An Appreciation of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

2005—with the release of Revenge of the Sith, a circle was finally completed. There seemed to be a lot of space between where Attack of the Clones left off and where A New Hope would pick up decades later. And yet, the third prequel film filled in all the gaps it needed to with huge amounts of excitement and pizzazz.

At the time of the film’s release, the hype was palpable—maybe not to the same extent as The Phantom Menace, but the theater was jam-packed and full of enthusiastic, cheering fans. I distinctly remember sitting in the front-most row (in retrospect, probably not ideal for the neck, having to look straight up at the screen). Before the movie, I noticed a kid sitting next to me in a Superman costume, and he kept saying “I will destroy Lex Luthor!” This still amuses me to this day.

I came out of the feel feeling satisfied, and on rewatches I feel the film holds up okay. A lot better than the last two films, in fact. I suspect over time George Lucas put some more effort into the writing and direction, and it shows in the final product. It could be that this is the part of the trilogy he was most excited for, so of course the movie itself becomes the most exciting and complete one.

Can’t say it’s completely above reproach, however. Janky dialogue, wooden performances, quirky sound design, and tension-less action are still problems. They’re just less glaring, and perhaps forgivable in light of the overall story. We may have come to Star Wars thirsting for action, spaceships, and lightsaber fights, but we keep going back for the story and characters. We all knew Anakin Skywalker would make his transformation into a full-blown villain. This would be a grim, heart-breaking experience (enough to warrant a PG-13 rating for a change). Darkness would prevail.

Try spinning. That's a neat trick.

Nooooooooooooooooo!

As it is with the prequel trilogy in general, there are weaknesses to the film that makes it a little less than perfect. Some might disagree, especially since Revenge of the Sith has less issues than the last two episodes. Still, there are a few things that bug me, and those things are:

• The dialogue and acting—I gotta say, I feel like it’s a step up from the last two movies, even to the point where I don’t have a problem with Hayden Christensen’s performance. Or anybody else’s. The only cringey thing I despise is the exchange between Anakin and Padme, where they’re all like “you are so beautiful” “It’s only because I’m so in love” “No it’s because I’m so in love with you.” Ugh. There are other crazy lines that are mocked all the time (such as “only a Sith deals in absolutes,” “Anakin, you’re breaking my heart,” “you were the chosen one!” "I have the high ground!" and so on). Writing is far from perfect, but the camp (seeming intentional at times) makes it a hoot.
• Some of the quirky, silly, low-brow humor persists. Thank God, Jar Jar Binks has zero lines in this movie. We still have to put up with the lame battle droids (one of which shows attitude—how, even?) There’s a Wookie that gives a Tarzan yell (second time in the series—come on, it wasn’t funny in Return of the Jedi, it’s not funny here either).
• There are many instances where animals and droids give off goofy noises that rob the soundscape of its gravitas—what hurts more is that most sound effects are repetitive at this point, and many new sounds (especially Obi-Wan’s giant iguana) are repeated to an annoying degree. The last couple of movies sounded really punchy and unique, but it wears thin by this episode.
• I’d hate to complain about the action and battle scenes, but it is an issue with the prequels (and modern blockbusters in general) that there’s often many long action scenes done for show, with less tension. In Revenge of the Sith, this happens with the final duel—we know Anakin and Obi-Wan won’t actually kill each other, so they go on and on in a scene that’s less about life or death and more of a choreographed dance. And this might be intentional, but I can see how it drags for some viewers given that it drags out the narrative momentum in favor of spectacle. What drags the film out even more is that it’s padded with a lot of other impromptu sequences—all the shenanigans on the Confederate flagship, Obi-Wan vs General Grievious on Upatau, the Battle of Kashyyk, Yoda vs Palpatine. Yeah, these are cool and all, but many of them could have been cut down, or cut out, without affecting the story.
• Even with all this epic action, the movie still sags quite a bit after the Battle of Coruscant (itself, a half an hour of screen time). We spend a fair amount of time watching Anakin walk back and forth between meetings (Palpatine, the Jedi Council, his secret wife, the Blob Opera). It is important to see how the different sides push and pull on him, but these talky scenes come off as pretty stiff and slow.
• The story picks up in media res—literally, in the middle of a battle. And it’s an awesome sequence and an awesome way to immerse us in the world with the characters. But it’s hard to see how this connects with the ending for Attack of the Clones…unless you’ve seen the Clone Wars cartoon from 2003, which shows precisely how Palpatine was kidnapped (and even why General Grievious was coughing in the movie). I feel as though these are important pieces to set up, and it’s a little strange that the movie jumps right into the middle of all of this with Palpatine already captured and the battle already underway. The movie would have been more complete if it moved the timeline back just a tad, to show Palpatine’s capture. It would have been exciting in live-action, and I’m still not sure why that part of the plot was relegated to a cartoon.
• For whatever odd reason, I never expected Palpatine to undergo a physical transformation (much less while fighting Mace Windu). Watching the original trilogy I just always assumed the Emperor’s ugliness was a combination of age and Dark Side corruption, slow and gradual. Revenge of the Sith reveals that it happened in one instance. Fine, sure, whatever. But not everything needs an explanation and I would have been just as happy if the film didn’t even address this at all.
• Similarly, I find the christening of Darth Vader to be a little jarring too. I like how Anakin kneels before Palpatine, but with the way the scene plays out it seems as though Palpatine makes up the name Vader out of thin air. It’s the kind of thing you do when naming a pet. It’s very brief, fast, and unceremonious for a persona that is ultimately treated as Anakin’s alter ego. I think it deserved more gravitas.

Let the Wookies Lose

Yoda on a typical house-hunting trip.

