All right, time for the long eluded second entry in the Hindsight Review series. This time taking us to ‘Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones.’
As noted before, part of the reason I decided to take a look back at the franchise was to see where exactly the magic was lost. Lately, the feeling among the fandom seems to suggest that the Disney takeover has been the worst thing to happen to the brand. Some, however, remember the horrors of Episode 1 and the introduction of Jar Jar. Both camps, however, are wrong. The point at which the galaxy began to burn was not with the the attempted comedy of The Phantom Menace, nor was it the irreverent treatment of the series by The Last Jedi. It was most certainly this movie, this film that manages to be an utter bore despite really excitedly declaring in its title that something will be attacking other things.
If the lead up to Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was fever pitched, the hype train for Episode 2 was unreal. At last, we would get a glimpse at the long whispered of Clone Wars, where the father of Luke Skywalker would be seen being all that sagely Obi Wan spoke of. At last, we were going to see the legendary Jedi Knights not just in personal duels, but at war. By all rights, this should have been the single most epic science fiction movie of its decade. What we ended up seeing was a film that couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to be a Bollywood romance flick, a light hearted detective story, or sci-fi adventure.
Bang!
Things start off with a bang at least. Literally; the first few seconds see another assassination attempt on Queen Amidala. Or, former Queen. Apparently she is no longer royalty, having abdicated the throne, though for whatever reason she is still wandering around the galaxy with body doubles. She’s also still important enough to be the target of shipboard bombs. (Shout out the polite assassins who waited for her to land and have some chance of escape instead of detonating her in hyperspace).
I appreciate the whole flashy begining, but this is also the start of what will be over an hour of very strange decision making on the part of our heroes. One does have to wonder why Que- ah, Senator Amidala- chooses to ride in a fighter craft as a means of deflecting attention, what that would presumably be the first thing anyone attacking would shoot at…
In any case, the action is short lived, as we next go back to the previous movies theme of watching people discuss things. None of it is especially inspiring or important, besides Obi Wan and Anakin being assigned to protect the queen – ah, damn it, SENATOR! – once again.
This is where things begin to get strange.
When we last saw Anakin, he was a wee lad who hadn’t even hit his teens yet. Aperrantly, this film is set quite a few years after The Phantom Menace, so when we next see Luke’s future daddy, he’s at that wonderful time in life where he thinks he’s awesome but clams up around the adults. Except for Padme herself, for whom he has developed creepy feelings after not having seen her for years. Seriously, he’s madly in love with a woman he met for all of a day and a half when he was too young to really grasp the whole dating concept. This is even stranger considering Padme herself does not seem to have aged all that much. Maybe its something in the Naboo waters…
I think Padme is also weirded out at this point by Anakin’s interest, but honestly, its hard to tell. She’s portraying about as much emotion as last time, and I guess abdicating the crown does kill whatever little spirit one might have. It doesn’t, however, kill the need to look fabulous each scene. She might not be queen anymore, but she does still have a new dress every time she enters a new room, perhaps finally explaining why Naboo doesn’t have the budget for a standing army.
Speaking of governments that somehow have no armies in a film titled STAR WARS, guess who else doesn’t one?
Yes, it seems that the Republic, the government that runs literally thousands of planets in the galaxy (all of which are plagued by pirates, renegade corporate entities, and other sorts of mischief), has no army or fleet. They might have a volunteer security force though. It’s unclear at this point. Of course, the whole “we don’t have an army” part is unclear too, behind all the babble. A vote to actually -get- an army is one of the running plot lines. Turns out, governing a multi-racial, multi-planetary nation does sometimes require the presence of a military, as our not-Japanese friends at the Trade Federation are hell bent on proving.
For whatever reason, Naboo and Padme are still at the heart of all of this, leading to yet another assassination attempt. Just like the one at the films start, this one is also obtuse, ill timed, ill placed, and seemingly planned by Dick Dastardly and The Hooded Claw. It does lead to a car chase though!
Like the Pod Racing segment of the last film, this set piece is actually nicely done, and visually still fits. More importantly, we get our first look at the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan. It’s not stellar writing or acting, but it is there. Don’t get used to it; it’s the only time in this film we’ll really get much of that. In fact, from here till the last half hour of the movie, the team will commit the single biggest sin of any adventuring group.
Party Split
(Which is curiously how Empire Strikes Back played out. I might be reading into this too much, but I do sense a pattern… ).
The impetus for the party split is that Obi-Wan needs to follow the trail of the assassin, while Anakin has to head off to Naboo with Padme as her body guard. Clearly, the best man for the job is the angsty hormonal teenager with a crush on the VIP.
It’s hard to explain exactly what happens from here on out. Obi-Wan switches genres and becomes a detective, while Padem and Anakin pretend to fall in love with the conviction of two high schoole kids who hate each others guts. Between snippets of this very convincing romance, we get some more winks and nudges in the name of nostalgia by the appearance of none other than Boba Fetts dad.
