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<i>By Patrick Kevin Day, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer</i><br>
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<i>Two movies. One weekend. Most will assess their success on box office tallies. We consider the films' finer points: star power, quotability and all-around coolness. May the best film win.</i><br>
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On the surface, it seems like an odd match-up this week. We have " Tropic Thunder," a Ben Stiller comedy and " Star Wars: The Clone Wars," the first fully animated "Star Wars" movie. But dig a little deeper and you realize that the two films carry many of the same themes. Both films deal with wars important in American history: Vietnam and the Clone Wars. Both films draw inspiration from '70s cinema ("Apocalypse Now" for "Thunder" and the original "Star Wars" for "Clone Wars") and feature a band of rebels fighting back against an evil empire. In the case of "Thunder," that empire is Hollywood, while in "Clone Wars" it's the actual empire.<br>
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Both films have high expectations and have been handicapped right at the starting gate -- "Thunder" has become the subject of controversy, while "Clone Wars" has suffered from mediocre reviews. But beyond the initial impressions, which film comes out on top?

Tropic Thunder

( Merie Weismiller Wallace / DreamWorks )

By Patrick Kevin Day, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Two movies. One weekend. Most will assess their success on box office tallies. We consider the films' finer points: star power, quotability and all-around coolness. May the best film win.

On the surface, it seems like an odd match-up this week. We have " Tropic Thunder," a Ben Stiller comedy and " Star Wars: The Clone Wars," the first fully animated "Star Wars" movie. But dig a little deeper and you realize that the two films carry many of the same themes. Both films deal with wars important in American history: Vietnam and the Clone Wars. Both films draw inspiration from '70s cinema ("Apocalypse Now" for "Thunder" and the original "Star Wars" for "Clone Wars") and feature a band of rebels fighting back against an evil empire. In the case of "Thunder," that empire is Hollywood, while in "Clone Wars" it's the actual empire.

Both films have high expectations and have been handicapped right at the starting gate -- "Thunder" has become the subject of controversy, while "Clone Wars" has suffered from mediocre reviews. But beyond the initial impressions, which film comes out on top?

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