10, but I freely admit that may be generous."

IGN also gives us a Blu-Ray review...which pretty much seeems to be the same as their 2 Disc Special Edition review above: (though I chose a different excerpt)

"As busy, broad, and exhaustingly action-packed as the new Star Wars "movie" The Clone Wars is, it would be unfair to both enthusiasts and casual followers to dismiss the project outright as fan service, kiddie fluff or just a classic George Lucas cash-in. As critics have learned with increasing clarity in recent years, the audiences for science fiction and fantasy franchises are both passionate and loyal ? perhaps none moreso than for Star Wars ? and they deserve a sincere, straightforward and honest assessment of the merits for each new installment... even if that almost inevitably guarantees a deluge of hate mail from folks who disagree.

At the same time, the very fact that critics are often part of that fan base affects their initial reaction, and ultimately, final judgment of a new text's good or bad qualities. But that's also why the most surprising feeling this longtime Star Wars devotee had about The Clone Wars was one of overwhelming uncertainty: The animated opus, culled from a story arc in the forthcoming TV series, is at once a rousing adventure, an effective set-up for the future of the saga, and another story beset by the same character, structural and storytelling problems as the prequels that came before it."

UPDATE #2:

DVDCorner.net reviews TCW on Blu-Ray: (Thanks Nick!)

"Some fans have had harsh words for ?The Clone Wars,? and I honestly can?t understand why. ?Clone? has everything you could possibly want as a ?Star Wars? fan. There are countless lightsaber duels involving Anakin, Obi-Wan, Count Dooku and Asaji Ventress and thrilling battles between clone troopers and droids on the ground, in space, and even on the side of a mountain!"

JCOnline.com offers up quite the short review: (scroll down a bit)

"Don't miss: A look at the upcoming "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" TV series, a featurette on the voice talents, a look at Kevin Kiner's new musical score, a gallery of concept and production art, a commentary track, deleted scenes, Webisodes and a downloadable digital copy of the movie comprise the extras."

SoHood.com reviews the 2-Disc Special Edition:

"I thought the movie worked well as an animated feature and was entirely believable as part of the Star Wars world. You forget that the characters are animated and just follow the story.The DVD features extra cool bonus material that won?t disappoint a die-hard Star Wars fan."

UPDATE #5:

TCW 2-Disc Special Edition review from dbtechno.com:

"The video transfer on DVD will truly impress as LucasFilm Animation did a superb job of putting a great deal of detail in just about everything from the worlds, animations, characters, etc.

The level of clarity and detail will have you in awe in many aspects as the film has a great deal of pop to it, making it a very impressive release on DVD.

The audio is rather impressive as well as it does a great job of using all of the surround channels to create an immersive experience. The dialogue and all of those sequences come across in a clear manner, while the sound effects have some amazing power behind them when needed."

UPDATE #6: It's November 11th, so head on out and pick up your copy of The Clone Wars on DVD or Blu-Ray today!

Big Picture Big Sound reviews TCW on Blu-Ray:

On the Extras: '"A Creative Conversation" is an especially well-executed video commentary which brings together director Dave Filoni, producer Catherine Winder, writer Henry Gilroy and editor Jason W.A. Tucker. Their spoken words appear onscreen as text, and at multiple points the movie image shrinks down to show the speaker as well. That leaves an empty black rectangle that is sometimes filled with additional behind-the-scenes or movie videos as the creators spill their secrets. "Star Wars: The Clone Wars - The Untold Stories (25 minutes, in high-definition) provides an overview of the first season of the subsequent show; "The Voices of Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (ten minutes, HD) includes split-screen scenes with the movie and the voice actors, apparently quite a cool bunch; while "A New Score" (eleven minutes, HD) goes deep on the music, but this featurette would really have benefited from audio better than its two-channel Dolby Digital. Six repurposed promotional "webisodes" (21 minutes total, HD) are collected here, along with four deleted scenes running about eleven minutes all told, in HD although not at the full quality of the main presentation. The bonus materials are liberally sprinkled with clips from the live-action films, by the way.

The Hologram Memory Challenge game is a kinda-fun Concentration-style diversion (in HD and Dolby Digital 5.1!) wherein we match two characters or symbols to unlock little video rewards. And while we're unlocking little video rewards, a code is included to transfer a DRM-protected Digital Copy (for iTunes/Windows Media) from the enclosed DVD."

DVD Talk reviews the 2-Disc Special Edition:

"For a tie-in/ premier of an animated television series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars stands alone fairly well, meaning you don't have to set your Tivo after watching the movie if you don't want to. A grand-scale cartoon filled-to-the-brim with dazzling battles, dorky humor and dry battle plans hiding simple messages, it's basically the perfect vehicle for George Lucas's vision. That said, Star Wars purists will probably hate it, but if you've been longing to understand just what the auteur has been thinking all these years, this is your chance. Kids-at-heart, grab some popcorn and get over yourselves, The Clone Wars is the Saturday morning experience it's meant to be."