Boba who?
For most, the name Boba Fett means little. Even anyone who has watched the original films might not catch on, unless they had grown with a rabid fan who had gobbled up all the extended materials (or was unfortunate enough to have watched the Holiday Special). He’s never named except for a very quick reference in Return of the Jedi, but he does feature prominantly in Empire Strikes Back. He’s the bounty hunter who tracks Solo and Lea on their way to Bespin. His awesome armor and the lore behind him (he’s the best of the best, and apparently a Mandalorian warrior, which is some kind of mix between space Mongols and Spartans) made him a fan favorite. Thus, in this prequel trilogy of nostalgia nudges, we must learn about his origins!
Not that its much of an origin. He’s a clone of a guy named Jango Fett, just like the millions of other clones being created on the planet Kamino. To Obi-Wans surprise, it was supposedly a Jedi master who commissioned this army in the first place. The discover is actually pretty neat; the cloning facility is suitably epic, the alien engineers behind it are pcool, and most importantly, we get our first look at proto- Storm Trooper armor, which is in itself a pretty ominous herald of things to come. This is our first clue about the Empire to come; surely the first look at the new enemy that will soon storm the Republic!
Nothing of the sort, and we still have a long way to go before any clone is attacking anything. Unless we count baby Boba shooting Obi-Wan with the ship guns, which I suppose counts as an attack of the clone…
We now return to…
Meanwhile, back on Naboo, Padme tries to act like she doesn’t want to pursue this ‘forbidden’ relationship. She does this after having spent the day out on a picnic with just him, and concluding it with an intimate evening by the fire place. We’re treated to a few minutes of awkwardness before jumping to young Skywalker having a strangely unconnected nightmare of his mother on his home world. The vision urges him to find her, fearing that her life is in danger. Padme,for whatever reason, decides to go with him. At the same time, Obi-Wan finds a way to keep the films budget in check by also finding a desert world to head to. He’s been tracking Jango Fett on his way to his employer, who turns out to be non other than…
Who for reasons unknown is calling himself Dooku. Yes, in case you needed a reminder, this is the sequel to the movie that introduced us to a guy named Jar Jar Binks. In any case, Obi-Wan is captured by Dooku, who seems to be rallying the Trade Federation and a bunch of other business minded organizations into splitting away from the Republic. They’re pretty clear on the business angle too; this team consists of the Trade Federation, the Intergalactic Banking Clan, the Commerce Guild and the Corporate Alliance. It’s basically the Stellar Wall Street Legion of Doom, led by a guy who looks suspiciously like Colonel Sanders. All of which is being led, according to Dooku,by a shadowy figure named Darth Sidious.
Boy, that would have made quite the report back to the Jedi temple.
Yoda: Obi-Wan, news you bring from your mission do you?
Obi-Wan: Yes master! I learnt that a man named DOOKU is working for DARTH SIDIUS in an insidious plot to rally all the business men of the universe into privatizing their stuff! But don’t worry, I just found out that we have ten zillion photocopies of the guy who tried to assassinate Padme!
While all of this is going on, Anakin learns that his mother was captured by the Sand People. Unfortunately, he finds her just seconds before her death. Unsurprisingly, this sends him into a blood rage, and he proceeds to slaughter the entire tribe. This is portrayed as a step down the dark path, but I honestly don’t know how else he was supposed to react. Heavens know it’s the first logical response he’s had to anything thus far, and he’d probably have ended up doing this anyway if he wasn’t sneaking in.
Okay, maybe the whole “slaughtered the women and children too” part was going a bit far. However, we’ve seen the Jedi being perfectly okay with chopping off peoples limbs, cutting foes in half, slaughtering animals and blasting opponents out in the cold dark reaches of space. Yet somehow “killing the nomadic raiders who capture and kill other people” is just way beyond the pale. One would think that this conflict right here would be the thing that lets the Sith eventually seduce Anikin to the dark side, but no; the ultimate fall simply starts at (and eventually ends with) “because he’s an angry, confused brat”. And confused he is; somehow his issue with the Sand People gets blamed on Obi-Wan holding him back. How, why, when or just simply what doesn’t seem to matter. All that’s important is “foreshadowing of the conflict between master and apprentice!”.
“You have…1 new message.”
Soon after, Obi-Wan’s message finally reaches the duo, who forward the S.O.S to Jedi H.Q before embarking on a rescue mission themselves. A rescue mission that involves jealous Anakin and Padme “has a target on her back” Amidala flying directly at the people she was specifically trying to avoid and be kept safe from. Why she has to be personally involved in a rescue op, what credentials she has for such a thing, or why she doesn’t just phone home for help is never explained. We do know that Anakin seemingly finds an action girl hot though, as he promptly forgets about the heart breaking tragedy he just endured.
Oh, and C-3PO goes with them. Because, why ever not. Maybe they plan on distracting the enemy with nostalgia.