A tiny part of the movie is dedicated to the Battle of Kashyyk, which feels like it should be a big deal because it’s the first (and by far the only) time in the series that we see the Wookie homeworld. These scenes look great and all, but it serves no real purpose in the film’s story. It might serve a purpose in the Clone War, and it’s mentioned explicitly but without any specific detail—all we’re told (and not shown!) is that Kashyyk is important. How, exactly? Is it the resources it provides? The location of the system? The film doesn’t say—it’s left so vague that it feels like the script just wants to move Yoda away from Coruscant while the Order 66 scenes happen. Moreover, this is also an excuse to show Chewbacca in some scenes, but he ultimately does nothing but scratch the nostalgia itch.

The Kashyyk scenes have started to rub me the wrong way precisely because I feel like if you were to skip them, or remove them from the movie, nothing would even change. Yoda goes back to Coruscant all the same to handle the fallout from Order 66—if he stayed on Coruscant the whole movie it would actually have been one less piece of the story to move back and forth.

The bigger issue I see is in how the movies handle the war. Revenge of the Sith is really the only prequel movie that takes place in a full-blown war—The Phantom Menace was a crisis, and Attack of the Clones was a bunch of stuff that happened leading up the Clone Wars breaking out. It’s left up to the Clone Wars cartoon(s) to show individual battles in the larger conflict. That’s fine and all, but I wonder if this series would have benefited from shifting some of the major battles across movies. What if the Clone Wars was declared earlier in Attack of the Clones, allowing more screen-time for more of these major conflicts—like, say, Kashyyk? If it is such an important system to control, then maybe it’d be a more vital (and more interesting) setpiece than the Battle of Genosis, which held no real value to the Republic (other than driving out the Confederacy, but they all escaped anyway). Geonosis could have been a good turning point half-way through the movie, and the exploding conflict could have bled to other systems. Then, there’d be more scenes involved that would contribute to the story.

As it is, the Kashyyk scenes are weightless, precisely because we’re “told” that the system is important but not shown how or why. One can’t really care about a battle where the goals and stakes aren’t defined—we just see a few passing minutes of Wookies blowing droids up. It could have been more.

Did You Ever Hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

Is it over when the fat blob sings?

Despite all the drag that happens on Coruscant, there is one scene that shifts the story into its inevitable direction. I call it the Blob Opera scene, because that’s exactly where it takes place in—Palpatine and Anakin attending an opera where giant blobs are floating around (you can barely see something jumping or floating between the blobs, and these might be the things that sing, I dunno). Even though this scene is all talking, I do appreciate it for the following reasons:

• It connects an idea most fans hated (the midichlorians) with a concept of the Force that was previously never mentioned (the ability to bring the dead back to life). Is the tale of Darth Plagueis for real? We never even really find out. Plagueis could have resurrected the dead, and Palpatine’s brief explanation makes it sound plausible given the rules of the Force (although I’d argue that these “rules” are pretty fast and loose anyway). This all has the effect of expanding and deeping the established lore of the Force. And really, it’s the payoff for the setup established in The Phantom Menace.
• This is the carrot on the stick that Palpatine offers to Anakin that lures him to the Dark Side. Given the dramatic irony, we all know what’s coming, and it’s all the more tragic to see and understand how it all unfolds. It makes Anakin and his motivations sympathetic. Understanding Anakin is a venture into a complicated nest of love, hate, hormones, disillusionment, conflicting desires, unfulfilled dreams, and a maddening desire to realize his full potential as the “chosen one.” But it all becomes unified under the one thing he cares about the most: Padme. The film sets up his fall arc by putting her in danger, and Palpatine offers the solution. This is all made even more tragic (and ironic) given that it’s Anakin’s fault that Padme dies in the end. But none of it would have happened if it wasn’t for Palpatine’s initial hint bomb at the Blob Opera.
• It’s not like Palpatine drops this information right away—it’s strategically placed when his first piece of bait fails. This whole conversation starts when Palpatine accuses the Jedi of being selfish. Anakin has every reason to agree with him, given that they’ve denied him certain privileges throughout the movies and treated him as an inferior pupil (not to mention the sh*t that happened to his apprentice, Ahsoka, in the Clone Wars CGI cartoon). Despite all this, Anakin still defends the Jedi Order and insists that they’re selfless. It shows that there’s still a desire for him to remain good and loyal. This is something that helps deepen Anakin’s character, and it throws a wrench in Palpatine’s conversation (thus prompting the Darth Plagueis story—if Palps can’t lure Anakin in with vengeance, then he does so by offering the one thing he wants the most).

Everything Is Proceeding Exactly As We’ve Foreseen

Something familiar about these walls...

Prequels—when you go into one, there’s always an expectation that certain pieces have to align to match up with their counterparts. Star Wars has a lot of moving parts and relationships that require some attention, and in lesser hands some pieces could have been mis-aligned or dropped. Fortunately, Episode III does cover a lot of detail that become important for Episode IV and beyond. It is inherently satisfying to see these checkboxes marked—if they weren’t it’d be unsatisfactory. By nature, viewers want things to make sense.

