I'm sure that a long time ago in a mind far, far away from the normal ones possessed by the rest of us, I'm sure "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" must have seemed like a good idea. This just in: It wasn't.

In fact, making this movie may rank at the very top of the list of worst ideas of all time — right up there with selecting it as my review for the week.

In the latest exhibit that George Lucas is the most persistent (I'm being nice with my adjectives today) man in show business, he treats us to an another incarnation of the "Star Wars" empire with "Clone," an animated version of the characters millions came to know and love three decades ago. Unfortunately, no one let Lucas know that no one was asking for such a thing.

"Clone Wars" pits the Jedi Knights, led by Obi-Won Kenobi (voiced by James Arnold Taylor), Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter) and Master Yoda (Tom Kane), against the forces of evil spawned by the Separatists and the threats of crime lord Jabba the Hutt. Skywalker gets some assistance in his mission to restore peace to the galaxy in the form of his wet-behind-the-ears Padawan Ahsoka Tano, a young girl training to be a Jedi warrior.

Basically, the story has the complexity of most half-hour Saturday morning cartoons, with the same sense of simplistic storytelling skills. Within a few minutes, the story had placed us in the middle of a battle between the Jedis and droids, with lasers being shot across the screen like so many glow sticks. There was little to no buildup to anything in the movie, which jumps from scenario to scenario while being as formulaic as anything I've seen.

Lucas gets credit here for the universe and characters (or the blame, if he was the one who insisted on having an infant son for Jabba), while Henry Gilroy is responsible for the screenwriting, and Dave Filoni sits in the director's chair. I'm still trying to determine if any of them made this with any intention of it being any good. If they did, I would encourage them all to seek other careers, because this is a poor effort all around.

It's not funny, it's not exciting and the computer-generated graphics aren't all that memorable (as I said, I'm being nice today). Perhaps even worse, there doesn't seem to be much intent to be any of these things.

I see no reason to watch "Clone Wars" unless you're an absolute Lucas completist, and after seeing this, I can only hope there aren't many of you left in this entire galaxy.

Hey George: May the retirement force be with you.

Please.

Joel Sensenig is news editor of the Review Times.