Audience interest in the forthcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars is rather muted as the film’s release date approaches.

An article in the Chicago-area Daily Herald newspaper, along with several other such reports, says the forthcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars is not exactly animating those who enjoyed the earlier films in the series:

[At] a Lucasfilm presentation at the recent Wizard World comic convention in Rosemont. Steve Sansweet, [where] Lucasfilm’s director of fan relations, unveiled details about new "Star Wars" products coming out in the next few months, including "Star Wars: Clone Wars," a full-length computer-animated film that arrives in theaters on Aug. 15 . . . the applause [for a showing of the movie’s promotional trailer] was positive, but polite—hardly the raucous response that has greeted past "Star Wars" previews. And chatter about the film on movie and "Star Wars"-related message boards has been surprisingly restrained so far.

"You’re definitely not seeing the kind of hype you got with the last three films," said Mike Barrick, a staff member at theforce.net, a "Star Wars" fan site.

The story quoted a fan at the convention as being interested in the film and planning to see it, but not enthusiastic:

"I’ll definitely see the movie," Krause said. "The trailer looks pretty cool. But for some reason, I’m not as excited as I was before the last few films came out."

The story points out that the "Clone Wars" era has already been covered by the series Clone Wars on Cartoon Network and by other offerings, which might dampen interest because audiences could feel they already know enough about it and there would be few surprises.

That strikes me as a dubious explanation, given that TV tie-ins usually create more interest in a film.

A more likely explanation is touched on briefly in the Daily Herald story: the animation of the film, with its obviously strong Japanese anime influence, does not look very appealing. As the images shown above suggest, the animation is quite smart and exudes energy, but it looks far too much like a video game. One can imagine this working on a big screen in a movie theater, but I can see why most people would consider waiting to find out if their more Star Wars-fanatical friends like it before venturing in.

In addition, given that the last three Star Wars films were rather mundane and not nearly as entertaining as the first three installments in the series (chapters 4-6), it should hardly surprise us if audiences take a wait and see attitude.

That’s rather a pity, perhaps, given that the political and social ideas implicit in episodes 1-3 (the fourth through sixth films released) seem rather positive. 

Star Wars: Clone Wars can surely do well at the box office and add something to the Star Wars canon if the story and characters are appealing—but at this point it is clearly understandable why the potential audience’s enthusiasm is rather muted.