The infantilization of Star Wars -- which rankles many purists -- is actually the smartest marketing move George Lucas ever made.

It doesn't make things easy for adults.

But if you consider Star Wars versus Star Trek, the latter is, to most kids, something weird their parents like.

Meanwhile, you've got kids all the way down to kindergarten who can identify with Jar Jar Binks, Ewoks and little Jake Lloyd as a child-Jedi.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is the latest turn in Lucas' single-issue career.

And when he adds (a) a wise-cracking 14-year-old Padawan (Jedi apprentice) for Anakin Skywalker to engage in sitcom banter with; (b) a cute, larva-like son for the previously menacing Jabba The Hutt, and (c) a fey Hutt "uncle" named Zero who talks like a character in a bad production of a Tennessee Williams play, well, apparently nothing is sacred when it comes to catering to the kids who will keep his franchise alive.

But then, we realized that when he digitally added everything this side of a Tattooine Chuck-e-Cheese to the once-sacrosanct Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope.

Put simply, this is a children's movie, with non-stop light-sabre action and angry, fast-paced minimalist dialogue to cover up the fact that The Clone Wars -- the Republican army-cloned-from-Jango-Fett thing -- still doesn't make sense (and it would bore any kid to death if you tried to explain it).

It is also a cash-grab, since Lucas had already contracted with Warner Bros. to produce a Clone Wars animated TV series (which begins airing in October), saw that parts of it could be squeezed together into a feature, and started the theatrical ball rolling.

What you're seeing in the theatre is what you will get on TV (CTV in Canada) come October.

It's not the first attempt at a Clone Wars series. A series of five-minute 2-D Clone Wars shorts by cartoon director Genndy Tartakovsky aired five years ago, and frankly, I liked that artistic vision better.

This 3-D one is like an unsuccessful attempt at artistic nouvelle cuisine -- a blend of anime and '60s Supermarionation (they even walk like characters in Thunderbirds) that just seems frankly weird (Samuel Jackson's Mace Windu looks like E.T.).

Jackson, by the way is one of the few movie actors to lend voices to their characters. I just find it funny that James Arnold Taylor, who voices Obi-Wan, has voiced Fred Flintstone and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Leonardo.

And the plot? Well, one shudders when it opens with worried dialogue about trade routes being cut off.

Again with the trade and tariffs. Did Lucas get trapped at a NAFTA conference or something?

It soon settles into a plot about Jabba's son being kidnapped by Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) who persuades him that the Jedis actually did it.

So while Obi-Wan leads an outnumbered clone battalion against a droid army, Anakin and his little apprentice Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) go on a bickering larval rescue mission.

Out to stop them is Dooku's own female Padewan, the sleek Ventress (Nika Futterman).

Let the laser sword catfights begin.

I don't doubt Clone Wars will find its audience as a TV series.

And for its budget, it will probably do okay drawing from the crowd that will go to anything with the Star Wars imprimatur.

It just doesn't seem a good enough excuse for most grown-ups to pay $12 admission and $12 for popcorn and pop.

(This film is rated PG)

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