• One detail that would have driven me nuts is R2-D2’s and C-3PO’s knowledge of the prequel events. Since they appear in Episode IV as the catalysts for the next adventure, it wouldn’t really make any sense for them to roll up to the Lars homestead, and Obi-Wan, and not recognize anything. R2 probably does, but will slyly keep things to himself. It’ll even give more background to the mention of a “secret mission” that C-3PO is oblivious to. By necessity, C-3PO had to have his memory erased in Episode III, and thankfully that happens with just a few passing lines. Smooth move Lucas—in just a few seconds, you’ve patched up a potential gap.
• It’s a given that Padme gives birth to Luke and Leia and they’re split up at birth. I really wish Bail Organa had more screen time—we actually do see him in Attack of the Clones, but I don’t even think he’s called by name so you never really know it’s him until he takes possession of Leia. There is potential here to have given him a bigger part of the story—maybe even a bigger arc to show why he wants to adopt a daughter, but as it is the film procedurally has him whisk Leia away to Alderaan. Like many things in the prequels, it’s something that feels like it has to happen because events demand it, but not because the characters do. In the same vein, Luke is whisked to Tatooine to live with his literal uncle and aunt.
• I am happy to see the Tantive IV used as the  central location for Bail, Obi-Wan, and Yoda to escape the Coruscant upheaval and figure things out. This is the ship that'll eventually be captured in the beginning of A New Hope (and it's also shown in Rogue One to show explicitly how Leia acquired the Death Star plans, although I question why a princess had to be involved with that battle). It also makes sense that C-3PO being on the ship would eventually result in him (and R2 supposedly) becoming Captain Antilles' property.
• Death Star construction. I mean, I don't think it's necessary to see it happen, but the film shows it all the same.
• Ship designs. There are occasional throwbacks with things like Darth Maul's ship, but in Revenge of the Sith we can see more clearly how the Republic cruisers become more and more similar to Imperial Star Destroyers. It's not much of a stretch to picture the clone troopers being retired in favor of similarly-armored stormtroopers.
• When Obi-Wan defeats General Greivious with a blaster, he tosses the weapon aside and remarks, "So uncivilized!" A clear callback to Obi-Wan's lines in A New Hope, in which he describes the lightsaber as having a "civilized edge." I always liked this connection—smooth move Lucas.
• Force ghosts become a possibility. We never actually see them throughout any of the prequels, but by the end of Revenge of the Sith Yoda reveals that Qui-Gon has found a way to communicate from beyond the grave, and Obi-Wan will go on to learn the same skill. This sets things up for their respective appearances in Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and The Last Jedi. I still feel as though the afterlife and its role in Force lore is weakly explored in the movies, but for the intent of substantiating the appearances of ghosts, this passing exposition is just fine.

A Hero Falls

He's got that crazy look in his eyes again...

The biggest checkbox that the film must check is the one that stipulates how exactly Anakin Skywalker turned into Darth Vader. This is a checkbox that took three whole movies to tell, but most of the legwork is accomplished in Revenge of the Sith. The best that can be said about The Phantom Menace is that it introduced the characters, but that's about it. Attack of the Clones brought Anakin and Padme together, and it scooched Anakin a little closer to the Dark Side, but that's it.

Revenge of the Sith paints Anakin in a more convincing light by removing most of the whining he exhibited in the last movie. He still pouts a little when he's denied his Jedi Master status, but who wouldn't? Anakin becomes a puppet for a short time, first being asked to spy on Palpatine for the Jedi, then asked by Palpatine to spy on the Jedi. What's a guy to do, especially with children on the way from a secret wife who might be in danger? The political and situational stress makes Anakin's turn interesting. His decisions have weight, and we understand why he makes the calls he does. The motivators—love, family, destiny—are pretty compelling, even when it amounts to him trying too hard to control too much. Inevitably, lines are crossed and his deeds become worse and worse until he lands himself on a world that reflects his own hell—with lava and everything.

In the end, this is all the stuff that I admire the most about the prequel movies and Revenge of the Sith delivered a solid payoff. The last couple of movies had their ups and downs, but in this last film it plays out fairly organically and compelling enough to make the experience memorable and insightful. Folks might still complain about how whiny Anakin was, but I appreciate the depth and antiheroic characteristics that would eventually transform into one of the most iconic villains of cinema.

We've always known that the Star Wars prequels would go this route—to tell a villain's origin story rather than a typical good-vs-evil fable, which is what the original trilogy is. As the controversy around the upcoming Joker film proves, telling a villain's story is not as easy as describing evil deeds. Even when said deeds are shown in an appropriately horrifying light, people can still look up to villains if they're shown to be cool, charismatic, iconic, or if they embody ideals that people connect to. Plenty of people will dress up as Alex DeLarge or quote Tyler Durden because they seemed cool and their stories drew sympathy for underscoring the failings of the societies they inhabit (which can either be a reflection of our world, or a possible future). And yet, I've never seen anybody put Anakin up on a pedestal or use Revenge of the Sith as an inspiration for shootings or other such crimes. I've never even seen the classic Vader image invoked in such a way. I suspect Star Wars never draws this kind of negative attention because of the following reasons:

• It's a fantasy. Clear as day, we can all see that the Star Wars universe is a goofy, colorful place with magic, made-up societies, aliens, and the like. Other movies strike so close to reality that the line blurs more and people can connect to villains easier. Vader is too far displaced from reality for audiences to connect to in that manner.
• I have the impression that Lucas was well aware of his intentions in telling a villain's story, going so far as having this film rated PG-13. Anakin's crimes are treated as grim. Despite all the movie's camp, nobody laughs it off or disrupts the gravitas. The cinematography and music ensure that we feel the weight of his deeds. Even though Padme claims there's still good in Anakin, nobody makes excuses for his actions, and Obi-Wan goes to lengths to hold him accountable. The villain is not treated as a hero here, and he is not glorified.
• In that same vein, nothing Anakin does leads to anything particularly good. He doesn't become wealthy, powerful, handsome, or even free. He's deformed, burned alive, and doomed to a life in a life-support suit serving the Emperor. Vader's soul is full of shame, anger, and dead dreams. People may look up to Tony Montana for the whole "world is yours" theme, and people watch Scarface to experience wish fulfillment, but nobody does this to Vader. Nobody wants to live his life.
• Anakin may be the film's protagonist, but he's not the sole character. Obi-Wan is the real hero of this story, and he works with other good people (like Yoda, Bail, Padme) to withstand the Emperor's takeover. The line between good and evil is still pretty clear, even if Anakin's morality remains gray. It helps that the film maintains an objective stance thanks to its multiple points of view and Lucas' penchant for wider camera angles. From a distance, we can see what's coming for Anakin and we can't help but to shake our heads as he crosses lines, passes points of no return, and succumbs to evil.

