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Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Lock up your childhoods because everyone's favourite no-neck memory molester is at it again.

Georgie's back to sign away his dignity on the latest subtraction from the STAR WARS saga - a flashing fuck-brained ker-ching factory for kids called The Clone Wars.

Frankly I'm at a loss where to begin so I'll start at the beginnning. Actually first I'll start twenty five years before the beginning.

It's 1983, I'm six years old, my school friend are I are staring at a penny sitting motionless on our desk. We are taking it in turns to move the penny across the desk using only 'the force'. So far no luck.

To us 'the force' seemed like something magical but obtainable. As long as you tried hard enough and try we did, often till were blue in the face.

The Clone Wars were a still mysterious period in Star Wars history, the scale and scope of which was defined only by our imagination. General Kenobi fought in them alongside a young Anakin Skywalker, the best star-pilot in the galaxy and a cunning warrior.

Maybe they were so mental you couldn't even show it in a film. Whatever they were they sounded weird and fucking amazing.

The Force, The Jedi, The Sith even the Senate - they were all nebulous notions that our fevered little imaginations could populate for ourselves. Meanwhile the last Star Wars film 'Return of the Jedi' was coming out soon and we had yet to discover the coolness of speederbike troopers and Leia's slave girl outfit. Life and Star Wars was pretty cool.

Flash forward to 2008 where many of lifes illusions have been shattered including the following: The force has nothing to do with effort, you're either born with a load of midichlorians or you're not. The Jedi are actually a bit boring, the Sith are just plain confusing, Darth Vader is an annoying moppet called Annie or a wooden mumbling sulk and the Clone Wars are a kid friendly cgi adventure sandwiched pointlessly between two disappointing films.

Still at the very least we have the concrete reliable aspects of Star Wars. The anchor points. The things that you'd never change.

Never. No matter what.

Things like the 20th century Fox logo and the silent anticipation that accompanies the blue words "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." followed by a blast of the theme music and the iconic yellow text crawl over a starscape.

You'd never, ever change that right?

We've still got that. Right George?

No. No we fucking don't because he's even fucked that up the stupid quiffed cunt. So what do we have instead?

Well first a Warner Brothers logo, which felt odd but not much you can do about that. Then the pause, the blue text and... a wet fart 'remix' of the fucking theme music.

The Star Wars fucking theme music. One of the most recognised themes of all time - which George owns the fucking rights to has been replaced by a shitty sub-bontempi organ version which doesn't even play over an opening crawl of text.

The crawl has inexplicably been replaced by a montage of scenes narrated by an incongruous fast-talking 1930's newscaster.

I know this will sound ridiculous because there are so many other bigger problems here (so, so many) but that pause with the blue text followed by the theme blast IS Star Wars for me.

It's the switch that flips me from real world into the Star Wars universe. It's like a release lever on your imagination, just the right amount of anticipation before a floodgate of memories opens.

But instead I got this, and all it did was open the shit pipe.

It's like expecting an orgasm but doing a shit instead. Out of your mouth.

You're thinking "Oh no, oh God no! What's happening?" But you just keep curling out a big mouth log and frantically wondering why the person you were having sex with is morphing into a big dummy made of shit. On a stinking runny shit bed. In a house made of melting shit.

Less than two minutes in, I was already feeling a bit disappointed, it was mostly downhill from there.

The animation style works well for the wide variety of robots and vehicles, making them look impressively weighty and mechanical. Unfortunately it has the same effect for all the characters. And despite thinking George couldn't get any more wooden than the prequels he continues to amaze - this time developing an aesthetic whereby the characters heads actually appear to be carved from tree stumps.

The soundtrack continues to disappoint ranging from sound library 'moody atmospheric' to some kind of 'funk-fusion' as George replaces Jar-Jar with Wah-Wah.

It's shocking how much John Williams is missed.

But what is more shocking is the decision to replace him with Kevin fucking Kiner who provided the scores for Walker Texas Ranger, 97 episodes of CSI Miami and the unforgettable Excessive Force II: Force on Force.

Even more ludicrous is the plot, revolving mostly around the kidnap and rescue of Jabba the Hutt's son, wait for it, Rotta the Huttlet. He must be retrieved by the Jedi to allow them access to the Hutt run trade routes to the outer rim... ahem.

Anyways before everything really kicks off we open with a big battle scene and the introduction of a new character in the shape of Anakins padawan Ashoka.

Even that collection of words sounds painful, like a Taiwanese 4x4, the Padawan Ashoka just £3,995 on the road.

Ashoka is one sassy teen Torgruta, oh boy. She's all street smarts, quick quips and nicknames. None of which seem to gel with the Star Wars Universe. She proceeds to call Anakin 'Sky-Guy' for the rest of the film.

'Sky-Guy'?

No wonder he flipped out and started killing everyone - Annie? Fucking Sky-Guy? The real young Vader would have pulled a force-choke faster than you can say "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Instead he resorts to calling her 'Snips'.

I half expected him to snap his fingers and say "Mhummmm Girrrrrl-freeeeeeend, you got it goin' oooowwwww-nnaaahhh" after they dispatched some separatist droids.

