Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Episode III: Children of the Force

Hands down the best of Smudger's three Clone Wars edits (so far). The story flows incredibly well and despite being two story arcs it successfully makes it all feel part of one bigger narrative (introducing Cad Bane midway through the Ryloth arc certainly helped this). The overarching theme of children helped. By choosing Ryloth you get Ahsoka continuing to grow as well as the clones and their young Twi'lek ally which helps to connect to the final story of the Force sensitive children - very well thought out! While the final part - the hunt for the eponymous Children of the Force - in the final section of the movie felt a little rushed this is hardly the fault of the editor and it does him justice that he was able to weave in so many other ideas that matched the title he had given this edit anyway.

From a technical standpoint there were no moments where reconstructed dialogue to transition between stories stood out - something I know is a challenge in putting a variety of normally loosely connected episodes together. Honestly, from an audio and visual perspective the movie flowed so wonderfully. I have so much credit for Smudger for being able to pull this off. It genuinely felt like I was watching one single story.

Highly recommended and I can't wait until Episode IV comes along!

As with previous reviews this is so far the best of Smudgers Clone Wars edits.
The video and audio editing are flawless, and it is incredibly enjoyable.

The only reason why I rate this slightly lower than a perfect score is because of the overarching narrative. Yes, the story flows perfectly fine. Yes, I understand that it is difficult if not impossible to create a movie story from a TV show. And yes, I still found it enjoyable. However, in reviewing this film I find there to be a lack of an overall plot, the first half is the Ryloth arc, and the second half is the Bane Holocron arc, but the movie itself doesn't have an overarching goal or theme.

To express my point I recognise Smudgers two previous films.
Army of the Republic was very much themed around the army of the republic (obviously) as it started and ended with the same group of clone troopers brought together as the story progressed (Fives and Echo on Kamino, and Rex with Anakin on Chrisophsis. Both meet up in the climax).
With A New Threat it was focused on introducing new threats to the republic such as; the malevolence and Grievous' growing strength, boba's crew, and a betrayed guard at the start
(although this did make the movie feel too diverse with villains).
However, with Children of the Force an overall theme is lost and the movie becomes very much copy and paste of two or three episode arcs.
By the end of the movie with the Children Rescue climax I felt as though the entire Ryloth first half was pointless as it had nothing to do with the ultimate plot and climax, instead it meerly served as filler to the time period of this movie and felt as though the movie needed a battle and a beginning so it was put in.

I know I am looking at this way too in depth and am being really critical, but I still give it a 10/10 enjoyment. I only bring this up as one of Smudger's intentions is to create a classical Star Wars structure which I feel is especially lacking from this movie. Ultimately I hope this issue is addressed with future edits as I am really enjoying these movies. Unfortunately right now it feels very much like a copy paste work of different and unlinked stories with fancy editing to tie them together.

If you haven't seen the clone wars TV series, or are looking at rewatching them, these edits are amazing and are an excellent alternative to the childrens show.



Additional. I don't know if its because Smudger is trying to fill in as much 'no kiddy' parts of the show he can into these movies, but it does feel a little long and as almost every scene is some kind of action sequence it can feel tiring. For example, I liked how the hostage rescue was cleverly edited into the holocron heist, but it seems unecessary as it didn't contribute towards the heist and seemed to only serve as extra Bane time (although I am all for developing Anakin and Padmes relationship which I consider to be important).



Overall, 9.8/10. Can't wait for the next one!

This was excellent. Though, the first half with Ryloth seemed to drag a little and seemed to have no real bearing on the story later. I realize though that you're working with what you have, and what you've done with it is superb. There were some hard music cuts during a couple of transitions that I noticed but wasn't too distracting. Every time a droid said "Um..." before a sentence made me cringe a little, but at least you kept it to a minimum. Video quality was crisp in HD and the editing overall was smooth throughout. Highly recommended, as has been with all your edits so far. Great work!

I have been immensely enjoying Smudger9's Clone Wars series so far, and agree this one is by the far the best yet. Whereas the first one suffered from action-overload and the second from an episodic narrative, this one felt cohesive, in large part thanks to Smudger9's awareness that Cad Bane needed introducing during the first act, and his weaving together of two separate instances where the Jedi had reason to admonish Ahsoka to smooth the transition between conflicts. The Ryloth arc served to give Ahsoka some much needed character development, (as other reviewers have demanded), and the Bane arc, being one of the tv series strongest, will always stand tall on its own.
Technically this entry is as smooth as we've come to expect, even alternate dialogue dubbing went unnoticed this time around.
The attempt to tie the Hostage Crisis and Holocron Heist episodes together created an exciting and highly entertaining section of the film, but as Bane began his solo mission to retrieve the holocron I did find myself wondering what the whole hostage crisis had been for. Was it merely an attempt to distract everyone from his true intent? I asked Smudger9, and the answer is yes. Considering the strengths of that episode I don't fault him for including it, but it seems a poor decision on Bane's part. His agent was already equipped to enter the Jedi Temple undetected and the "distraction" did nothing to help but alert many people to the present danger. What's more the many bounty hunters Bane called on to help him achieve the hostage situation seems all the more unnecessary in this version of events. As a strategy to force the Chancellor to meet his demands and release Ziro it was genius, but as that motive was wisely cut from this film, it was left making little sense.
That said, all in all Smudger9 has delivered his best episode yet, and addressed numerous points his audience has raised in his last entries by delivering a story that largely followed the same characters (thus eliminating episodic syndrome), tying arcs together, and including a stronger focus on character development and non-action scenes, to give those there are more weight and the audience less fatigue.
Kudos!

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