Tag: Clone Wars

Revenge of the Sith. The Last Hope!

I come to it at last, the third and final installment in the prequel series, and sixth in the overall Star Wars franchise! Hard to imagine I started this whole thing three weeks ago. Seems like a lifetime has passed, but that’s the way time works!

And what can I say about this last installment? Well, I can tell you that between movies two and three, Lucas seemed to be taking mounting criticisms of his movies seriously. I can also say without exaggeration that after two generally panned movies, we were all pulling for him! Many reviewers openly wondered if the third and final movie could save the franchise, cuz Lord knew the fans weren’t likely to endure a third disappointment.

Luckily, Lucas seemed to pull if off with this third and final one. After the release, critics and fans seemed united in hailing it as the best of the three. Of course, the competition wasn’t exactly fierce, and there were still loads of problems that would become more apparent as time went on. The initial gentleness and praise with which this movie was met seemed to be the result of wishful thinking, really. No one wanted to see Star Wars fail.

Plot Synopsis:
The movie opens, as always, with the crawl. WAR! It says. It then goes on to explain… See, there’s the thing known as the Clone Wars. They’re bad. Lots of people dying, lots of systems being overrun. And now, the fight seems to have come to Coruscant.

We cut, as usual, to ships in space. And after a brief, silent flyby, we see that its in fact some mad space combat! Ships everywhere are engaged in close quarters combat, destroyers, cruisers, and tons of fighters between them. And it’s all happening over the capitol. And to top it off, Skywalker and Kenobi are there too, leading the assault in their fighters.

There mission is to reach General Grievous’ command vessel, where Palpatine, a hostage, is being kept. They fight there way through several droid fighters, pull some cool moves, board the ship, take out tons of droids – all rendered with state of the art CGI of course – and begin working their way to the room where he’s being kept. Once there, a room that is made to resemble the Emperor’s own throne room, they do the deed of fighting Dooku for the second time.

And this time, things go much the same. Obi-Wan is taken out early, and dismemberment ensues. But this time, it’s Anakin hewing off Dooku’s limbs. Defeated, Palpatine tells Anakin to kill him, and after a minimum of discussion, Anakin slices his head off.

He expresses some regret, but Palpatine tells him not to worry about it. Second time Anakin has committed cold blooded murder and the whole thing’s brushed off without a second thought. They even raise the issue of the last time he did this, appropriately…

He also tries to get him to leave Obi-Wan behind, but this Anakin proves immune to. Together, they begin the process of fleeing, only to get caught and brought to meet Grievous himself. Now this guy, though he’s hasn’t been introduced yet, is apparently important. He’s killed Jedi too, judging from his collection. However, Anakin and Obi-Wan have no trouble escaping and take control of the ship.

Anakin, in demonstrating his alleged flying skills, begins trying to land the ship on Coruscant itself. A spectacular crash ensues, in which we see a surprisingly callous attitude towards the potential loss of life. But then again, they never confirm that anyone was hurt, despite all the damage they do.

Anyhoo, a tender reunion soon follows. Anakin is reunited with Padme, admits he’s missed he, and learns she’s pregnant. This is a bad thing, for as we soon learn, Anakin’s been having bad dreams again. This time about Padme dying. He remembers what happened with his mother and doesn’t want a repeat.

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan and the Jedi are getting nervous about Palpatine. He’s had his emergency powers for some time and even expanded on them. Now that the war is nearing its end, they fear he won’t give up his powers. After years of benefiting from all the chaos and confusion, it seems they are finally sensing that he’s not on the level. They propose to devise a test. Once they’ve hunted down Grievous, they’ll confront him. If he doesn’t relinquish his powers, they’ll know he’s up to no good.

At the same time, Palpatine continues to use Anakin to further his own aims. He appoints Anakin as his personal representative to the Council, who do not trust him so they don’t promote him to Master. Anakin is incensed.

However, the Council still asks that Anakin spy on Palpatine for them. They also begin to express doubts about Anakin and the prophecy, whether or not it might be misread. Seems late to be bringing this up, but the die is kind of cast at this point…

Palpatine also seems to know more about Anakin than he’d prefer to know. That much is clear when he begins to address the possibility of how the Dark Side can save people from dying. Anakin is obviously intrigued, and begins to promise Padme in the most cryptic of ways that everything will be fine.

Once more, the Council decide to divide Anakin and Obi-Wan and send them on separate missions. While Anakin spies on Palpatine, Obi-Wan is dispatched to deal with Grievous. He flies to Atapau, where the Separatists base used to be, and engages Grievous in single combat. The Clones troops arrive shortly thereafter, and a big CGI fight ensues.

After a big chase involving a giant lizard, a ZOOM, and a cliffside fight, Anakin blows Grievous away with a blaster. In a shout out to remarks made in the first movie, he then mocks the weapon that saved his life. Seems kind of callous…

Back on Coruscant, Anakin gets wise to Palpatine after he practically spells it out for him. He draws his blade, but hesitates to take him down when Palpatine reminds him that he will never save Padme without his help. Instead, Anakin runs to Master Windu and tells him what he’s learned. Windu takes some backup and goes to arrest the Chancellor and another fight ensues. Palpatine quickly dispatches his backup, but Windu manages to subdue him before long.

Of course, Anakin shows up and pleads for Palpatine’s life. Windu seems set on killing him, which seems odd considering that he’s a Jedi Master and killing prisoners is not something they do. But this forces Anakin to intervene and Windu dies. Anakin is crippled by guilt, but out of a desire to save Padme declares his loyalty to Palpatine.

His first task, it seems, is to kill everyone in the Jedi Temple, which Anakin does, including all the kids. Once he’s done that, he’s sent to Mustafar to wipe out the Seperatist leadership, a move which will end the war and eliminate the last of Palpatine’s liabilities. He kills them too, and seems to enjoy it just a little too much!

Obi-Wan returns to learn what Anakin has done. He and Yoda arrive at the Temple to find the corpses of all the “Younglings” (guess they couldn’t say kids, might have sounded too… murdery). Obi-Wan then tells Padme, who for some reason seems surprised that Anakin has done this… again.

Once more, the Jedi choose to divide their forces. Yoda will go and take on Palpatine while Obi-Wan will fly all the way to Mustafar to deal with Anakin. Palpatine then declares the formation of the Galactic Republic, and outside of Padme and Bail Organa, no one seems to mind! She issues a line meant to capture the absurdity: “So this is how liberty ends… in thunderous applause.”

And so we get two fight-scenes, almost interspersed. Yoda fights with Palpatine in the Senate and gets several floating pods thrown at him. He loses, is picked up by Senator Organa (Leia’ adoptive father), and declares he’s failed and must go into hiding.

Padme and Obi-Wan confront Anakin, who seems to have gone a little Batty McPsycho now. After all he’s done to save her from death, he then turns on Padme with a choke move. And then of course Obi-Wan and him go at it like a bunch of Highlanders on crank!

After a VERY long, drawn out fight scene, Obi-Wan takes off Anakin’s legs and remaining arm. Anakin burns on the slopes above molten magma, and Obi-Wan just leaves him there. Palpatine picks him up and takes him a medical facility where they begin the process of turning him into Vader. Simultaneously, Amidala delivers her babies and dies in childbirth. No medical reason is given, it just seems that she’s lost hope… okay.

