The words “Clone Wars” were only mentioned once in the original Star Wars trilogy, while the three “prequel” films (during which the Clone Wars are set) are the generator of all kinds of feelings and mental images that are often hard for me to describe.

What isn’t hard for me to describe is the tone, quality and vision of George Lucas’s most recent animated offering, The Clone Wars – an ongoing series of CGI cartoons that recently received a second season green-light on Cartoon Network. The series will continue to offer literal filler of the years, events, and goings-on which occurred between the feature-film events of the Star Wars prequels.

If for some reason you just can’t get enough of “The Force,” well, “The Force” is with you! Lucasfilm Animation is presenting a 22-episode series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network.

The Clone Wars follows Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and other heroes as they deal with the troubles that come from the likes of Count Dooku, Asajj Ventress, Darth Sidious and other evil forces from the empire.

A pair of episodes will premiere Friday night on Cartoon Network, and the first one is titled Ambush.

Short version: The Clone Wars is visually interesting, but in the end pointless – and worse: annoying.

Screen Rant reviews The Clone Wars

Holy cow there’s a lot of… angst? anger? annoyance? surrounding the latest addition to the Star Wars saga: The Clone Wars. Me, I’m indifferent. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan (although I was when the first three movies were released for the first time) and I think that George Lucas has run the franchise into the ground and it’s all about:

1. Visual Effects

2. Merchandising

3. Money (see #2)

Well since we do consider ourselves mainly a sci-fi, fantasy and superhero movie site, I guess we ought to post up the new full trailer for Star Wars: Clone Wars. If you haven’t heard, this will be a new ongoing CGI animated TV series, but Lucasfilm decided to launch it as a feature length animated film in theaters this summer.

You can check out the trailer for yourself below…

Another weekend, another Weekend Movie News Wrap Up.

This week:

Legion starring Dennis Quaid and Paul Bettany, Tom Hanks quits Fahrenheit 451, Nic Cage hunts for more National Treasure, Battlestar Galactica producer plans to make a television adaptation of Children of Men, Surrogates with Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell and news on when we can expect to see a trailer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

For details on the above items, read on.

So tell me, seriously – does the image above make you excited to see a new Star Wars series about the Clone Wars?

In case you don’t know, there’s a new completely CGI animated series coming out in the Fall that picks up where Episode 3 left off. So what actually should have happened in Episodes 2 & 3 will take place in this animated TV show.

The twist is that Lucasfilm will kick off the series with a theatrical movie which will be released on August 15th.

The new Star Wars: Clone Wars animated feature film will premiere theatrically August 15, 2008, then it will air on Cartoon Network and TNT. This one is from Lucasfilm Animation, not from Genndy Tartakovsky, who oversaw the original Clone Wars series in 2004/05. He’s attached to the new Dark Crystal movie.

This is cool, because I was just thinking that it’s been three years since the last Star Wars movie, and we’re not getting one this year. There were new Star Wars movies in 1999, 2002 and 2005.

Find out more at starwars.com.

As unbelievable as it sounds, it’s true: According to several reports, George Lucas can’t find a network willing to air his new, self-financed Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series. Lucas says this is a PG-13 style show that doesn’t follow the model of the first animated Clone Wars series.

I first heard these rumors from my sci fi fan friends, and when I checked out IMDb, there it was. Lucas is financing 100 episodes of this new series (with animation, this could be at least two to four years worth of episodes). So what will Lucas do to get the animated series on the air?

You’ll notice I don’t post a lot of Star Wars related news here at Screen Rant. The reason is basically that George Lucas murdered the saga for me with his three prequel movies. That’s it, plain and simple. I think the man became:

A. Too full of himself (understandable I suppose considering the money and power he wields).

B. Too enamored of the VFX/CGI at the expense of the story and characters.

Having said that, I did enjoy the mini-episode animated Clone Wars saga that was broadcast on Cartoon Network. Lucas was pretty much hands-off on these and they were created by Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Click to continue "Star Wars: The Clone Wars Trailer… Meh"