Star Wars: The Clone Wars

A feature-length animated film released in theaters on August 15, 2008, which served as the opening installment of the animated series of the same name. It was directed by Dave Filoni and produced by Lucasfilm Animation, with music by Kevin Kiner. The film was originally assembled from material for the first episodes of the series and was edited into a standalone feature at the decision of George Lucas, who served as executive producer.

The story is set during the Clone Wars, the period between the second and third episodes of the film saga. The film introduces one of the key figures of the entire franchise, the Padawan Ahsoka Tano, as well as the assassin Asajj Ventress, and depicts the war from the perspective of field commanders and clone units.

Its visual approach, with the characters' emphatically stylized, “puppet-like” movement, and its theatrical format met with a lukewarm critical reception. Nevertheless, the film matters to the archive as the starting point of an extensive animated layer of the canon: it launched the long-running series that chronicles the course of the Clone Wars in detail.