All remaining threads are tied up nicely. It is agreed that Luke will go to Tatooine, Leia will go to Alderaan, and Obi-Wan will also go to Tatooine to hide and commune with his old master. And then, the newly-created Vader has a ham moment by wailing when Palpatine tells him that he killed Padme accidentally. “Nooooo!” is his reply. And it seems that they are no in total cahoots. The movie ends with them witnessing the construction of the Death Star.

Last Word:
Well, like I said, this movie did better than the previous two. However, there were problems that few were prepared to admit so long as the Star Wars legacy seemed on the line. Most had to do with the plot, so I’ll save those for last. First, the movie shared some problems from the previous two which really became apparent by now.

They include the shooting, how Lucas shot all his scenes from the comfort of his chair using two cameras and simply had his actors walk slowly across the screen or sitting to deliver the lines. And then there was the bad dialogue. The romance factor was diminished in this movie, but there were still those painfully awkward scenes where Anakin and Padme are forced to say how much they love each other and it all comes out tasting of ham and wood!

And it wasn’t just the romance, it was every dramatic line in the movie. Padme’s line about “how liberty ends” was one. Mace Windu’s angry declaration, “The oppression of the Sith must not be allowed to return!” was another. Why didn’t anyone ever tell Lucas, “this is NOT how people talk!” Where is Harrison Ford when you need him? And of course, the way he kept showing characters from the first as if it were necessary to cram them all in. This time it was Chewbacca, Leia, Luke, and bit more of Bail Organa, which pretty much completes the original cast. In fact, the only person he didn’t preview was Han Solo! Wonder why…

And of course there was more of the same on the recycling front. Here too, the examples were many and close together. At the beginning, we’re meant to remember Jedi where we see Palpatine in that chair in front of that window. The battle at the end was meant to call to mind the final duel between Luke and Vader. The attack on the Wookie compound on Kashyyk also seemed like a not-too-subtle attempt to resurrect the Battle of Endor (which originally called for Wookies). And the scene at the end where they are all stowed aboard a Corellian blockade runner is supposed to remind us of the first movie when Leia’s ship (same make and model) was boarded.

But none of that compared to the fact that the majority of the war, the most important aspect of the prequel movies, all happens off screen. It begins at the tail end of the movie II, then ends at the beginning of movie III, with the vast bulk of events taking place between them. Like most fanboys, I went to theaters back in 1999 expecting the prequels to be ABOUT this, but instead the war served as a backdrop to the duty of showing how Anakin fell and all the rest.

In fact, beyond a few action shots and some talk of it, the war seems to have no real consequences whatsoever to the Republic. No shortages, no recruitment drives, no resistance to the war. Even Coruscant itself seems completely unmarred by the fact that it was attacked in the beginning. A few scenes after an invasion, people are going to the opera and acting like nothing’s happened. There’s not even a single indication of damage done to the city.

Okay, plot holes time! I’ve chosen to list them in sequential order to save time and prevent overlap. Here goes!

  1. Opening Battle: Much like in Clones, the fight between Anakin, Obi-Wan and Dooku suffered from an obvious contrivance. Once again, Obi-Wan had to go down and stay down so Anakin and Dooku could fight one on one. But this time around, there was the added necessity of making sure he unconscious while Anakin executed Dooku. Which brings me to point 2!
  2. Murder? No Biggie: Once more, Anakin has committed a severe violation of the Jedi Code and basic morality by killing a man in cold blood, and no one seems to notice or care. Palpatine tells him to do it, he issues mild protests, but then does so without much regret. What little guilt he expresses is assuaged when Palpatine brings up how he’s done it before. That seemed appropriate, since there were no consequences then either.
  3. The Jedi Council, Assholes!: In the first movie, the Jedi Council tell Anakin that he has to severe all ties with his mother in order to be one of them. Why? Because his fear of losing her is bad and a path to evil. Okay, seems pretty callous, but I guess they needed something to hint at his descent into evil. Now, in movie three, Anakin is told by Yoda that his fear of losing Padme is wrong. Basically, he tells her that these fears are selfish and he should be happy this person, whoever they are, is going to die. He uses better sounding words, but the reasoning is basically the same. What kind of gurus are these? Why do they insist on being so harsh in their rules? It’s like their begging people to rebel against them by making their code impossible to follow. No love, no attachment, no sadness over loss. If anything, it’s their fault Anakin turned bad. They made him leave his mother behind, she dies and he goes on a rampage. His wife is near death, once again they tell him to let her go, and he goes on rampage to save her. There’s a lesson here I’m thinking…
  4. The Jedi Council, Idiots!: It is astounding how many stupid calls the Jedi Council make by this time in the series. First up, they’ve been saying for all three now that there’s something not quite right, some dark force, some hidden danger, but they never act on it. In this movie, they finally seem to be catching on. Mace Windu says he senses the Dark Side around Palpatine, Yoda expresses doubt about the so-called prophecy, and Mace and Yoda both fear putting Anakin in his presence. And yet, they do! Not only that, they continually fail to act to stop Palpatine even thought it’s obvious that he’s at the center of all things. Really, where is the mystery? Granted, Lucas tried to explain this away by saying the Jedi’s were being blinded by the Dark Side. But you don’t need ESP to see what’s going on here! The simple question, que bono, would have solved their entire dilemma. Who’s been benefiting from the all crises, again and again? Palpatine! And if you can sense dark energy coming from him, I’d say mystery solved!
  5. Anakin’s Descent: Now to be fair, Anakin had already turned to the Dark Side long before this movie. The moment he murdered women and children, he was bad. That wasn’t no preview of how it happened, that was it happening! But still, the way he chooses evil in this movie seems just so stupid. He saved Palpatine, that I get. But immediately after, Palpatine tells him he doesn’t know how to save Padme. That should have been the end of it. Anakin should have gone into a rage and killed him for lying through his teeth. Instead, he agrees to join him based on the promise of helping him, and that’s enough to convince him to murder children. On top of that, did he also not realize after Palpatine said go to Mustafar and kill all the Separatists that Palpatine was the one leading them? He had ample clues, like how did he know they were there? Why were they expecting him when he arrived? Why did they keep pleading that they were all friends? Did he not know, or did he not care?
  6. “No, not Anakin!”: I’ve harped on about how Anakin killed kids and no one, particularly Padme seemed to care. But what really makes no sense was how Padme reacts when Obi-Wan tells her he’s murdered the “younglings”. “No, not Anakin! He couldn’t!” Whaaaaat? You know he could, because he told you he’s done it before! The real answer should have been “Oh, no! Not again!”.
  7. Constant Separations: Why was it necessary to send Obi-Wan alone to get Grievous? On the one hand, they said they wanted an experienced Jedi to go deal with him. Okay, but why does he have to go alone? They say it’s also because it might just be a wild goose chase. Still not making sense. If Anakin’s the one who’s constantly saving Obi-Wan’s bacon, then it only makes sense to keep them together. No, the real reason is so they can be apart while Anakin does all that evil shit. Second, Yoda and Obi-Wan break up to deal with Palpatine and Anakin seperately. Again… why? Why not kill Palpatine first since he’s on Coruscant, then fly to Mustafar to deal with Anakin together. In every other movie, even at the beginning of this one, they always worked in pairs. Now they suddenly they are deliberately isolating themselves to have one-on-one showdowns. Again, the only reason is plot necessity, making sure that Yoda fails while Obi-Wan has his big fight with Anakin.
  8. The Senate, Morons!: As if the Jedi’s missing the obviousness of Palpatine’s rise to power wasn’t enough, there’s the added idiocy of the Senate. For years, these guys, have been surrendering more and more power willingly to Palpatine. And then when he announces that the Jedi attacked him, they buy it. Really? They believed that the Jedi, the servants of peace and justice for 1000 generations, are trying to take power? Not the hideously scarred man who took power in the name of security, wiped out the Jedi, and is now declaring the government a military dictatorship? They don’t see this as the slightest bit suspicious? What’s more, the entire reason they gave Palpatine “Emergency Powers” was because of the war. Now that it’s over and all the threats eliminated, he claims that arrangements is to be made permanent. And how does the Senate respond? According to Padme, “with thunderous applause”! How stupid are these people?
  9. “Noooooo!”: Another perfect opportunity for Anakin to turn on Palpatine would have been when he told him Padme was dead. Saving her was the whole reason he turned to the Dark Side, betrayed the Jedi, killed the “younglings”, and murdered the Separatists leaders. Now he’s told she isn’t even alive, and what does he do? Cries and still agrees to be the Emperor’s lap dog. Again, I would have been like “Well then f*** you, pal! I got no reason to follow you, so I’m taking it all!” He already said how he could defeat Palpatine and run things with Padme. Why not do it now and run the whole thing himself? What kind of Sith is he, turning down obvious opportunities for personal power?
  10. Contradictions: As a last point, I’d like to highlight how there were even contradictions here between this last movie and the originals. Didn’t Leia say that she knew her mother, and that she died when she was very young? That she was beautiful, kind, but… sad? She sure did, and this hinted at the fact that her mother was lamenting the loss of her husband, Anakin. So Padme dying in child birth kind of contradicts that. And it was just plain silly! Are we to believe that in this day and age, women die in child birth because they’ve got broken hearts? Even if she were feeling dejected and in the mood to give up, they got defibrillators and adrenaline, don’t they? They can restart a heart! And why was it necessary to have the Death Star being built at the end? Was it so important to preview it as well? As I recall, the first one was built to combat the threat of the Rebellion. Since that’s a good twenty years away at this point, the Empire has no justification to build it yet. And the second one only take a few years to build and it was bigger and badder than the first. Why then would it take them twenty years to build the first one?