Predictably, the rescue mission goes sideways. Our would-be heroes find themselves doing the dreaded conveyor belt dance in a battle droid
factory before getting captured. Once more the hand of Dick Dastardly and the Hooded Claw is at play, with Saruman deciding that the best way to get rid of two jedi and a Senator they’ve been trying to kill for two movies now is to tie them up in a gigantic arena and have three untrained beasts slowly walk over to eat them.
Shockingly, the death trap doesn’t work; our heroes break free and start making a circus of the whole execution. Anakin mind controls one of the beasts, Obi-Wan flails about, and Padme gets a strategic tear in her shirt. Then, just in time to stop her from going full on “slave Leia”, the Jedi show up! They sneaked into the audience, who didn’t notice the non-bug alien dudes in cloaks skulking around. The intervention could be epic, but for reasons that I’m still a bit puzzled by, they all decide to jump into the arena and allow themselves to get surrounded. Yet hope is not lost! For in this moment of ultimately stupidity…
YES! After enduring the romance of the planks, after watching Kenobi P.I blunder across the galaxy, after watching Dooku going cookoo, we FINALLY get to the part where the clones attack something! Sadly, they don’t seem to be the villains we all thought they would be, but hey! They’re attacking, just like the title said they would!
Putting the “War” back in
The ensuing battle was the largest scale slugfest show in a Star Wars film up until that point. Legions of droids on one side, thousands of clone soldiers and Jedi on the other, each with their own support mechs and gunships. This is what most people were expecting from the title, and if this had been the focus of the movie, things might have been a little better. Granted, it is fairly generic “sci-fi war” stuff, but it is well done for what it is, which is more than can be said for the previous hour or so.
During this here climatic fight, Dooku steals a flying scooter and escapes, followed closely by Obi-Wan and Anakin. They soon corner him in a hanger, and prepare for the obligatory lightsaber duel. Once again proving what dishonerable pricks the Jedi are, they decide to double team the old guy. Or at least, that was their plan, before Skywalker the elder pulls a Leeroy Jenkins and rushes in, promptly getting his hand cut off. (Second movies in a Star Wars trilogy really are the bane of the Skywalkers. Seriously every second movie has one of them either getting seriously maimed or outright killed).
The fight then goes down to Obi-Wan and Count Doofus. If the so called “duel of fates” from The Phantom Menace was the most kinetic and unique duel in the series, this is perhaps the most banal and emotionless. Previous (and subsequent) entries had a sense of purpose to the fight; enemies who have been playing grand games of chess finally coming face to face, all their cards on the table. In A New Hope, it was a battle between master and apprentice. Return of the Jedi saw Luke facing his father and struggling with his own rising hatred. The Phantom Menace had just that; a shadow of the past that had spent the whole movie hunting down the heroes, and even struck one of them down. Here, however, we have a villain who was not even hinted at until this latter half of the movie, whose connection to any of the characters is more of an off-hand mention, and who simply does not have the presence of any villain who came before him. That last one is a bit strange too, considering whose playing the part. That name does him no favors either. They may as well have called him Gonzo, for all the impact his name brings.
This duel is also the point at which the movies went whole hog into the dance fighting style of things. Episode 1 could be excused for the acrobatics partially because they made it a part of the villains fighting style; he didn’t seem like he was wasting his time, and his foes weren’t doing nearly as many spins and flips just to match him. What we have here, however, is a straight up dance-off with glow sticks.
The battle manages to get even sillier when good ol’ Kenobi is knocked out, but saved by the intervention of Yoda himself. I have a hard time recalling just how the scene was received by viewers back when the film first came out. For my part, I thought it was silly back then, and now…well, it’s still silly, but I do get where Lucas might have been coming from. Like a lot of The Phantom Menace, the show down between Dooku and Yoda feels like something that would have been right at home in a film from the 80’s. The setup and visuals bring to mind Labrynth, The Dark Crystal, or even in some ways The Never Ending Story. Yet where those movies seem to have a specific tone, story and audience in mind, Attack of the Clones just can’t seem to decide what it wants to be, or who it’s for.
Which sums up the entire movie really; it begins with two assassinations and becomes a detective film, forks off into what was perhaps the worst romance story until Twilight was inflicted upon the world, and then eventually remembers it’s title was more evocative of battles involving genetic experiments. All the while it goes from being a young adult film, to a kids film, then back to the former, and finally back again. What this results in is arguably the most uninteresting addition to the brand since the Star Wars: Droids comic. I would argue that if one wanted to watch the entire story, Attack of the Clones is honestly not even necessary.
So is this where Star Wars actually died? Is this the worst it got? Well, we’ve got seven more of these to go (counting the side movies Rogue One and Solo). What I can say for certain is that from what I recall, this was easily the film I disliked the most. It didn’t quite kill the fantasy for me,but it would be a while till anything made me completely loose faith in the Star Wars universe.
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