Finally, George Lucas has gone from making movies that look like cartoons and video games to making cartoons and video games themselves. At least these products will be honest.

Personally, I'm not looking forward to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which looks almost as cheesy as the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.
So far, Lucas also has a mixed record on the video games that have
stretched out both the franchise and its financial performance. While
the Rogue Squadron trilogy was great, the Battlefront games were about as entertaining as The Phantom Menace.

My new favorite – it came out in November, but I've been obsessed with it lately – is Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. The game is exactly what it sounds like: a meta-licensed mash-up between Star Wars
and Lego that offers gamers the chance to play through all six movies
with Legoriffic incarnations of their favorite characters. This is both
as ridiculous and as entertaining as it sounds. The cut scenes alone — which replay scenes from the movie with Lego spaceships and little Lego figures — are worth the price of admission.

Like the original Star Wars movie – I'm talking about the first film, not the first episode – Lego Star Wars shows that Lucas is best when he keeps it simple. Back in 1977, Star Wars
dealt in pure childlike joy, and the Lego game does the same. Watching
Darth Vader strut around on stubby little Lego legs just never gets
old. If that doesn't make you smile, you probably hate puppies and kittens.

By
the '90s, the movies got both too cute and too serious – filled with
characters that seemed made for McDonald's Happy Meals and weighed down
by both spiritual nonsense and political intrigue (what is the Trade
Federation and why do I care?). Lucas's games went in the same
direction. The massively multiplayer Star Wars Galaxies introduced fascinating ideas, but it had the depth and detail that fans demand of Lord of the Rings. In the world of Star Wars, no one cares how far planets are from each other – everything happens "far, far away."

Lego Star Wars
throws all this seriousness right out the airlock. It's easy to accept
Jedi mind tricks when they serve to build Lego bricks. And it's easier
to suspend one's disbelief for Lego laser-gun fights than for Lucas's
dialogue, which the game avoids in favor of sounds that serve to evoke
emotions without getting specific. When Lego Jar Jar Binks no talk, he
no sound like racist-y parody. If he still gets on your nerves, you can
slice him up with a light saber.

The Clone Wars movie should be this much fun. But I doubt it will be.