On the subject of droids, the 'comedy' talking variety make a comeback here, another case of George removing any mystery or indeed logic.

In the originals some droids spoke English others in bleeps and some even in alien dialects. Like the eyeball thing at Jabbas Palace gate that says what sounds like "Bechoo a-blinkee" in Huttese - you know he is saying "Who are you?" because of the response he gets.

Imagine how shit it would have been if that eyeball had popped out and said "OOoooh, whoooOoo are yoooOOOoo?" in a kind of camp disneyfied robot voice. It wouldn't have stuck in my mind for 25 years. Well maybe it would have but for all the wrong reasons.

Why the fuck would battle droids talk? Shouldn't they be wirelessly connected and co-ordinated? Isn't that the point of a robot army? I'd accept some bleeps and stuff for effect or even a special robot language that we come to understand throughout the films but why would they vocally give each other orders and then say "Roger Roger!" to confirm it?

At one point two robots are sharing one set of binoculars, come on George they're fucking robots they should have binoculars for eyes you stupid beardy bastard.

After a little fight over the binoculars (honestly), one of them gets the co-ordinates wrong "Enemy approaching from sector 44.73.02, no erm 44.73 erm 12, 05 I dunno".

What?! For fucks sake the point of robots is that they make stuff easier not fucking harder.

Hey, hey guys! I've made a confused short sighted battle droid that you can knock out with one punch. Look he's got matchstick arms and matchstick legs and no controls or connectivity - hahah he's great - although if there was more than one all the orders would have to be given vocally and independently to each robot.

Shit wow! Roll out a couple of thou and we'll take over the galaxy, not.

Anyway once we're saddled with Ashoka and the opening battle scene is done it's time to start the story proper, get off into space and head on over to... another battle scene. Having said that, it is the films only genuinely inventive segment.

Sky-Guy and Snips lead an assault on an occupied monastery perched atop of a gargantuan pillar of rock. Starting on the horizontal plane the action soon switches to vertical as the proto-AT-ATs slowly climb the pillar toward their goal. This is where the animation style really shines and at least this scene holds your attention, but it's scant reward for what awaits at the top.


Our heroes discover Rotta who basically looks like a fist sized bowel movement with googgly muppet eyes. He gurgles and farts and Snips drops another head-smackingly shit nickname - 'Stinky'.

The remaining plot basically involves Count Dooku (awooga! fucking stupid name alert) trying to convince Jabba that it was the Jedi who kidnapped his son. Meanwhile the Jedi, with the aid of Padmé, try to convince Jabba that it was in fact separatists.

Sam Jackson crops up as Mace Windu at one point but he's so bland and bald that my eyes and ears slid off him, Yoda says some backward bullshit, Anakin and Dooku have an ineffectual half-duel and the conclusion is inconclusive because the whole thing is just a pilot for a TV show.

Which leads to another massive problem with sandwiching the whole ill conceived proceedings between two prequels. You know exactly who is going to live and die, which pretty much robs the film and the upcoming series of any threat or tension. New characters will presumably die or disappear and nothing serious will happen to anyone else so what's the point?

Will SkyGuy, Snips and Stinky will get back to Tatooine and sort it all out? Does it matter? Does anyone care?

Going in I finally realised what the my major problem is with the prequels. It's that George has taken away all the mystery that I had sub-conciously coloured in over the last 25 years. He took it away and replaced it with disappointing bland bullshit.

Prior to this everyone had their own ideas of how things worked in the blurry historical edges of Star Wars and that let them have ownership to some extent.

I can't help thinking of the saying 'magic is only magic till you know how it's done' George keeps showing us what's behind the original magic and each time he does it all gets a lot less magical.

Everyone has their own Star Wars but it turns out that the one Star Wars nobody really wants is George's Star Wars. The only mystery remaining is why George bothers churning out this lazy lacklustre shit anymore.

The most dissapointing Star Wars yet. Disappointing is too small a word really.

Three words George.

Do. Something. New.

Football + Ballet = Shit²

With "The Beautiful Game" English National Ballet and the New Football Pools have decided it's a good idea to recreate ten great footballing moments through the medium of dance.

They are wrong.

In the video above Jenna Lee says "At first we weren't sure it would work because, football and ballet, you don't put them in the same sentance"

Wrong again.

Shostokovitch said "Football is the ballet of the masses".

Back in 1930 the 23-year-old Dimitri Shostokovitch composed music for a football based ballet "The Golden Age". The story revolved around a Russian football team visiting the imaginary 'U-Town' in Europe for an Olympic style event. The story eventually demonstrated pure, young Soviets overcoming the temptations of the decadent West.

Amusingly despite being a rabid football fan Shostokovitch was also a pessimist and would regularly bet against his own team.

So Jenna, you would put football and ballet in the same sentence if you were talking about a famous ballet featuring football that's been around for over 70 years. Or alternatively you could put them in a sentence like this:

That new ENB football ballet looks fucking shit.

Apart from the fact that they are both shit and involve effeminate men feigning distress I don't know much about ballet or football. But isn't ballet supposed to be synchronised to some extent? They look all over the place, the keepy-uppy and never walk alone clips are especially cringeworthy.