There Is Good

I’ve written quite a few nitpicks, which might make the film sound more like a chore and a bore than it really is. In truth, I can overlook many of these issues to get to the good stuff. I do think there’s room for improvement, but here are some reasons why I still love the film:

• The Battle of Coruscant is one of my favorite battle scenes in the series. I still feel chills when the camera pans down after the opening crawl and we hear drums as a Republic ship floats in view. It’s inherently awesome how the camera follows Anakin and Obi-Wan into the heart of battle—that moment when their fighters bank and the camera turns with them to show the first glimpse of the fighting is a jaw-dropping move that really makes you, the viewer, feel as though you could plummet into the atmosphere and into combat. The tracking shot continues between ships and through explosions—even when the first cuts happen, the sequence is packed with so much detail that it’s consistently fantastic to watch.
• The visuals alone aren’t what makes the battle so great through. For well over forty minutes, we’re glued to watching Anakin and Obi-Wan storm the Invisible Hand in an ongoing sequence of events that is basically one problem after another. Precisely the same pattern that made the original trilogy engaging. This even extends to some amusing scenes where R2 trolls some battle droids—hardly necessary, but at least it’s a payoff for introducing the leg rockets in the last episode. But the most interesting scenes are the ones in which Obi-Wan and Anakin confront Count Dooku, and inevitably face General Grievious. 
• Last time we saw Jedi storming a starship (in the Phantom Menace), they were dang near invincible. On the Invisible Hand, they are put to the test further as they are captured by ray shields, and their lightsabers are matched by guards with electric staffs (and can fight without their heads). 
• What I found most impressive is how the film seamlessly segues into one last massive problem—the ship is crashing, and without escape pods to use their only solution is to take control of the ship itself and hope to control its descent. This is the first time in the series we see a ship of this size crash into a planet, so it does seem like a big-scale problem that would have seemed impossible for any other set of heroes. The fact that Anakin pulls it off is another epic feat that helps build up the legend he represents. Not to mention, having the massive ship skid to a halt is a heck of a way to end the battle (and I love how the camera remains still as the ship moves towards it, and the heroes come into view through the bridge windows). 
• Above all, when Anakin has Dooku at the tip of the lightsabers, I love the way Palpatine says "DEW IT!" 

Anakin very much enjoying the slaughter of battle.

• Even though it often feels like these prequel movies throw in everything and the kitchen sink in every scene, I do admire how unabashedly the films flaunt their imaginative concepts and designs around. In Revenge of the Sith, I was quite enamored by: 
• General Grievious—love his design, love how he can turn into a walking blender with lightsabers, and I find it interesting that he has living organs beneath his plating. I actually wish there could have been more background to that, because this pretty much classifies him as a cyborg, and he remains the only one we see in the movies.
• Obi-Wan riding a giant lizard. Need we say any more? 
• During the Order 66 scene, we see a montage of awesome worlds where terrible things happen. A battle over giant bridges in the sky. A Jedi gunned down on a colorful jungle planet (take that Avatar). Jedis on speeder bikes in the rain. In a matter of minutes, we see enough to understand how limitless the environments of the Star Wars galaxy is (and this also extends to the few shots we see of Alderaan, which looks really nice. And Kashyyk). 
• Mustafar—the volcano planet. Holy crap, that place is wicked.
• Naboo ships with their chrome finish are still pretty cool. 
• There are a few shots in Revenge of the Sith that goes above-and-beyond normal cinematic conventions and elicit thought and feeling through pure imagery. Some of the shots that I find most compelling are: 
• The long tracking shot that opens the film, following the two fighters into the heart of battle.
• During Obi-Wan's duel with General Grievious, there are two shots where the camera pushes in on an extreme close-up of both characters' eyes. This is the first (and I think the only) time a Star Wars film does this. I have a feeling it's an effect directly lifted from Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, which had many shots like this to create tension during its dueling scenes. In Revenge of the Sith, it's a very brief cut that seems to underscore the intensity of the two characters' fight. I love it for the same reason I love the western-inspired shots in The Matrix (you know, the bit where Neo and Smith stand-off and a newspaper passes between them like a tumbleweed)—in both cases, the movies are using a common cinematic cliche to quickly and wordlessly convey a specific idea or emotion, and in both cases it works.
• There is a scene where Anakin and Padme are separated by some distance, but they both stare out windows at the Coruscant cityscape. Visually, it’s extraordinary in the sense that the movie uses subjective camera angles to show us what they’re seeing—Anakin sees the building Padme’s in, and she sees the Jedi Temple in the distance. The city shots are great, but it’s not the pretty view we’re seeing—it’s the longing between them, and it’s Anakin’s affirmation that he must do what he has to do save Padme. All of this, coupled with the eerie music, ratchets up the tension and gives weight behind his final decision (which leads to him intervening in Palpatine’s arrest). In fact, the music is the only sound we hear—in a series that's mostly noise and dialogue, this is one of the very few scenes where silence underscores an important scene. Of all the scenes in the prequels, this brief moment hits me hard because it is a turning point. 
• When Anakin storms the Jedi Temple, the scene in which he murders the younglings consists only of him framed to the side igniting his lightsaber. Then it cuts away. That’s all that’s needed, and it’s a tasteful way of showing a dark, unforgivable atrocity. 
• Once Palpatine announces the creation of the Galactic Empire, he is shown raising his hands up in front of the whole senate. Coupled with Padme’s “this is how democracy dies” line, it’s just ominous and chilling. 
• The Order 66 scene is crammed full of awesome shots showcasing awesome worlds and awesome things. However, it’s also a montage of horrible murders across the galaxy, and thanks to the way the sound fades and the music score, it does strike a sorrowful tone. 
• After Anakin murders everybody gathered at Mustafar, there are at least a couple of shots where he looks at (or close to) the camera and we can see his eyes turning yellow. It’s a little jarring, but I can appreciate it as a theatrical way of showing his corruption and downfall. I also feel for him when he’s shown crying.
• When Obi-Wan first confronts Anakin, the staging and framing of these shots are generally okay, but there is one neat shot showing both their heads in frame, both facing the camera, with Mustafar’s hellscape behind them. 
• During the Obi-Wan / Anakin duel, there’s an epic moment when the two lunge at each other with lava blasting in the background and the music score swells. Holy crap, that hits right in the feels.
• Near the end, scenes of Vader's operation and Padme giving birth are intercut, and it is pretty smart how the two scenes run parallel. On one hand, Padme is giving life and ultimately dies doing so. On the other, the life Anakin knew is gone and he's reborn as Vader. The two threads have some visual parallels (both characters on operating tables), and there are are a few visual motifs (such as Vader's table resembling the Imperial symbol).
• The scene where Vader’s helmet lowers onto his scarred face—it’s spot-on. 
• The movie’s last shot—a Tatooine sunset—very nicely mirrors the Binary Sunset shot from A New Hope. And really, this movie ends with the promise that a new hope is literally coming with the next generation. It’s not exactly a scene that wallops me, because I always knew the film would end this way, but it is nicely-composed. It’s also a refreshing break from all the other movies that show the heroes lined up in a composed manner—this is just Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru staring into the sunset, acting naturally, but still positioned in an invoking way.
• John Williams' music score is on-point as usual. The "Battle of the Heroes" is the highlight piece here and like the movie scenes it's grand, dark, and operatic.

