For almost as long as Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been around, there have been fans asking to see their versions of the prequel characters get a chance to adapt the material of the live-action movies. We’ve had tiny tastes of what that might be thanks to video games, but this remarkable new animated short film gives us our best look yet at an animated Star Wars prequel remake.
Hello There Animations recently shared Clone Wars: Battle of the Heroes, a complete animated take on the climax of Revenge of the Sith, using the aesthetic of the Clone Wars animated series’ later seasons. And it really needs to be seen to be believed—that’s how incredible it is.
More than simply just a remake of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s duel in Revenge, the short leverages a remake of a deleted scene from The Clone Wars where Anakin and Obi-Wan discuss Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order as a framing device to really make this feel like a piece of Clone Wars material instead of just an adaptation of the movie. The clever mix of dialogue from the original film, as well as versions of lines recorded by Clone Wars stars Matt Lanter and James Arnold Taylor for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, helps carry it further still. (And honestly? The flow between Clone Wars actor dialogue and the original work from Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor is pretty smooth.) And that’s when you get into tons of fun little additions like combat flourishes from deleted scenes, or the animated remake of Vader’s rebirth, that just make it a real joy to watch.
You can nitpick a few little things, but it’s mostly inconsequential compared to the scope of what the short film executes so well. It’s a clear labor of love, and wonderful realization of an idea that, honestly, is probably infeasible for Lucasfilm to pull off itself. After all, as nice as it would be, is it necessary when we have the original film and they have new stories to tell? Even if the recent live-action material found its own way to offer a spin on that animated work in the first place?
A fan project is a great way to fill that gap instead—and Battle of the Heroes does it damn near perfectly.
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