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It’s expensive to maintain a lavish estate on some of the most desirable land in Marin County. So even though we’ve been assured that George Lucas is finished with Star Wars as motion pictures, there are numerous opportunities to mine the franchise: toys, video games, books, a live action prime time television series expected sometime in 2009, and a CGI animated television series that takes place between Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, during the Clone Wars.

The highly stylized characters are designed without any effort to be photorealistic. They are rendered as full- dimensional CGI characters, but resemble the hand animated characters from previous Clone Wars TV efforts. The emphasis seems to have shifted further from intricate plots to action set pieces. But so impressed was Lucas by this first effort, instead of releasing it to television, it was released to motion picture theaters. Star Wars loyalists did go in modest numbers for the spectacle; it earned over $40 million worldwide, which, I suppose, isn’t bad for an hour and a half of television fare.

The film’s underlying premise is reasonably complex. The Republic is at war with the Separatists, but to maintain access to the Galactic Rim and its hyperspace lanes, the Republic must negotiate safe passage with crime lord Jabba the Hutt (Kevin Michael Richardson). Why the powerful Republic can’t simply blow the Hutt criminal empire away is not explained. Jabba’s misfortune is the Republic’s opportunity. His young son has been kidnapped by bounty hunters and Jabba wants the Republic to send Jedi to find and rescue him. Succeed and the Republic’s starships will have safe passage along the hyperspace lanes under Jabba’s control. Fail, and the Separatists will have a new ally.

Yoda (Tom Kane) and Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) send for Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor) and Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter) to save the kidnapped young Hutt. But they are a little occupied at the moment, battling a droid army. And just to add some spice, Anakin has been assigned a Padawan, Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), a feisty young woman who tends to act before she thinks and can be a bit of an overconfident smartass. The first third of this film is dominated by that battle.

Even as Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka help defeat the droid forces and then move to save the young Hutt, Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) has approached Jabba to claim that its actually the Jedi who have kidnapped his son. Dooku’s evil apprentice, Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman), has even captured some images that demonstrate Jedi complicity. Of course, those images were captured during a rescue, not during a kidnapping. What follows is the drama of combat and a battle of wits to return the little Hutt to his father and foil Dooku’s plans. Other key characters are present: Chancellor Palpatine (Ian Abercrombie); Padmé Amidala (Catherine Taber); and, C-3PO (Anthony Daniels). There is even a new Hutt named Ziro (Corey Burton, sounding oddly like Truman Capote) that plays a pivotal role.

The production feels oddly like a throwback. The CGI characters are crude, more caricatures than characters. Photorealism would have elevated the content, like was done for Final Fantasy and the first segment of The Animatrix. Hair is crudely rendered, like thick slabs of clay. Character motion, and walking in particular, seem hesitant and unconvincing. I doubt if motion capture was used. The dialog suffers from an overly simplistic approach that might appeal to the very young; it doesn’t resemble the dialog found in the six films. Battles and combat dominate, and even those have credibility problems. Is hiding under a box really effective camouflage, particularly when walking with the box on one’s head?

I suspect that my criticism of the visuals is due to cost savings. Rendering photorealistic characters would take a lot more man-hours to create initially and a lot more CPU cycles to implement. Regardless, I can’t help come away with the impression that this was a missed opportunity.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1 is presented in a very fine high definition transfer compressed with the VC-1 video CODEC. Small object detail is quite good in the wide angle shots. Finely grained textures are also quite fine, but there aren’t many to display. Close-ups of the characters reveal an almost Play-Doh like texture in their skins, slightly granular. The transfer excels in its presentation of chroma; the colors are lively and vivid, although natural flesh tones simply don’t exist. The video dynamic range is well represented; I didn’t notice crush on either end. Shadow detail is a non- issue, and I saw no digital artifacts or edge halos. A pleasant visual experience, but not demo-grade.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 is not the default setting; that falls to Dolby Digital 5.1, so don’t forget to visit the setup menu before watching the film. The track has some surround effects in the form of ships flying front to back or the reverse. Left and right surround channels also feature pans and individual sounds. But the surround amplitude is low and the effects subtle. I expected the track to be completely immersive. Deep bass is present, but not as often as I’d expect, and it doesn’t quite have the tactile feel of a superior bottom end. Kevin Kiner’s score borrows freely from John Williams’ themes, but some of those themes are annoyingly jazzed up. Even so, the 90-piece orchestra sounds quite nice, but lacks a certain gravitas. Perhaps it’s related to that slight weakness in the bottom end. The voices were, of course, all looped in the studio, so they are distortion-free and have a pleasing transparency.