The biggest thing to love is the story, plain and simple. Lucas spent two whole films setting up characters, events, and entire worlds for this specific moment in which Anakin becomes Darth Vader. The payoff is satisfying—not only because it's so action-packed, but because the motivations and reasoning behind the character is explored with enough detail for him to make sense. By definition, this is decent storytelling.

Darth Vader...Rise

Here it comes...the last helmet you'll ever wear.

On its own, Revenge of the Sith can be seen as a downer. Its focus is primarily on a man's downfall—the climax of a long string of morally-confusing circumstances that forces him to make wrong decisions and commit evil deeds to achieve things that wind up slipping from his fingers. A tragedy to the end.

But it does end with the promise of hope—literally, leading into A New Hope as Luke is dropped off with his aunt and uncle on Tatooine. Obi-Wan will be there to watch him grow up from a distance. C-3PO and R2-D2 will hang around the Tantive IV, which will surely appear again in the midst of battle. Leia will become a princess of Alderaan. Yoda will hang out in the swamp. All pieces scattered throughout the galaxy that will become the path of a new generation of heroes, who may succeed where Anakin previously failed.

Perhaps in this respect, Revenge of the Sith can't really be seen on its own merits, but as a supplement to the original trilogy. This is what would make the machete order appealing (that is, to watch the movies in the order of episodes 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6, so the prequels become a sort of extended flashback). It's both the culmination of the prequel movies and a bridge to the originals. Even though it feels complete in how it arranges its pieces, it's still something that hinges on the success of previously told stories.

However, I still think it's a good story told fairly well, despite all the quirks and camp. It might not be as triumphant as Luke's arc, but the tragedy of Darth Vader is a compelling tale that I can appreciate on many viewings.

Film Review: Brightburn (2019)

Originally, Superman was conceived as a villain and a threat to humanity. Some comics (like Injustice) and some films (like Zack Snyder’s films) still emphasize the terror of an evil Superman, but in most stories, he remains good thanks to a combination of nature or nurture. But if it wasn’t for either, he could have turned into a sinister, nihilistic destroyer.

In the town of Brightburn, a familiar story unfolds: a couple in the country happen across an alien spacecraft with a baby boy inside, and they raise him as their own. And just like Superman, the boy discovers that he has superhuman strength, invulnerability, super-speed, flight, and laser-eyes. But instead of using these powers for good, the kid uses it to take revenge on bullies, throw tantrums that break rooms, spy and torment the helpless, throw cars around, murder people he doesn’t like, and…it only gets worse from there.

Brightburn has the distinction of being a horror film that uses superpowers as the source of fear. Given the slow-burning way it tracks Brandon’s arc (portrayed quite well by Jackson A. Dunn), there’s potential in exploring the horrific implications of an anti-Superman. The pieces are all there, blatantly lifted from the Kent household but updated for modern times (thanks largely to the more realistic tension that Elizabeth Banks and David Denman bring to the table). Conceptually, the film should be a cohesive marriage of comic book tropes and macabre horror, wrapped around a simple fall arc.

