First look at "Star Wars: The Clone Wars"

Maybe they should have saved this one for Comic Con. The Cartoon Network will launch a new night of action-adventure programming on Fridays this fall, and the centerpiece will be "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a new  series from LucasFilm Animation. The Turner folks showed us a just-completed episode this morning on the big screens around the ballroom. Apparently it was supposed to be a big deal, but Supervising Director Dave Filoni from LucasFilm seemed more excited than any of the television critics in the room.

The show tells the story of the Clone Wars, which for those of you who don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the "Star Wars" mythology is the period between "Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones" and "Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith." It will also pick up from this summer's"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" movie. Got that?

In the episode we saw, Yoda was on a mission to get some warthoggy-looking creatures in purple robes to sign on with the Empire, and some other Eurotrash- looking people were trying to kill him before he could cut the deal. And then some troopers and some battle droids ran around shooting at each other on a planet covered with what seemed to be giant purple coral. And then Yoda and his light saber saved the day. The whole time, of course, he was talking in that awful, half-backward Yoda grammar, as in, "A rift in the Force there is."

The computer graphics were sharp, and kids will love it, I guess. But it all seemed very much like, well, every other "Star Wars" installment - "Talk about clones," someone said afterward. I sided with the critic who asked Filoni whether "enough is enough" when it comes to "Star Wars."

"Every time I go to Toys R Us," Filoni said, "there are kids picking up light sabers and imagining themselves in that galaxy far, far away, and as long as it inspires them, I'm happy to make more."

Kids, we have to talk.