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At the outset of the press screening of Dave Filoni’s CG yet oddly lo-fi missing chapter (call it Episode 2.5, if you must) in George Lucas’s diminished saga, a five-year-old sitting nearby asked his dad, “Is this a toy commercial?” It is Star Wars, after all. It’s also an ad for an upcoming video game and an animated TV series debuting in October. What it’s not is a movie. With blocky, stiffly animated characters and even worse music, it’s a money-grabbing afterthought (good luck with that, George) awkwardly assembled from a few episodes of the new series. Yoda (Tom Kane) sends Anakin (Matt Lanter) and his new, Hannah Montana–like Jedi-trainee sidekick Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s son — “his little punkie muffin.” Ahsoka dubs Anakin “Sky-Guy”; he names her “Snips.” The “Huttlet” they end up babysitting? “Stinky.” When Jabba’s uncle showed up sounding like a black Truman Capote, I dubbed Star Wars “done.” 98 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle/Chestnut Hill + Suburbs