Unfortunately, I feel as though something didn’t gel right, and I suspect it’s because the film falls back on conventional horror tropes and structure rather than comic-book lore. Watching it as a horror film, it feels right at home with films like The Prodigy or even The Omen. If you swapped out Brandon’s inhuman powers with mere demonic possession, the film would still work, precisely because it’s a smaller-scale, atmospheric slow-burner with emphasis on jump-scares, uncanny phenomenon, and a few gory kills. Making the kid fly and zoom around as a threat adds surprisingly little to the outcome. As a comic-book deconstruction, I’m certain the film wants us to pause and think about how horrifying it is to have a troubled kid with all this power destroying cities and taking lives, but this never approaches the level of stakes or dramatic weight that a film like Chronicle achieves (and Chronicle also excelled at organically growing a horrifying, compelling villain out of Dane DeHaan’s character—that guy still gives me the chills). Even Man of Steel elicits more fear out of its Kryptonian villains—Brightburn might have actually benefited from that sort of disaster porn. We get some glimpses of it towards the end, but it amounts to nothing more than a downer ending (not much different than how Cabin in the Woods ended).

Really, I see it as a failure to merge the genres effectively. In its effort to emphasize horror, the film ditches aspects of its original inspirations (that of the superhero genre), and in doing so the point falls rather flat. And it’s a shame because the film generally looks good, performances aren’t too shabby, and the sets, props, costumes, and locales look solid. There are moments of genuine terror, thanks to select scenes where the characters uncover some of Brandon’s disturbing behavior. It also shows that effort was put into the script to lay a fair amount of groundwork to make the story work. But it’s a tall order to find sympathy for a kid that’s purposefully characterized as an inhuman predator, and ultimately becomes an alien threat. There are too many moments where all these characters become unlikable, and it’s hard to care for what happens to them when they make dumb or cliched decisions. If you see where this is all going, you’ll know that they all die anyway, leaving nobody to really root for.

Brightburn is a little frustrating, seeing as it wants to explore a compelling antithesis on superhero lore, but doesn’t really say anything profound other than “it’s scary!” And it does so by being a normal (if not cliched) slasher movie. This could have been so much more if more effort was put into refining the characters and their directions (as it was in Chronicle), and in fleshing out certain ideas (this is about an alien boy, so why not play up the cosmic horror some more? Come on people, it’s only been a year since Annihilation and Mandy came out, the fear of the otherworldly is totally in now). If it wasn’t for all the missed opportunities, this film could have burned brighter.

3/5

We Could Write a Bad Romance (Anakin and Amidala, oh la la)

Everybody goes to a Star Wars film for the pulp adventure and special effects. How many go for the love stories? I mean, sure, the thing between Han Solo and Leia Organa is cute, and old-timer fans probably speculated a ton on the triangle between them and Luke (a triangle that had to be dismantled when Return of the Jedi confirmed that Luke and Leia were related--it really changes the dynamic of their previous kissing scenes).

Then along came Attack of the Clones, the second chapter in Anakin Skywalker's fall to the Dark Side. To this day, I've never run across anyone who would praise the film for its romantic angle. Most film-goers agree that the acting is so wooden that there's no actual chemistry between the actors. What hurts the film the most may be its script.

Nothing expresses burning passion and desire more than the words "I don't like sand."

It's kind of a big deal for this movie, because among all the things it juggled, it strove to be a sweeping romantic epic in the same vein as Doctor Zhivago. Meaning, romance with the backdrop of political upheaval, revolution, and violent change. Strange and confusing times where loyalties are tested, good and evil become flipped, and war overshadows the innocent. It would have been a perfect setting for Anakin as he continues his fall arc, except the plot for Attack of the Clones (as well as The Phantom Menace) is not driven in an organic way. Characters rarely make decisions that influence the plots, and as a result, they wind up moving in artificial patterns designed to cover the parts of the story that need attention. Obi-Wan spends the whole movie acting this way, blindly following leads Jango Fett leaves behind all the way to Geonosis (and thus playing into Palpatine's hands the whole time).

As for Anakin, the lucky dog winds up spending a chunk of the film on Naboo protecting Padme. It's as if the film purposefully corralled the two of them in a safe, convenient, tranquil location for the sole purpose of nurturing their relationship. It amounts to several scenes where Anakin awkwardly says stuff to Padme. They have a picnic in a prairie (where Anakin rides a fat-bottomed cow) and they share a moonlight dinner. After all this, Padme still pushes him back on the grounds of politics and obligations (but there's perhaps an admission that some feeling exists towards Anakin, which only makes him push harder). Then, when Anakin gets some bad dreams, they all fly to Tatooine to deal with Anakin's mother. A Sand People massacre ensues, and we finally see some semblance of the Dark Side influencing Anakin (and Padme is totally cool with it for some reason).

Take this plotline on its own, which takes up maybe a quarter of the movie, and it's boring as a box of rocks. This is a movie series inspired by pulp serials, which demands a constant string of peril and danger so that a plot is built from constant conflict and tension--literally one thing leading to another. That is the stuff adventure fiction is made of. Attack of the Clones neglects this formula, and in doing so it drops pacing and tension.

You'd think romance alone would sell a story, as it has done for countless romance novels and films (including sci-fi--I mean, I could watch the romance in Passengers all day long). Without chemistry, there's little to like about Anakin and Padme as a couple. The problem is not merely the performances--they don't really share anything in the film. Passions? Anakin is a pilot and tinkerer, Padme is anything but. Ideologies? Their little conversation by the waterfalls show that they're on opposite ends of that spectrum, with Padme wanting to defend democracy and Anakin entertaining notions of authoritarian tyranny (and nobody is sure if he's serious). Feelings, even? Why yes, they do share feelings towards each other eventually, but when that's the only thing shared, it doesn't mean much.

