Say what you want about the Star Wars prequels, it’s still an unparalleled cinematic experience when the lights go down and the familiar John Williams fanfare kicks in with the logo and text crawl.
So it’s a feeling of impending cinematic doom when this new prequel/middle/sequel gets this simplest of iconic moments wrong!
Straight away you feel that your heading downhill with The Clone Wars as it replaces the text crawl with a voiceover narration that feels as jarring as it does patronising. As we get plumped straight into the action we have to get used to the new aesthetic style that matches a wooden finish with that of the prequel trilogy acting. It also dumps the classic musical themes of the saga, instead opting for, among other things, rock-style electric guitar. It’s as bad as it sounds, literally!