Wow, that’s a lot of complaints. But like I said, time has a way of making these things more apparent. And listening to geeks way bigger than myself grip about the prequels flaws has kind of helped. And in truth, I didn’t mind this movie too much. It was just that by this point, the flaws of all the others seemed to snowball into one. So it really didn’t matter that this one was “the best of the three” because in the end, the whole production suffered from the same immutable flaws.

One thing I remember Lucas saying before the movie premiered was that he had to force himself to sit down and bang out this script. Not a good admission to make, but that seemed true of the first and second as well. It seemed like, beginning in the mid nineties, he sat down with the intent of writing a prequel, and focused entirely on how he was going to bring it to life through visuals and special effects. The plot was only important in so far as it explained everything from the original movies.

And with no one willing to question Lucas and help him with his writing, the plots for all three movies felt like they were first drafts that didn’t make much sense and were really just forced explanations and connections. Sure they explained where everyone came from. Sure, the fight scenes and CGI were pretty damn cool. But there was no tension, no suspense. We knew where everything was going since we already saw the originals. So any attempt at recapturing the feel of the originals was lost.

Really, what was the point of these movies? We all wanted them back so badly, but why couldn’t they have been about the Clone Wars and the stuff we didn’t know about? The best prequels are the ones that explore the things you don’t know, not the things you’ve already been told but haven’t yet seen. And that was where these movies were the weakest. It’s easy to criticize, I know. Especially with the benefit of hindsight. But even I could think of better plot lines and outcomes when I was watching the movies for the first time!

Well, that about does it for these movies. My apologies for not being more positive, but that’s the effect these movies tend to have. As the documentary The People Versus George Lucas contended, it’s only because people loved the original Star Wars so much that they expressed such disappointment and feelings of betrayal over these ones. I can think of one other franchise that has this sort of polarizing effect on people, except for maybe Dune!

Personally, I would be wishing Lucas well, were it not for the fact that he seems to have learned nothing from this experience. After the third and final movie was released, he completely took over the Clone Wars animated series which he didn’t seem to care about until he realized it was profitable. Then, he decided to re-release all six movies in 3D. Once again, he seems to be re-releasing his movies for no other reason than because he wants to take advantage of the latest technology. That makes three releases for the origins and two for the prequels.

On top of that, he has stalwartly refused for years to release the original movies on DVD. This was in response to fans saying they would like them available alongside the Gold Editions that feature all the added CGI and new ending where Hayden Christensen’s ghost shows up at the end. Lucasarts claimed that it was because they no longer existed, but he also went on the offensive saying it was his movie so he had the right to choose which version history would remember and which would be forgotten.

This, more than anything, would seem to indicate that Lucas has surrendered to the lure of the Dark Side of the industry, where money and power rule. All this from the man who used to resent studio control and industry greed. How bitterly ironic! Sad that he can’t see it, but what can you do? Well, some fans are taking it upon themselves to make their own versions. Topher Grace is one. As already noted, his movie, Star Wars 3.5, is slated for release one of these days. All he needs is for Lucas to give him the green light. It could happen…

Attack of the Clones. Here we go again…

Hello again! Here we are picking things up again with the Star Wars saga. Today, it’s the second installment in the prequel series, the ridiculously named Attack of the Clones. As I’m sure we all remember, Clones was the stuff of mixed reviews, some critics hailing its special effects and visual style, while others emphasized its flat dialogue and wooden romance.

But even more interesting was the fact that critics were torn over whether it was better or worse than the Phantom Menace. Not a good sign, and the butt of a LOT of jokes and debate. Hard to imagine that fanboys who were united in bashing the PM would find themselves fighting each other over which they thought sucked more!

But to be fair, there were some good points in this movie. So without further preamble, let’s get into it:

Plot Synopsis:
The movie opens with the crawl once again saying that there is a crisis. This time around, it’s the threat of Separatists – led by former Jedi Count Dooku – that’s making things problematic. And once again there is deadlock in the Senate over it. In any case, now-Senator Amidala comes to Coruscant to speak her peace on behalf of those who oppose taking strong measures, and an assassination plot gets underway.

This prompts the Jedi order to send two old friends, Obi-Wan and Anakin, to provide her with added protection. Their introduction is rather painful to behold, as the hormonally raging Anakin begins relating how he hasn’t stopped dreaming of her and tries to make awkward conversation with her. He also picks a fight with his mentor, Obi-Wan, over what their mandate truly is. In the midst of all this, Jar Jar breaks the fourth wall by looking into the camera and smiling at the audience – a sort of, “I’m still here, bitches” for all the fanboys to see!

In another bit of “things to come”, we also learn that Anakin has been having dreams of another woman – his mother. He dreams that something terrible is going to happen, but in the meantime, they must focus on Padme, who’s assassin is still out there. For some reason, they decide to “use her as bait”, which consists of letting her sleep in a window-filled room with nothing but R2 as protection. Didn’t Obi-Wan say they weren’t supposed to be investigating, just protecting? Oh well…

In any case, her would-be assassin sends a probe with some poisonous slugs to attack her. Obi-Wan and Anakin kill said slugs, and Obi-Wan jumps through the window to grab the probe and ride it. Wait, didn’t he say they weren’t supposed to be investigating? Why’s he so determined to follow this probe then? Anakin grabs a speeder, they fly like mad, and chase the attacker through the city. Anakin reveals that this woman is a shape-shifter, a fact which seems superfluous, but whatever. They also performs some stunts that defy the laws of physics, but that’s also unimportant.