In any emotional writing, there has to be a reason why. And any time you want to express why emotions happen, it's best done by showing, not telling. All the romance we see between Han and Leia is shown to us as they play-fight throughout Empire Strikes Back, before they eventually have a heart-to-heart talk (and kiss). It builds up out of the conflict between them--something that was planted even in A New Hope when it's apparent that Han hates Leia's pomp and Leia hates how much of a scoundrel he is. Han proves his worth by changing his mind and helping in the Battle of Yavin (and later Hoth). This opens Leia's eyes on his character, and in turn Han starts to see that Leia is not as uptight as she first seems. Both characters change each other, and thus draw themselves together in an organic, creditable way

Anakin changes for the worst throughout the movies, and Padme doesn't change at all. Neither one alters each other's views on each other. Anakin always had the hots for her, and she only opens up to him when they face certain death. It's as if Anakin is the closest man at that moment before the arena fight, so she decides why the hell not? and they kiss.

Maybe the fact that it is artificial is why this relationship doesn't work in the end. It is a doomed romance since we know that Anakin becomes Darth Vader and Padme will have to keep his children a secret. But this is all stuff that happens in the next movie--for Attack of the Clones, there's no reason why their relationship couldn't have worked if it was written to show why they love each other.

For very specific examples of why this all falls flat, look no further than these pieces of god-awful dialogue:

"Just being around her again is... intoxicating."

Well, love is the drug, I guess, but this always struck me as off. To have Anakin admit this to Obi-Wan is a pretty bold move since he should know that love and attachments are frowned upon.

What I don't like this that this sets up the pattern of Anakin's and Padme's relationship being based on absolutely nothing. A line like this doesn't show that he's interested in her as a person at all. Even if it's purely a physical attraction that's intended, I feel like it could be expressed in a more endearing way. Like this, he equates her to a drug, and therefore more of a thing instead of a person.

"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating...and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth." *strokes Padme's back*

I get what Anakin is saying here--he spent most of his life on Tatooine, and he's drawing a parallel between the coarseness of sand and the coarseness of his former slave life. Tatooine comes to represent Anakin and all his coarseness, and Padme represents Naboo with all her smoothness (why does this sound so wrong?) This metaphor is nice in the sense that it shows how Anakin is at peace with his new surroundings.

And yet, the line is mocked often, and I can't help but to roll my eyes at it too. The problem is that Anakin is using a complaint as a way to woo Padme. Nobody is attracted to complaining--it's an inherently unlikable character trait, and Anakin already vented to her about Obi-Wan and his career and everything. At this point, Padme must think that all he does is gripe. There is no way this line should work, ever.

"From the moment I met you, all those years ago, not a day has gone by when I haven't thought of you. And now that I'm with you again... I'm in agony. The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you--I can't breath. I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating... hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me... what can I do? I will do anything you ask.... if you are suffering as much as I am, PLEASE, tell me."

All of this grates on me personally. I suspect because most of this seems to talk about Anakin's feelings, but it doesn't express them. This is tell-don't-show at its worst, so on-the-nose and artificial that it comes off as inauthentic, unconvincing, and hollow (not to mention long. This is a flipping paragraph).

I'm further put off by the attempted metaphors concerning agony, scarring, torment. It sounds like a reversal of the Hedgehog's Dilemma, which was a very compelling parallel for Neon Genesis Evangelion--the effect in which the closer people get, the more they hurt each other. Here, Anakin seems to say that the closer he gets to Padme the better he is, and he doesn't want to lose her. That's fine and all, but it comes off as more complaining. It's also a demand he puts on Padme, pushing her to say something that will validate or justify his feelings. It's stuff like this that makes many audience members think that Anakin is being predatory. I guess in a way he's trying to hijack Padme emotionally and blame her for the way he feels, and it all reads rather badly.

I have a feeling all of this could have been expressed in a shorter, more economic way. One or two lines, leave the rest implicit, and it would have done the character a huge favor.

"I... I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead... every single one of them. And not just the men. But the women... and the children, too. They're like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals! I HATE THEM!"

The film showed us Anakin slaughtering the Sand People, and it's a sobering turn. We all knew he'd cross a line at some point. I get that Padme probably forgives him because he's angry and heartbroken for losing Shmi. But let's face it, Anakin just mass-murdered a small settlement--that's a clear red flag of evil.

Run Padme run!

For most of the film(s), we watch as Padme kinda puts up with Anakin's whining and impulses, and eventually caves without much conflict. There's no real reason for her to do so, much less any reason to forgive Anakin for mass-murder (well, other than because they tortured and killed his mother, but Jedi surely don't condone revenge).

You know what would have sold this relationship better? If Padme was a little evil herself.

And why not? Anakin is sort of a bad boy, intentionally channeling the rebellious attitude of James Dean (hair and all). If Padme is drawn to that kind of personality, then it makes sense that she'd overlook some murder (and maybe even put up with some abuse--not that it's right or desirable, but some couples work that way somehow). As it is, Padme does show frustration at the bureaucracy, which failed to protect Naboo during the Trade Federation invasion and failed to track down her assassins. She has every reason to become as disillusioned as Anakin. Palpatine's declaration of an Empire should have made her turn her back on the system. Why doesn't she? Because she's good to the end?

The thing is, Padme has always shown herself to favor action, maybe even to the point of ignoring politics. She does this in The Phantom Menace when she arranges for the Naboo forces to retake their planet, independently of the Republic and the Jedi. When she hides out in the Lake District, she explicitly states she doesn't like the idea of hiding. When Obi-Wan seems to be in danger, she's the one who flies the ship off to Geonosis, and she's all too happy to pick up a blaster and shoot some droids down. All of this is the most amount of agency and fortitude she shows, and it's pretty awesome. You could argue that she's a woman of action and she's no stranger to violence.

