Okay, I realize it’s dumb to get annoyed by articles in entertainment magazines, but I do write for The Screengrab...and isn’t public venting what the InterTubes are all about? So allow me to respond to Jeff Jensen’s defense of George Lucas and The Clone Wars in the current issue of the usually somewhat less annoying Entertainment Weekly (which at least had the good sense to give the feature-length animated infomercial in question an F). Bemoaning the aforementioned F, the poor box office showing of The Clone Wars and general fanboy discontent with Lucas, columnist Jensen writes, “Missing from the overheated bashing of The Clone Wars was the crucial point that it was made for kids, not the grown-ups for whom the original trilogy remains (ridiculously) sacred.”
Um...okay. Because Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were edgy Scandinavian Dogme 95 films made for grad students and aging Cannes jurists, right? That same "for kids!" argument has been used to defend The Phantom Menace, the Elmo-fication of Sesame Street and the general dumbing down of family entertainment from the time I actually was a kid ‘til now: hey, chill out, Grandpa...it’s okay if insert TV show or movie here is shallow, poorly written and generally dimwitted. It’s for kids!
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