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

Smudger9 has engaged in a monumental effort with their cuts of 'The Clone Wars' and it's quite remarkable just how much effort they have put into making these movie cuts from the TV series. A TV series I have to say, I was never a fan of, despite trying to get into the show several times and failing.

But the editor here has sliced out much of the show's most awful moments and therefore made for a far more enjoyable viewing experience. It's also a more "adult" experience too, in that a lot of the overly "kid friendly" elements have been eliminated. Unfortunately, annoying characters like kid Ahsoka and kid Boba are still present. But, there's nothing that Smudger9 can really do about that. Although, using some judicious cuts, they are less irritating here than they were in the TV show. I still just want to slap Boba though. And those "roger roger" droids still have the capacity to make me want to murder, despite them being heavily truncated.

My particular problem is not with Smudger9's version of 'The Clone Wars'. It's with 'The Clone Wars' itself. It just wasn't a very interesting show, had a tendency to ramble terribly and, unfortunately, some of that poorness comes through. Don't get me wrong, Smudger9 has made a very watchable and enjoyable cut here. But the problems are ingrained in the show itself.

It's usually accepted that 'The Clone Wars' didn't get good until Series 3. Although I was question if it was ever truly good and as of Smudger9's Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Episode V: Rise of the Dark Side, we've just got to Series 4 of the original show. So, the editor still has a bit of work to do, turning a generally poor show into a watchable one.

In spite of my criticisms of 'The Clone Wars' itself, I can highly recommend Smudger9's cuts. It's a great effort and well worth checking out. In fact, I'd recommend avoiding the TV series altogether and just watch Smudger9's far better versions.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars tells a universal story of war between good and evil, and in that turmoil the daunting challenge to not become that-which-you-fight in Anakin's efforts to stop the Dark Side. A scope that cries out for feature-length presentation on the big-screen.

Smudger9 merges multi-episode story arcs, skips inconsequential storylines, and removes repetition and filler. The result is more mature and better focused.

If you haven't the time to watch the feature film plus 6 seasons, settle in with Smudger9's movies instead.
If you want to find out why (and how) the clones turned on the Jedi, insert these Clone War stories in your Star Wars movie line-up.
If you enjoy animated Star Wars and are sad that Rebels is ending, watch Smudger9's Clone Wars.

This edit is ambitious, and does a solid job of condensing several plot lines from the Clone Wars TV show (a great series, but one notorious for its filler) into a satisfying 2 hour viewing experience. Narrative elements are repurposed cleverly and it serves as a much better introduction to the series than the awful theatrical feature (which this edit extracts the worthwhile segments from).

However, as with most TV to Movie edits, I think the edit sometimes feels like several separate plot-lines strung along and Frankensteined into a feature. I think smudger9 does the best job he can with the material, but plotlines do resolve and new ones start up frequently, and much of the action gets repetitive. I wonder if trying to edit the series into 40-60min cable style episodes would make more sense.

All that said, I did enjoy the edit and am very much looking forward to watching smudger9's Episode II!

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.

A lot has been said about this, pretty much all of it good and with good reason. This is a very well-executed edit. This pretty much works as a film. There's a touch of jumpiness which is inherent in almost all TV-to-movie edits but Smudger has done a great job plotting a narrative throughline. The visual editing was topnotch, nothing stood out or threw me off. The musical additions (only watched the show once so I don't think I picked them all up) that I noticed were really great. All of the battles sounded and felt great. I read after that there was a lot of sound replacement. You did a great job because nothing sounded thin or was noticeable. My only real criticism (and it's minor) is a couple audio transitions. The one after Heavy, Fives and Echo meet Captain Rex and Cody stood out, and at 1:48:45 there's an odd transition where the music transitions with the video and swells up but then cuts off kind of abruptly. Just as a preference, I would have preferred cutting the joke about how "Heavy really did hate that place" - it took away from the emotion of the moment in my opinion. Overall, the editing on both fronts is fantastic. This is absolutely my preferred way to revisit the series. Smudger has taken pretty much all of the annoying stuff out (both plots and jokes) which gives it a more serious tone. Still light and Star Wars-y but much better. If you hated the show, you probably won't like this. But if you enjoyed the show but were annoyed by some elements of it then this will take it from good to great. Nice work.