After reaching a bar, Obi-Wan and Anakin chase her inside and begin combing the crowd. After a quick re-enactment of the scene from A New Hope (where Obi-Wan sliced off another thugs hand), they drag the shape-shifter outside and learn she’s subcontracting. But of course, her contractor kills her before she can say her name. Obi-Wan, who for some reason was willing to chase the shapeshifter across the planet, just lets him go…

The Jedi Council decides its time to send Padme home, and that Anakin is to go with her. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is to track down the assassin by himself, a quest which takes him to the world of Kamino. This decision to split them, far from making logical sense, seems more like an excuse to get Anakin and Padme alone. Why send a Padawan off on his own, especially when his master has such misgivings about his attitude and powers?

But anyhoo, things get kind of cool when Obi-Wan arrives on Kamino and learns that former Master Sifo Dyas ordered the creation of a clone army. This, combined with the fact that the location of the planet was removed from the Republic archives memory would seem to indicate that there is a conspiracy afoot. Obi-Wan then meets with the clone template, a bounty hunter named Jango Fett, and is convinced he’s found Padme’s would-be assassin. They fight, Jango escapes, and Obi-Wan pursues him to Geonosis.

Meanwhile, we get a string of scenes that are meant to elicit a romantic response. After following Padme around, complaining bitterly about Obi-Wan and professing his love in a series of ever creepier and wooden dialogue, Padme tells Anakin there’s no way. Why? She’s a Senator… Uh, what? Are Senators not allowed to date? Of course, Anakin can’t because he’s a Jedi, but the very fact that they’re talking about this would seem to indicate the feeling is now mutual. Seems sudden, but neither here nor there…

Arriving at Geonosis, where there’s a massive a droid-building colony, Obi-Wan gets into it with Jango and the Slave I. After thinking he’s killed him (Obi-Wan eludes death by copying Han’s hiding move from Empire), Jango proceeds to planet and Obi-Wan follows shortly behind. After wintessing a meeting between Dooku and the Separatists in which they plan their attack (using their droid and clone armies), Obi-Wan broadcasts his position and is then captured. He meets Dooku, who proceeds to tell him the truth, after a fashion…

He tells Obi-Wan there is a Sith in charge of the Senate, and that his plans are motivated to bring him down. He asks for Obi-Wan’s help, who in a move taken from Empire and Jedi, tells him he “will never join you”. Back on Naboo, Anakin continues to have bad dreams about his mom and decides he must go to Tatooine. He retraces her path, only to discover that she was taken in by some people from the movie – the Lars family, which includes the future Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.

He learns she was taken by Sandpeople, and catches up with them just in time to watch his mother die, at which point, he and loses it! And I mean REALLY LOSES IT! In a scene we don’t get to see, Anakin takes out his lightsaber and kills the entire community of Sandpeople who kidnapped and tortured his mom, including the women and children. He returns to the Lars family dwelling and tells Padme of his mass murder, to which she replies that it’s no big deal.

I’m sorry, NO BIG DEAL?! Are you freaking kidding me? Seriously, this man just confessed to murdering women and children and all Padme can say is that “to be angry is to be human”? What kind of sociopathic, enabling bullshit is that? Is she so into bad boys that she’s willing to overlook this first-time offense? Or are they in such a hurry to get to the next scene that she’s just got to forgive and move on? And why the hell didn’t the Jedi Order even mention this on his return? We all saw Yoda sensing it? C’mon people!

Alright, moving on… Back on Coruscant, the news of a Separatist army explodes like a bombshell, with Palpatine once again exploiting it for personal gain. Thinking he’s doing the smart and noble thing, Jar Jar moves that Palpatine get emergency powers – a la Octavian – and his first act is to create an army for the Republic. Why they don’t have one already is beyond me, but who cares? Point is, Palpatine has got his way, and Yoda and Mace Windu decide its time to get involved.

Anakin and Padme also get the distress signal from Obi-Wan and decide they will go save him. They arrive on Geonosis too and after a needless scene where they are almost killed in a robot factory, they too are captured. A scene ripped off from Gladiator follows, as they are reunited in a massive Colosseum-type arena to die in a public display. They escape and begin to wreak havoc, and are rescued just in time by the arrival of Mace and the Jedi Order. They fight to a standstill and are surrounded, when Yoda arrives with the Clone army and begins kicking some ass.

A big fight scene ensues on the open plains of Geonosis between droids and Clones, while Obi-Wan and Anakin chase Dooku down. He beats them both in a rather implausible scenario, first managing to cripple Obi-Wan without actually killing him or severing any of his limbs, and then cutting off Anakin’s arm (an obvious preview of the scene from Jedi). Yoda once again shows up to save the day, and in another scene from Jedi, Dooku does his lightning trick.

The fight ends with a stalemate, Dooku runs with Padme shooting at his ship. Once more, a scene from the originals is at work here, this time from Empire when Leia was shooting at the Slave I. But Dooku escapes, makes it back to Coruscant and tells Sideous (Palpatine) that the war is happening, as anticipated. He meanwhile sends the first batch of clones on their new Star Destroyer look-alikes, and Yoda laments that the Dark Side has fallen and “The Clones Wars” have begun.

The movie ends with Padme and Anakin back on Naboo, where they’ve decided to get married after all. But since it’s a secret wedding, the droids are the only parties in attendance. THE END!

What didn’t work:
Well, where to begin? I shan’t dwell on the wooden dialogue or the horrid lack of romantic tension, since those are the popular whipping posts of most critics when it comes to this movie. Instead, I’d like to stick to some of the more obvious weaknesses, those that become more clear with hindsight.

