Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Episode I: Army Of The Republic

What a fantastic concept. Smudger9's edits are a wonderful way to approach the series with the best elements maintained and the cheese minimized. There are plenty of moments remaining that still betray the silly tendencies of the series, but theyre manageable and relatively inoffensive.

Of note:
*the action throughout here is extremely streamlined and intense. By the final battle on Kamino, this film I think has packed more into it than any other regular Star Wars film.
*its interesting to watch this movie on the heels of your favorite AOTC edit to see how the story arc flows. Anakin Skywalker is a character wonderfully realized in the Clone Wars, light years from Hayden's mugging, yet seeming like the perfect bridge in bringing this long, long story back to Hayden and ROTS.
*just how many times does Obi-Wan meet Grevious in a lightsaber battle in this series? 2 here....
*the story arc, as others have noted, kind of just ebbs amd flows. Theres no traditional buildup with one story to a climax, yet Star Wars always was episodic. The transitions between stories, however, are so seamless it really does feel like a fully realized film.
*far be it from me to demand anything, but man, those battle droid voices are a continuous Achilles' Heel for this series. All that "um....sir......" in those gratingly childish, throwaway voices have zero value or place in a series even known for childishness. I know, I know, its supposed to be a laugh, but, aside from the fact that the voices are totally unamusing, it just reeks of Lucas-cynicism, the same "creativity" that drove him to put the Emperor's final yell in Luke's mouth for the SE of ESB. An editor who makes something as wonderful as this movie has got to grit their teeth every time those battle droids intone their godawful whining. Any intrepid editor want to take a shot at dubbing over those voices with a sound worthy of a dangerous, intimidating, separatist army?

An absolutely excellent edit. For the most part the edits were seamless and flowed well together. Smudger did a great job of interlinking unrelated episodes into one overarching plot through clever use of clips and dialogue from other episodes. A few dialogue replacements were obvious but overall very well integrated. I highly recommend this edit.

Watched this with my three year old today. Simply fantastic and I already liked the Clone Wars series as is. Looking forward to part II.

When I first discovered the whole idea of fan editing, an attempt to turn episodes of Clone Wars into feature length movies was something that I actually wanted to do. I love the show, but the idea of having a series of movies that show the development of the key characters over the course of the conflict to bring it in line with the main Star Wars movies seemed to make so much sense. I even went as far as putting together several and came to the conclusion that it just wasn't possible, especially with the early seasons which were a lot more episodic than those that came later. After watching Smudger9's Army of the Republic I've learned two things: (1) it's absolutely possible, and (2) I think I'm going to leave this to the expert!

The decision to focus on two plots - that of the clones as well as Anakin and Obi-Wan - really worked, especially considering the Battle of Kamino at the end actually brought the two strands together effectively, even if the Jedi never directly interact with the Clone Troopers we've been following. The fact that these two plots connected gave it a solid narrative through-line that felt satisfying.

The use of dialogue from other episodes to connect the strands was done effectively. I'd tried to do it in my attempted edit and the results were poor. While I could tell where these inserts took place, my wife (who has only seen the episodes through once and was therefore not as familiar as I am with where the episodes fall chronologically) couldn't tell at all.

Transitions between scenes looked great and it really felt like a theatrical release throughout.

I suppose my only quibble plot-wise may be Ventress's introduction. Because she'd already appeared in the 2003 Clone Wars cartoon, Obi-Wan and Anakin's familiarity with her was in place right from the start of this series. However, could it have been possible to add some lines to make it seem like this was their first encounter? Perhaps make her a mysterious assassin that we find more about as the series of movies continue? It feels like this movie takes place early in the Clone Wars so to have had so much happen already seems more in media res than Star Wars sometimes is. Mind you, having attempted to play with the plot using lines from other episodes I know how challenging it would be, especially if no so such dialogue existed that worked.

That said, that was really my only issue. From the opening "A long time ago..." until the closing credits this felt like the Clone Wars movie that should have been on the big screen! I can't wait for Episode II - and beyond!

The Clone Wars series in my opinion was way easier to watch than the prequels, but the childish robot humor and other silly bits really killed it for me in parts. This edit pretty much got rid of everything that annoyed me about the show/movie.Visually everything worked. I noticed the shift in starfield after the opening crawl and there was one wipe I thought was a little hasty but not enough to take me out of the movie. Audio wise very solid, I did notice a couple of quick musical cues but that was on my second viewing and I think I only noticed them because I had headphones on, so again not very distracting. The story is very layered and I like how it moves from one storyline to the next and keeps things interesting. Characters are well fleshed out, especially with the Clone troopers arc. Pretty much wall to wall action. This genuinely felt like I was watching a war movie!
Overall very fun and Exciting! I will definitely watch this again (and again and again) and I can't wait to see what you do with Episode 2. Spot on job!