Finally decided to watch the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated movie after downloading it weeks ago. After hearing all the negative buzz about it, I was a little skeptical about the movie. Despite that I still tried to stay positive while watching it. And in the end I was pleasantly surprised that I actually ended up really liking it.

The biggest factor to me liking the movie was Anakin’s padawan Ahsoka Tano. As far as character types go, she’s the typical little sister with a sarcastic, snippy attitude. Basically she’s a younger girl version of Anakin. Now while this is a positive aspect for me, it may also well be a negative one for others. What can I say? I like the younger sister archetype. What endears me even more to Ahsoka is the fun banter that occurs between her and Anakin. Sure some people may call it clichéd but I still found it funny and cute. Heck it even made me like Anakin even more which was one hell of a feat. Also apparently both of Anakin’s apprentices (Ahsoka and Starkiller from Force Unleashed) like to use a reverse grip on their light saber which is possibly the coolest thing to watch.

Another reason I liked this movie was the animation. It had a some nice stylized character designs with some really beautiful backgrounds. The battles were still fairly epic even if slightly below par for a Star Wars movie. The light saber duels weren’t that bad either though they were fairly short. Only bad part about the animation were the somewhat lackluster facial expressions. Compared to a typical Pixar movie, these things were a joke. Still it didn’t draw me out of the experience.

The only downside to this movie is a pretty major one. It just doesn’t feel like a big screen movie. The storyline, the production values, and the writing makes it feel like a made for TV movie. The movie just isn’t epic enough, funny enough, or intense enough. If it had been shown on Cartoon Network instead of a theater I think it would have met much more praise. In the end I don’t think it’d be worth actually going out to see it. But since I downloaded it, I didn’t feel any of that pain.

So basically despite the shortcomings I thought it was a pretty awesome movie. As long as you know what you’re getting into it should be a fun, entertaining experience. Just don’t be expecting the second coming or anything and you won’t be disappointed.