  1. The Set-Up: Things get rolling when we learn that an assassin is trying to kill Padme, presumably because she’s the voice of moderation between the Republic and the Separatists. However, things get really implausible, really fast. For one, why the hell did Jango Fett subcontract anyway. Why not simply kill her himself? And why did this lady use poisonous bugs when a simple bomb would have killed Padme instantly? We saw how easily that probe flew to her window, so why the slow, stupid and easily thwarted approach? Then came how Jango’s involvement led Obi-Wan on his wild goose chase. The only reason he knew to find him on Kamino was because he used a dart which was manufactured there. The only reason he know to fly to Geonosis was because Jango mentioned it to him. And why was Jango pulling double duty with the whole assassination thing anyway? If the Kaminos are such good cloners, anybody’s DNA would do and they could just enhance it. Having him do that and eliminate Padme was just a way to tie the two plots together really and make sure Obi-Wan could find out all that was going on.
  2. Love-Story Contrivances: I know, I said I wouldn’t mock the terrible dialogue, which I won’t. To me, the real weakness here was just how contrived and unnatural the whole love story seemed. Aside from a brief, age-inappropriate meeting ten years before, Anakin and Padme are practically strangers. Having Anakin say that he’s loved her ever since they met was completely forced. On top of that, the way they are sent to Naboo together and all the scenes of them doing lovers things: boating, playing in open fields, eating and retiring to the hearth – are all obvious attempts to try and force a sense of romance. That’s the key word here: force (no pun intended). Between Anakin constantly announcing his feeling for her and all the idyllic scenery they take in, it’s like Lucas was behind us constantly saying “Look, they’re in love!” In the original movie, Lucas took his time to build up the romance between Han and Leia. In the beginning, they couldn’t stand each other, but this concealed some genuine tension. In time, this flourished as they got to know each other and began to start acknowledging each others strengths. In the end, it was clear that their different backgrounds and personalities is what led to their attraction. Throw in some genuine crisis, and they realized they were in love. See? That’s a love story, not this!
  3. Unsubtle Dialogue: Again, said I would avoid talking about the wooden dialogue. Which I am, sort of! My gripe here is just how unsubtle and (again) forced it all was, which is something the critics really didn’t get into. Examples: in the beginning, Anakin announces that he loves Padme when talking with Obi-Wan and Jar Jar. When talking to Padme, Anakin announces that Obi-Wan is an unfair master who’s too hard on him. When sitting around the fire, Anakin announces how much he loves her. Finally, she announces her feelings back. And in this, they are hardly alone. All throughout the movie, actors announce what’s going on as a means to convey what’s happening and to make the audience feel the requisite emotions. Never is time taken to convey feelings, mood, or establish tension the old fashioned way. And this just makes for a bad movie! As Robot Satan said in Futurama: “You can’t have characters just announce their feelings! That makes me SO ANGRY!”
  4. Way Too Much: In the documentary of the making of Phantom Menace, there is a lovely scene where Lucas and his people are watching the screening and there’s this moment of “uh-oh” at the end. They then discuss how Lucas did too much and how that brought down the ending. You’d think between movie one and two, he would have learned from this, but no! In this movie, he tried to do way more. On top of showing how romance developed between Padme and Anakin, he’s also shoved in a big ol’ preview of Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side, how the Clones Wars started, and Palpatine’s evil rise to power. A lot of critics jumped on this, saying that the movie was too long and suffered from a sense of duty. And in that, they were profoundly right! Duty is another key word when describing this movie. Having spent movie one showing where Anakin came from, they now had to preview his fall, where the twins came from, and how the Clone Wars started all at once. And it made for a sloppy feel, with too much happening and things bouncing around from one thing to the next without any of it getting enough development.
  5. Recycling: But alas, all of these faults could have been mediated had it not been for the fact that there really didn’t seem anything new about these movies. All throughout, there is material which seems to serve no purpose than to satisfy origin stories or recapture elements of the first three movies. In Clones, Boba Fett, Luke’s surrogate parents, the Death Star and Vader’s robotic arm are all previewed, and that’s on top of the Clone Wars and the romance plot. Once more it’s like Lucas is behind us saying “Look! That’s how it happened!” But like everything else, it just feels forced. Why not let new characters have their time in the spotlight? Why is it necessary to use every character from the first three movies? And another thing, this movie, more than in the first, uses scenes from the originals like never before. I mean, its one thing to rip off other movies, like the arena scene from Gladiator, but Lucas was even ripping off himself! The scene in the bar where Obi-Wan cuts off the hunters arm, the scene where Obi-Wan hides his ship on the back of an asteroid, the scene where he tells Dooku he won’t turn, the scene with the lighting bolts, the scene at the end where Padma is shooting at Dooku’s ship. All of these are clearly meant to recapture the feeling of the original Star Wars, but they fell short for the simple reason that audiences wasn’t nearly as emotionally involved. There’s paying homage to an original, and then there’s recycling, and this was the latter!
  6. Lazy Shooting: Something else which became apparent by this movie was the lazy way in which it was shot. After Phantom, It was already obvious that Lucas loved to cram as much CGI into every frame as possible. Hell, that much was obvious with the Star Wars Gold Editions! But if you watch the movies again, pay close attention to how EVERY SINGLE scene is shot. In these, you have the actors either walking slowly across the stage or sitting down. Always. Two cameras capture all of their dialogue and exchanges, Camera one, camera two. Always. If they are walking and talking, they will always stop, turn, and go back and forth between camera one and two. Meanwhile, all visual effects and background are provided by a green screen and all CGI characters are represented by colored lights. There are virtually no props, no stand ins, and a minimum of real actors. This, I have learned, reflects Lucas’ preferred way of directing. He sits in his chair at the edge of the green screen and drinks his coffee while the actors interact with each other or lights which tell them where to look. They walk through, stop, turn, or stay seated, do their lines, and his two cameras capture everything. Action shots are handled in much the same way, with only the occasional close-up or distance shot. Unless of course the entire sequence is animated by CGI, which they usually are!
  7. Strengths? Not so much: The strong points about this movie, the ones that critics hailed, mainly had to do with vision and special effects. But here’s the thing: Lucas’ vision in this movie consisted of CGI environments that all seemed to be taken from other movies or real locations. That doesn’t seem very bold or original. And what’s more, even the special effects weren’t so innovative. Clones was launched during the summer of 2002, right about the time that Spider Man, Minority Report and Men in Black 2 were released, all of which made impressive use of CGI. So really, what was so stunning and unique about this movie’s visual effects? And if action was something else about this movie that people liked, consider that it came out at the same time as The Bourne Identity and XXX as well.  So really, this movie was not a stand-out, smash-hit, summer blockbuster. If anything, it was one hit in a summer full of them.

Well, that about covers the weaknesses of this movie. I did my best to avoid the cliched, beaten-to-death talking points, and yet I still feel I hit on them quite a bit. And I really went long there too didn’t I? And yet, I haven’t even mentioned what bothered me personally about this movie. But to do so means ditching all the civilized critique stuff and going all the way back to summer of 2000.

In was back then, between the first two movies movies, that Lucas seemed to be pulling an about face. A year after the Phantom Menace debuted, reassuring rumors began to circulate that Lucas claimed its sequel would be more dark, more realistic and more gritty, kind of like the way Empire was to the first movie. However, these hopes were shot when Lucas announced that the second movie would be a romance story at that Jar Jar would remain in the picture.

When asked about the fans hopes for something more adult and dark, he casually dismissed these and other criticisms by saying that Star Wars had always been a “Saturday morning serial for kids”. This above all else seemed to annoy me, and countless other fans, since it now seemed apparent that Lucas really didn’t care what his age old fans and was going to continue to do the things that was making the new movies incompatible with the old.

However, after movie two he seemed to sit up and take notice of just how annoyed the fans and critics were getting. With one movie left in the franchise, he seemed determined to give these objections some due before the sun set on the prequel trilogy. Of that, more next time. Stay tuned!

 

Star Wars, Episode II: Send in the Clowns!

Yeah, that’s not the most original parody of this movie’s title, but it sums up my feelings pretty well. In my last review, I addressed the first movie in the Star Wars prequel lineup, the absurdly named The Phantom Menace. In sum, it was a movie with some signs of quality, but which suffered from a technocratic plot and a whole lot of childish content. Overall, sort of a C+. Okay, not great! In addition, I tried to tackle the two big questions that are constantly asked about the Star Wars franchise. Number one: why were the originals so enduring and influential in their time? And two: what the hell happened with the prequels? The originals were enduring classics that combined gun slinging, swashbuckling adventure with space opera and mythology. The prequels… well, they were entertaining in places. Annoying, insulting, generally inexplicable, but still entertaining.