Monsters & Critics review the 2-Disc Special Edition:

"The Clone Wars has some moments, but they?re tarnished by the plot points that made the new trilogy so much worse. My kids loved it, but I didn?t like it. The force wasn?t with this one this time, in my humble opinion. Your kids might disagree."

Review from Film.com:

"All in all, it is a disc that will no doubt excite established fans, but do little for those who have found that Star Wars has left them behind to become something much different than what they remember. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is available now from Warner Home Video."

FilmJunk.com has 3 copies of TCW on DVD to give away.

UPDATE #7:

Beyond Media Online reviews TCW on Blu-Ray:

On the print and audio quality: "The print is presented in 1080p/VC-1 with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Due to the film being an all digital transfer, the animation looks superb. The colors are rather bright and vibrant. The image is clean throughout and the addition of excellent details is a nice touch with close up scenes. The look of the characters and the style that is being used may turn off a few ?Star Wars? fans. It almost makes the characters look like miniatures.

The Audio is presented in a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 EX mix. I found the audio to be rather impressive for a film that was originally intended for network television. The film takes advantage of the rears with all kinds of sound effects from the fighting on the battlefield with light sabers, ships flying overhead, lasers, and rifles blasting away. The rears did get a good amount of usage than I expected. Dialogue comes through the center channel very clean and crisp."

UPDATE #8:

Review from Props & Pans:

"I am no expert on Star Wars or the storylines, but overall it was interesting enough to hold my attention and hasn?t left the mind of our 6 year old son. So it is now embedded with the rest of the Star Wars knowledge he?s grasped on to over the past year. If your son is a fan like ours, add this to your Christmas shopping list."

DVD review from Short and Sweet NYC:

"The Clone Wars is a movie produced for younger fans, made in an effort to get them excited about a now ongoing TV series on Cartoon Network. The inclusion of many well-known characters allows access to older fans, but the new animated format makes it very clear from the beginning that The Clone Wars is a new Star Wars chapter for a new age."

Monsters & Critics review TCW on Blu-Ray:

"The Blu-ray comes packed with special features that take you into the Star Wars universe and give you a glimpse at what to expect from the animated series.

The features include a video commentary (which is exclusive to Blu-ray); a look at Season One of the new animated series (which features a peek at some of the characters, worlds and vehicles); a feature on the film?s new score; production art; a memory challenge game and deleted scenes."

Blu-Ray review from TheDigitalBits.com: (Thanks Jeff!)

"There are a number of interesting extras on the disc, most (but not all) in full HD, including 6 webisodes, 3 trailers, 4 deleted scenes and featurettes on the score and voice work. It should be noted that Clone Wars is actually the jumping off point for a new CG-animated series in the same style on Cartoon Network, and there's a 25-minute piece here that looks ahead at some of the episodes - my favorite bonus on the whole disc. There's also an interactive memory game that allows you to unlock 3 more clips, and there's a Digital Copy version of the film on a second disc. Finally, you get a "video commentary" with some of the artists and filmmakers, including director Dave Filoni. This was disappointing though, as it's not done PiP style with BonusView enhancement, but rather as a second, low-resolution encode of the entire film. From time to time, the film frame gets smaller and moves aside so you can see the person talking, or a piece of artwork or whatever. I wish it was BonusView instead, so the visual quality was greater. I suspect it was done this way to avoid complaints from those with original, profile 1.0 BD players, but it's disappointing nonetheless."

io9.com gives you a tour of TCW on DVD. (via ClubJade.net)

The HD Room is giving away TCW on Blu-Ray.

UPDATE #9:

High-Def Digest reviews TCW on Blu-Ray: (Thanks "Jedi Soljah"!)

"I may not be a huge fan of the movie's animation style, but there's little to fault in the technical quality of the Blu-ray. The 1080p/VC-1 transfer is just as crisp and clean as you'd expect from a direct-digital conversion like this. The picture has deep colors and an excellent contrast range. Black levels are solid yet shadow detail is never lost. The High-Def image is sharp enough to see the limits of the animation. The Blu-ray captures as much fine object detail as is available in the source, and makes clear the blockiness and lack of texture on most surfaces.

Because the CG artwork isn't quite as detailed or vivid as the best animated features, 'Clone Wars' rarely has the sort of dynamic pop as you'd see in something by Pixar or even Dreamworks. There's also some minor color banding in the evening sky on Tatooine, but I honestly can't be certain whether that's a flaw in the High-Def transfer or an inherent part of the animation. In any case, the disc looks terrific.

For what it's worth, the movie's aspect ratio measures precisely 2.35:1, not 2.40:1 as is claimed on the case."