Ep. II – Attack of the Clones: To me, if you read a plot summary of this film, it has really good bones and is a story worth telling. It’s just in the execution that it fell flat. From the way the romance is handled, to Anakin’s general broodiness, to the battle droid factory, it comes across as a big mess. But it’s actually a good story at its core, and has some really good moments and great visuals (even if it relied too much on green screen and CGI as a whole). Picking up the political intrigue thread, it’s kinda cool seeing how Sidious was so skilled at setting up a threat in the separatist movement that was big enough to convince the Senate to approve a clone army, but with sufficient internal weaknesses that he could later crush it once it had fulfilled its purpose. The seeds of the empire are growing and preparing to bear fruit, and had some missteps not gotten in the way, seeing that unfold would be pretty chilling.
Three things that worked:
-1. World-building. Going off on a tangent for just a second here… I have a hard time merging films and video games into a convincing canon. But the Star Wars Dark Forces game in the late ‘90s was the first time I felt like a game had a compelling story, was immersive and made you feel like part of a familiar universe, and convincingly expanded that universe with interesting places that fit well and felt huge. Lucas blatantly borrowed from that game twice in the PT, and it worked very well both times. Seeing more of Coruscant, including some seedier parts, it felt big, and it felt right. Kamino was also very different and cool. Overall, the world-building in this episode mostly felt spot-on.
-2. Seeds of the Empire: See my brief synopsis above. It’s a shame this major plot point got lost a bit, because it was a great concept, and it worked pretty well if you didn’t get distracted by the nonsense and take your eye off the ball.
-3. Jedi light saber mania on Geonosis: 1,000 light sabers. Or something like that. Who cares that the fight itself ended up being lame? Well, okay, admittedly, probably almost ALL of us care. But still, this needed to happen somewhere in the PT, and I remember it bringing down the house in the theater.
Three things that didn’t:
-1. The love interest between Anakin and Padme. It was just off in so many ways. But like so many things in the PT, I feel like the idea had good bones, and Lucas just had no idea how to write it to make it convincing. I think it would have been so much better if he had just made them the same age, and let someone other than Lucas write the dialog. The idea of two childhood friends who share a common bond, yet live in two separate worlds that force them to be something other than what they long to be together could be very compelling and relatable if done better.
-2. The relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan: Part of me thinks that Lucas had a difficult task in showing Anakin begin to wander down the dark path. But part of me thinks the story was just sitting there on a gold platter and he just had no clue what to do with it. The idea of Anakin struggling with not fitting into the Jedi Order’s ideals and being ridden harder than other padawans because of his unique circumstances, the prophecy, and his potential vulnerability to the dark side are good ideas. But the way Obi-Wan rode him and publicly humiliated him on several occasions really show his utter failure as a mentor rather than highlighting Anakin’s vulnerability.
-3. The droid factory: If it wasn’t clear before this, the droids, and especially C3PO, are now primarily relegated to cheap comic relief. Bad move, George. Nobody thought this was funny or cool.
Minor tweaks that could have made it better: I mentioned in my previous installment that Padme and Anakin should have been closer in age. That would have helped this episode. But the primary problem was simply the dialog. It was bad in so many places and ruined so many potentially great scenes. Closing the age gap and just making the dialog between Padme and Anakin better would have made their relationship more believable and made it resonate more with us. And that, in and of itself, would have made any other flaws so much easier to overlook and tolerate. That, to me, is the easiest fix. And maybe include just a tiny bit more about how important his mother is to him early on as well. That way, when he finally goes back to find her, and she dies and he absolutely loses it on the sand people, we can actually feel something instead of just seeing something on screen that we are indifferent to. And we can actually feel Padme simultaneously being horrified by the darkness within Anakin, while being drawn to him and wanting to comfort him. So much potential there that could have gone somewhere rather than falling flat due to cringeworthy dialog and lack of emotional build-up.
Topic: Star Wars Discussion Thread v. Rise of Skywalker / Mandalorian (merged) (Read 256795 times)