And now, onto the second movie in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the even more absurdly named Attack of the Clones! As you can tell from the title of this posting, I did NOT like this movie; and in that, I am hardly alone. According to critics and fans alike, it was even worse than the first – a complete 180 of what happened with the first trilogy where the sequel outstripped the original. And the reasons were obvious: For the most part, Phantom Menace was an critical flop because it was simultaneously kiddy, technocratic and suffered from an obvious sense of duty. The second movie suffered from the same ailment, but added some new elements that brought it down even further. But I could not hope to address them all in one paragraph so let me break it down succinctly. As C3P0 would say (in the originals!) “Here we go again…”

Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones
As I’m sure I mentioned in the previous post, Lucas spoke of what this movie would be about long before it aired… to the disappointment of fans everywhere. Whereas most of us were hoping that the second movie would depart from the childish tone struck by the first, Lucas dashed all that by saying it would be a love story and aimed squarely at kids. And of course, it would explain how the “Clone Wars” happened. On top of that, he had to give the audience some preview of Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side. A tall order, to be sure, but Lucas managed to mangle it pretty good! Here’s what went wrong:

Forced Chemistry: Lucas is known for writing dialogue that nobody can say, but in this movie, he really outdid himself! Those “romantic” scenes between Christensen and Portman, they’re PAINFUL! Not only does nobody speak like that, Portman and Christensen manage to go through these scenes without exhibiting the slightest trace of romantic chemistry! In fact, we’re given every indication to suggest that what’s really going on is a case of creepy stalker syndrome! Remember that back and forth from early on in the movie, “Please don’t look at me like that,” says Portman. “Why not?” asks Christensen. “It makes me uncomfortable.” Sound like love? Nope! As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s the part where Anakin says he’s been dreaming about her for ten years straight, and that just being around her again is “intoxicating”. Ick! Can you say “obsessive”? And last, there’s the part where she totally disses him in front of people on Naboo. “Anakin is just a padawan,” she says. He objects to this sluff off, but she totally puts him in his place. Clear enough? She don’t like ya, kid. Move on or face a restraining order! And yet, we’re supposed to believe these two somehow fall in love a few scenes later? The only reason we’re supposed to believe it is because we already know it happens! Otherwise, it is wholly unbelievable and totally cringe-worthy!

Forced Rivalry: Oh, and let’s not forget the totally forced animosity that exists between Anakin and Obi Wan. It’s obvious from the way Anakin back-talks him and complains about him behind his back that he’s got some animosity for the man. It’s already predictable due to the fact that we know in advance that Anakin will turn bad and betray him, but it doesn’t help that the dialogue and the delivery feel totally fake and wooden. And lets not forget how insistent Lucas was with the whole odd couple dynamic! In fact, the back and forth between Anakin and Obi Wan and their complaints about each other are so overdone that Obi Wan just comes off as a nagging shrew and Anakin as a total bitch! Yes, we know what’s going to happen and its necessary to preview how, but Jesus-Allah-Buddah, a little subtlety please!

Infodumping: Which brings me to my next point. Lucas, you can’t have your characters just announce their feelings! It’s unsubtle, insulting to the audience, and drives home the whole dutiful nature of these awful movies even more! From the very outset, we learn that Anakin is in love with Padme/Amidala. Why? Because he says so. We learn shortly thereafter that Anakin resents Obi Wan. Why? Because he says so. We learn that Anakin is arrogant on a count of his abilities? Why? Obi Wan says so! On and on this goes throughout the movie. Lucas seems to think that the best way to establish something is to have his characters announce it openly, as opposed to say establishing it slowly through bits of dialogue and acting! And of course, its all because he feels obliged to cover his bases and explain how everything happened. This is why I hate prequels, you know.

Hayden Christensen: To be fair, the boy was up against it dealing with Lucas’ awful script writing, but that didn’t prevent him from being the most whiny, annoying bitch I’ve ever seen on camera. Seriously, even Shia LaBeouf was less annoying by comparison, and that was with Michael Bay writing his lines! And this is the guy who’s supposed to turn into Darth Vader? I would think that a war hero who got tempted by evil and became the universe’s most notorious bad-ass would be… oh, I don’t know, like Gary Cooper. The strong silent type! Not some whiny little kid who does nothing but lament about unrequited love and bitch about how he’s not being treated like an adult by his master. Exposition ruined what should have been the perfect character!

Jump-around Plot: Ostensibly, this movie was supposed to be about the Clone Wars. But on top of that, Anakin and Padme are supposed to fall in love, and then there’s the added duty of previewing Anakin’s fall to the dark side. As a result, we get a whole first hour in which the main characters are just running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Anakin brings Padme to Naboo to protect her (her home planet? Really? An assassin wouldn’t think to look for her there?), and the scenery works its magic and they fall in love. But then, Anakin has to rush off to Tatooine, totally unrelated to the plot, to find his mother. Once there, he finds out she’s been taken by sand people and she dies as soon as he finds her. Anakin responds by wiping out the whole village of sand-people, and somehow, nobody seems to care. That little act of genocide is forgotten as they have to rush back into the fray to rescue Obi Wan because he’s been taken prisoner. The only one who appears to be sticking to the plan is Obi Wan, who was busy at work the whole time investigating the clone plot. On its own, that part wasn’t bad, but its so diluted by the other crap that you almost don’t notice it. In fact, were it not for all the other crap, we might have actually gotten into the war!

Genocide? No biggie!: Speaking of the massacre Anakin committed, I’m sure everyone noticed how little the other characters seemed to care about that. Yoda senses the massacre through the Force, but it never comes up again. Even worse, Padme seems totally unphased when he tells her that he slaughtered women and children. She even goes as far as to say “To be angry is to be human.” WHAAAAAT? The boy wipes out an entire village of people, women and children included, and the best you can say is “no biggie?” What kind of person are you?! Equally odd, when Anakin returns to the Jedi, no one so much as mentions it. Yoda knew something was up, but its like he either forgot or stopped caring. Little wonder why this kid turned evil, he’s got no boundaries!

More Re-Used Characters: Like I said about the first movie, Lucas seemed to think that he had to introduce ALL the characters from the first movie, even if he was hard-pressed to do so. In this movie, we get the back-story of Boba Fett, who as it turns out, is a clone! Yes, the bad-ass bounty hunter extraordinaire from the first trilogy is actually the clone of a bounty hunter named JANGO Fett. That seemed kinda forced, but the introduction of Owen and Beru, who are apparently Anakin’s step-brother and step-sister-in-law? That was just plain stupid! Did he expect the audience to go “ah-hah!” every time he did that? Honestly, I think people just rolled their eyes and sighed whenever it happened.

Final Fight Scene: One thing that always seems to redeem Lucas’ movies is the action scenes. That awesome fight scene from the first one was enough to justify admission, but this time around, Lucas screwed the pooch on that one too! The big scene at the end, which apparently was inspired by Roman-style executions in the Coliseum, was not too bad, but it was long and drawn out. And holy hell, the fight scene that ensues between Dooku, Anakin, Obi Wan, and then Yoda? It was totally unrealistic, and punctuated by some of the worst dialogue ever! First, he takes down Anakin by hurling him into a wall just so he can fight Obi Wan one on one. Then he manages to defeat Obi Wan without inflicting any real harm, mainly so he and Anakin can go at it mono a mono. After he takes off Anakin’s arm, fulfilling yet another plot element, him and Yoda go at it. “I can see we are not going to resolve this with our knowledge of the force, but our skills with a lightsaber.” Do I even need to say it? Nobody talks like that! Yeah, the fight scene is entertaining, sure, but otherwise nothing but theatrics and zero substance!