The alternative tracks are in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, all in Dolby Digital 5.1. The optional subtitles are in English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

A Creative Conversation might give you the impression of a conventional Profile 1.1 PiP supplement, but it’s not. This is a standard definition presentation of the film with audio-video commentary onscreen in separate rather than superimposed windows; the feature is reduced in size and slipped up and to the left when supplementary content is visible. The standard definition presentation is obviously soft and contaminated with halos, a great demonstration of the comparative clarity of the high definition presentation. Expect many of the filmmakers to chime in about their contributions and the logic behind both artistic decisions and the nature of the plotlines.

Behind The Story is organized into four sections. First is Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Untold Stories (24:50, 1.78:1 and 2.35:1, HD), a promotional featurette that highlights the types of stories you can expect over the course of the television season. George Lucas participates. As an aside, high definition excerpts from the Star Wars films run through some of the supplements; they made me drool. Can BD releases of the six theatrical films be far behind? I hope not. This is essentially a series of episode previews. Each is explained and each is punctuated with scenes to whet your appetite. With so many episodes to fill with storylines, the filmmakers put the focus on various key and secondary players. I’m sorry to report that Jar Jar Binks will be back and, with him, some slapstick.

The Voices of Star Wars: The Clone Wars (9:59, 1.78:1, HD) is a very fine featurette that shows us the various voice actors at work; I always enjoy such a short. It’s nice to put a face on the people who were selected not only for their voice acting abilities, but their abilities to reproduce closely the sound of the original film actor.

The New Score featurette (10:43, 1.78:1, HD) introduces us to Kevin Kiner. The recording session reveals that an unusually large group of musicians was assembled for the score of a children’s television series. A 90-piece orchestra was assembled in Prague. We see the composer at work with George Lucas analyzing a temp score and discussing what had to be changed. The composer taps into John Williams’ themes, but had to create new themes for new characters. The orchestral score can be quite effective, but sometimes some of John Williams’ themes are a little jazzed up and aren’t quite right.

Gallery is a collection of high definition stills of reduced size against a graphical background. Many concept drawings, conceptual art, maquettes, and CGI are shown. Navigation is with the cursor keys rather than the more traditional next or previous chapter keys.

There are five deleted scenes (10:50 aggregate, 2.35:1, HD). Some are new and some are extensions of existing scenes. All are in final render form with what sounds like stereo audio. All have merit but must have been trimmed for length limitations or pacing.

Next is a collection of Webisodes (20:59 aggregate, 1.78:1, HD) that harkens back to the web-based shorts George Lucas had produced to attract viewers to the prequels. These consider the various aspects of the series and the artistic decisions that influenced character design and plot development. And once again, I was very intrigued to watch scenes from the six Star Wars films in high definition. The subjects include: an introduction; battles; clones; heroes; villains; and, Anakin’s Padawan.

You’ll find a small collection of Clone Wars trailers (5:29, 2.40:1, HD and SD) that includes: Launch Trailer; Dark Trailer; and, a videogame trailer.

Last is The Hologram Memory Challenge, a game that will require a substantial BD-J load. You essentially have to remember the locations of pieces on a board after a ten-second glimpse. You’re then asked to reproduce the pattern of pieces.

The 98-minute film is organized into a remarkable forty-six chapters.

Final Thoughts

If A New Hope and The Empire Strikes back earn an A, and Phantom Menace earns a C, then I’d have to lump The Clone Wars in with Episode I. This is a modest effort that could have been better, but will appeal to diehard Star Wars fans and youngsters. The presentation is quite nice, but isn’t demo grade. The supplements are numerous and informative.