Clueless Jedi: In the first movie, the Jedi seemed just a little slow on the uptake. I mean I know I have the benefit of knowing exactly who the bad guy is, but between the first and second movie, a full ten years have passed! You’d think they’d have done some digging and learned a thing or two about who Darth Maul was and who he might have been taking his orders from. And this time around, they’re even more clueless. And it seems almost necessary in order to explain how Palpatine could have seized power without the Jedi getting wise to him. I admit, that was a tough thing to tackle. But Yoda’s explanation, how the “dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is,” etc etc, falls pretty flat. Apparently, the Jedi’s have a diminished capacity to use the Force now, and rather than tell anyone, they keep it hush hush because Yoda doesn’t want their enemies getting any ideas. Pretty contrived explanations, man! A simple line of dialogue, like how Palpatine has mastered a technique that allows him to mask his presence in the Force, that might’ve worked. It might even make sense in the context of how, at times, Yoda and the others get suspicious of him. He can mask his dark Force energies from detection, but once in awhile, something slips through. Oy! I feel so geeky!

And that about covers this bad-boy. Overall, it was pretty bad, pretty rushed, pretty forced, and suffered from a sense of duty even more than the first. It was not enough that it had to explain major plot elements, it also had to forecast a number of developments that the audience knew would happen later on. And that was its downfall. When it comes to prequels, the potential for excitement comes in the form of developing things that have been hinted at, but for which the audience is seriously short on the details. In this case, the Clone Wars. Only once did it come up in the first trilogy, when Luke spoke to Obi Wan about what his father did. And several passing mentions were made in other areas of the franchise, including comics, novels and video games. But always, the details were in
short supply because the master (George) never left any notes.

So really, that’s what this movie needed to do but failed to deliver on. Explain the war, get into it, and sure, throw in some stuff cataloging Palpatine’s rise to power. That’s it! Instead, we get a whole lot of set-up designed to explain how the war is GOING to happen, an awful romance story, a rushed and forced prelude of Anakin’s fall, and a quick scene showing how Palpatine used the war crisis to become a tyrant. This last part felt like a technocratic holdover from the first movie – Parliamentary procedure leading to the emergence of dictatorship, yadda yadda. But the point is, we missed out on all the real action when that’s all the fans really wanted in the first place! In fact, the final scene where Clone Troopers are boarding their vessels and going off to war is the closest we get to seeing the war at all in this movie. Sure, the big battle on Geonosis kinda counted as part of the war, but it was really more of a prelude, not the actual thing! And with a name like “Attack of the Clones”, you’d think we’d see more, you know, attacking! Instead, the war is something that happened between movies, to be covered later by another producer (Genndy Tartakovsky) and then commandeered by Lucas when he realized it was profitable. But more on that later! Up next, the salvageable finale to the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith!

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Entertainment Value: 6/10
Plot: 2/10
Direction: 7/10
Total: 5/10

The Star Wars Prequels…

If only I get my hands on a big, rolling intro the way Lucas did! Man, would THAT come in handy here! Weren’t they just so great? I can remember watching them as a kid, pre-teen, post-teen, and young adult. Those inros and the music that preceded them, they always had a way of getting me into the mood for another Star Wars movie marathon. And weren’t they just the thing for a movie party? Yes, the Star Wars franchise was a masterpiece of pop-culture gold, something we who saw it when we were children could still enjoy years later. Hell, people of my parents generation found them equally appealing, both when they first hit theaters and years after their release. During the 80’s and early 90’s, there was scarcely anyone who wasn’t affected by the Star Wars phenomena. And today, those who haven’t seen the originals tend to get funny looks when they make that admission. I myself have been known to say “Didn’t you grow up in this country” whenever someone admitted it to me!

Sounds a little crass when I hear myself say it now, but you have to admit, I had a point! In fact, Star Wars has been so influential that pop culture experts, cultural historians and media gurus have been pouring over it for decades, trying to ascertain exactly why this ought to be. I mean think about it: a franchise that had a limited budget, an inexperienced director, weak writing/dialogue, newby actors and actresses (with the exception of Sir Alec Guinness), and production problems from day one somehow became a rip-roaring success at the box office and spawned two sequels that did even better. In fact, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was one of those rare sequels that was considered better than the first, right up there with the Godfather Part II, Mad Max, and T2.

Now why is that? Why is the Star Wars franchise so enduringly influential and popular? There is no single answer, but the general consensus seems to be that they were just good at capturing a certain Zeitgeist. In addition to its accessible theme of the hero’s journey and the idealist fighters battling against an evil empire, there was also the classical themes of The Fall, the Redemption, dynastic struggle between father and son, the ties that bind, the hero’s fate, and countless elements borrowed from other popular genres, such as gun-slinging spaghetti westerns and swashbuckling samurai movies. All this came together to create something that some thought was brilliant, others thought was a guilty pleasure. But that all could agree, it worked! People liked it and wanted more!

So it begs the question, how and where did things go wrong? I’ve say how and where at the expense of why because I feel that one is obvious: right around the summer of 1999, when Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was released. That’s pretty much when things went wrong! From then on, things got steadily worse, with an even-worse sequel and a salvageable third. Fans of the franchise were left sore and dumbfounded, having spent their money to see them, but generally feeling betrayed and confused. From a critical and a popular standpoint, the Star Wars prequels did not hold a candle to the originals, leaving many people to wonder what could have happened.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Naturally, when it was announced that prequels were coming out – movies that would cover the Clone Wars, show the origins of the Empire, and the fall of Anakin Skywalker/rise of Darth Vader – fans were excited. I know I was! Like most men my age, I had grown up on the franchise and lived in a world saturated by Star Wars toys, books, magazines, lunchboxes, figurines, and even novels. So it goes without saying that I wanted to see how Lucas would fill in the back-story. But like most fans, I left the movie theater a little daunted. It was only a few minutes in when I first came to realize who the target audience was, and like most people my age, I wasn’t too happy about it. Sure, the lightsaber fight scene and podrace were both worth the price of admission, but something needed to be done about the rest of it. There were just too many weaknesses that were glaringly obvious. Let me see if I can break them down succinctly:

Weak Plot: It’s a rare thing when a movie can be both technocratic and childish at the same time, but this movie pulled it off! First, we have a plot where the “greedy Trade Federation” is blockading a planet because they’re unhappy about taxes. And we get a big earful about how the Republic is deadlocked and ineffective due to the stumbling blocks of parliamentary procedure. Really? This is how the big, huge saga begins? I know were supposed to be getting a preview of how the Republic became a tyranny due to corruption and inefficiency, but it could have been done in a way that wasn’t so heavy-handed and dull. In fact, nothing about this plot seems realistic or even interesting. A great big civil war and slide into despotism began with taxes on trade routes??? Let’s not forget how the Trade Federation has all these ships and battle droids. When was the last time a Merchant Marine was ever allowed to do that, stockpile weapons and blockade planets? Who the hell is running the Republic that this sort of thing was allowed to take place? And if they really wanted to stir things up, why blockade some backwater place like Naboo (kiddy name if ever I heard one!)? Why not a hub, like Coruscant or Alderaan or something like that? Oh, and Palpatine, the evil Sith Master who will overthrow the Republic and become Emperor, he’s actually FROM there? I’d think a master of the dark side would be better suited coming from somewhere a little less remote, don’t you? I know, I know! Sarah Palin wasn’t exactly from a major hub either. But she’s aint President… yet (gulp!)

Racial Caricatures: Let’s not forget the borderline racist junk that made it into this movie. First, the “greedy” Trade Federation representatives, whom Qui Gon Jinn referred to as “cowards”, clearly a bunch of Japanese businessmen. Why is the Trade Federation run by this one race, for that matter? Aren’t they supposed to be like a guild or something? The fact that they all look and sound the same only deepens this racist impression. Then there’s Jar Jar, a creature so annoying he made most of us want to hurl a whiskey bottle at the screen! He has big flappy ears, is clumsy as hell, has a ridiculous accent and speaks pinyin. Put on a big fro and you got Buckwheat, racist without the folksy! Next, there’s Watto, who might as well be called Shylock for all the obviousness of his character. One, he’s greedy and cares only about money; two, he wears a yamaka-type headpiece; and three, he’s an obvious scam artist. So in essence, Lucas caricatured Black people, Asians and Jews in one fell swoop with this movie. I know he likes to draw parallels to the past, but Victorian-era bigotry is not something any smart man should want to associate with.

Virgin Birth: The original Star Wars movies made obvious use of Judea-Christian mythology, but this movie went above and beyond. Having Anakin be the result of an immaculate conception, where the Force (or midi-chlorians as they call them in this movie) willed him into being, was just plain pushing it! I mean, I know Anakin was supposed to be special, but this whole “Chosen One” thing was too much. The fact that there was a prophecy associated with his existence had potential, and I kind of liked where they went with it in later movies, but in this particular one, it made me want to gag.

Midi-Chlorians: Didn’t you just know I was going to bring them up next? Yes, as someone who grew up with The Force, I can tell you that one of its greatest selling points was its mystery. The way Obi Wan explained it to Luke, the Force sounded very much like an allegory for destiny, history, or the unfolding of a divine plan. No one quite understood it, no one knew with any certainty what course it would take. But in the end it seemed to unfold in such a way that balance was restored and those who tried to control it ended up being screwed. What better allegory is there for Karma, the Divine, or universal justice? You can’t get more mythological and Judea-Christian than that! And how and why some people are more sensitive to it than others was something that was also a mystery. So you can imagine how it might seem disappointing or dumb when Lucas decided to reduce it to microscopic bacteria that exist in your bloodstream! Why not just say there’s a F gene or something? With one stroke of the pen, we went from deep mythology to pulp sci-fi!

Re-use of Characters: Prequels are supposed to use many of the same characters, but that doesn’t mean that EVERY SINGLE ONE needs to be accounted for, or that they have to be part of the same plot. For starters, Anakin build C3PO? And R2D2 knew him as a kid? What they didn’t have other service droids in the past, you gotta re-use the same ones for over thirty years? And if so, why the hell didn’t this come up in the originals? Sure, Lucas did a last minute explanation for that in the third movie, but that didn’t change the fact that this was just weak. And it happened again and again in the second and third movie, as if Lucas was getting a bonus every time he managed to write a character from the original movies into the new ones. You know, the universe is a big place. People’s paths may cross, but not all the freaking time!

Forget your mom, kid: One of the things I heard people complain about a lot with this movie was the way Anakin was being pressured to cut all ties to his mother. In essence, he’s pulled away from her, told that his fear of losing her is a bad thing, and how this could lead him to the dark side. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering…” as Yoda put it. So what then? He’s just supposed to turn his back on her and become an emotional ascetic? He’s freaking ten! And with lessons as pedantic and cold as this one, its no wonder the boy turned to the dark side! And really, one can draw a straight line like that through anything! Watch! “Fun leads to enjoyment. Enjoyment leads to fondness. Fondness leads to obsession. Obsession leads to destruction. Destruction leads to suffering…” Or how about discipline? Jedis love discipline. Watch me connect to it the dark side! “Discipline leads to perfection. Perfection leads to arrogance. Arrogance leads to foolishness. Foolishness leads to error. Error leads to anger…” and so on. See? Not hard! It’s like playing “Six degrees of Dark Side”. And the prequels are full of this kind of needlessly harsh reasoning, stuff you’d never expect to hear out of a Jedi. I mean, I know they’re supposed to be disciplined, but isn’t compassion also supposed to be their thing? More on that later…

The Kid: As if Jar Jar wasn’t annoying enough, we got to suffer through all the bad one-liners and atrocious acting of that kid who played Anakin. Another obvious ploy to court the kiddy vote, as was all the podracing and dog-fighting he did, stuff no ten year old would ever do! The former was bad enough, but did Lucas really have to include that horrid dogfight scene at the end where he basically saved the day through sheer luck? I already checked my brain at the door, but I still felt my intelligence being insulted with that scene! Speaking of which, where is that kid now? I don’t recall seeing him in anything after this movie came out. But given the sheer exploitation, odds are good he either turned to drugs or became a petty criminal in order to channel his outrage of being in such a film! Hell, if I were him I’d be suing the bastard for raping my youth!

Okay, so it was a bad movie. However, I remember being soothed by rumors that this first installment was just a first salvo that was meant to get the kids hooked and that the later movies would be aimed more at the adults. Lucas was even rumored to have reported that his second installment would be darker, and since the subject matter was supposed to be how the Clone Wars began, I figured it had to be true. Lord knew, we who were now adults, who had grown up enjoying Star Wars as kids, expecting something from the man. But I learned a lesson from all this, check your sources, and don’t expect nothing from men like Lucas! Sometimes, the fan community makes up stories and puts them in place of real fact. And Lucas, it seemed, had no intention from deviating from the course he set. In fact, he even went on the record as saying that Star Wars was always meant to be a “Saturday Morning serial for kids”. Translation: screw you grown-up fans! I don’t need you anymore!

And it was about that time that I discovered why Lucas was going down this road in the first place. Contrary to what some people had said, he had not gone crazy, or mad with power. In truth, Lucas was never a very good writer or director. The only difference now was that he seemed to think he had overcome these limitations. A few years into the release of the prequels, critics had formed a chorus that could be heard chanting the seminal words of Harrison Ford: “George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can’t say it!” These words, which were just a heartfelt complaint at the time, have come to be synonymous with everything Lucas did wrong. Apparently, when he was making the first Star Wars, he had a lot of trouble adapting his script to the screen. More than one cast member, aside from Ford, had asked themselves “Who talks like this?” when reading it. But, knowing his limits at the time, Lucas sought the help of others during the making A New Hope and had full-time writing and directorial assistance when making Empire and Return of the Jedi. But after years of success and adulation, Lucas appeared to think that he knew best and didn’t require any help from anyone anymore. In fact, it was rumored that he now did all his writing on the Skywalker Ranch, surrounded by sycophants and yes-men who told him what he wanted to hear and kept the negative reviews from his ears. It was not until the second installment got panned that he seemed to sit up and take notice. But more on that in my next installment…

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Entertainment Value: 7/10
Plot: 6/10
Direction: 7/10
Total: 6.5/10