In light of that, how big of a step would it actually be to have her fall in love with Anakin's Dark Side? After all, that's the side of Anakin that takes action and makes bold changes. The constraint and dogma of the Jedi is what holds him back and makes him frustrated (and so whiny). The moments he rebels should be the moments Padme becomes drawn to. Those should be the reasons why she sees him as a grown-up instead of a little boy. In the end, how interesting would it be if she stood by his side when he goes full Vader? Granted, this would mean supporting the Empire over the Republic, and that's probably the line she can't cross and the reason why they'd have to split.

In Revenge of the Sith, Padme pretty much spends the entire movie being pregnant, then showing up on Mustafar for a brief argument before being choked out. She remains loyal to Anakin, but for no reason other than because they're already together and are about to have children. They really needed something more to connect them, and a shared passion might have helped fill in the films' empty spaces. If they had a bad romance, it would have come off as less hollow, and I think a little more interesting.

In its final product, Attack of the Clones demonstrates how ineffective a romance can be when the writing fails to capture the nuances of a relationship. There needed to be a reason for the connection. There needed to be chemistry. Conflict. Change. Compromises. A lot of varying ingredients are needed, but the film offers none and we're expected to accept that Padme can eventually fall for a guy who whines and turns evil. It could have been better.

An Appreciation of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

Between my birth and 1999, Star Wars had always been an event, and therefore a big deal. I had the good fortune to witness all of the original trilogy films in 1997, during their Special Edition run. I had the good fortune to behold The Phantom Menace while riding the hype wave at its highest peak. 2002 marked the first time a Star Wars film became merely business as usual.

War were declared.

It could have been just me and the times. It was my first year of working, having graduated high school just a year ago. For a while, I went through each day in a daze, struggling to comprehend my duties and responsibilities, procedures, expectations, and more. In the midst of all the tension and anxiety of the time, I felt hardly any hype for Attack of the Clones. I didn’t follow the news that closely at all. One day, I happened across the music score on CD—had to buy it, of course. I was excited for the new cues and all the images in the liner notes. My excitement was still pretty lukewarm until the movie popped up in theaters without much pomp or precedent.

What doesn’t help Attack of the Clones is that it dropped right in the middle of the release of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Having seen The Fellowship of the Ring earlier in the year, Star Wars took the backburner while I awaited the release of The Two Towers and read Tolkein’s original books. Who wants clones when there’s another, better series of films offering orcs, trolls, Nazgul, and more?

And yet, I went through the motions of seeing Attack of the Clones on the big screen and came out satisfied. I would have even argued that it was better than The Phantom Menace. The sheer scope, scale, and ambition of the spectacle blew me away. At the time, it was yet another favorite, and I felt as though the series could do no wrong.

Here it is, seventeen years later, and Attack of the Clones is now my least-favorite of the main Star Wars films (I say “main” because some of the supporting features are a grade worse, and I can’t fathom anything worse than the Star Wars Holiday Special). There are a lot of cool things in the film, certainly. Some significant story developments happen. But even when I got a hold of the DVD months later, I found myself skipping the romance scenes to watch only Obi-Wan’s scenes. Skipping scenes, in Star Wars? Inconceivable!

In time, I’ve come to regard much of the movie as flaky. Not just the dialogue, writing, and quality—all the same problems carried over from the previous movie. The plot was a struggle to understand back in 2002. Even though I’ve come to understand some aspects better, the plot holds less water the more I look at it.

Being Around The Film Is...Intoxicating

Before I proceed with ripping this film apart, let’s talk about the things I still like and admire about the film.

In space, do you land on the planet, or does the planet land on you?

• Every film in the series has a pattern—they all start with the opening crawl, the camera pans down, we see something happen in space. For the first time in the series (and I think it’s still the only time), the camera actually pans up, and we see Coruscant from an upside-down angle. Seeing that for the first time is a very trippy experience, and I still admire the shiny ship designs as they glide over the foggy cityscape. It’s visually awesome, even though the movie doesn’t start with a major battle or anything.
• I went into the movie expecting the same pattern as The Empire Strikes Back. The film generally covers similar ground in broad strokes, but not quite as on-the-nose as The Last Jedi. What I like about Attack of the Clones is that it copies the same plot structure, but reverses it. Just as the opening shot is flipped upside-down, so is the plot. Anakin spends this movie being tempted by the Dark Side, and occasionally giving in, whereas Luke was tempted and resisted. Obi-Wan and Anakin chase their way into Geonosis, whereas Han, Luke and the gang were chased away from Hoth. Both Hoth and Geonosis are the sites of the biggest battles for their respective movies, but they’re placed at opposite ends (the Battle of Hoth occurs in the beginning, the Battle of Geonosis happens at the end). I always felt there was an intentional effort to flip the formula, and I appreciate that Attack of the Clones does so at least with its structure.
• It is inevitable that Anakin turns to the Dark Side—that is the point of watching the prequels and it is the story that makes it worth seeing. Revenge of the Sith seems to contain all of the important scenes that show his transformation into Darth Vader. The best that Attack of the Clones achieves is aligning certain pieces to make it happen. As the middle part of this arc, it is a little disappointing that more doesn’t happen, but there are a few significant pieces of foreshadowing that I genuinely appreciate.
• On one Naboo scene, Anakin stands with his legs in a wide stance and his hands clasped behind his back—it’s the exact same kind of stance you see the Imperial commanders take in the original films, and it’s a standard militaristic “at ease” stance used in real life. Anakin seems at peace when he does it here, as if meditating. It’s as if the militaristic stance is his most natural and relaxed state.
• Anakin and Padme share their political views, and Anakin eerily suggests that a dictatorship might actually be the answer. Everything else about this scene might be way too sappy (especially when Anakin rides the fat-bottomed cow thing), but this bit of dialogue stands out.
• There are at least two points in which Anakin commits a faux pas that brings a certain level of tangible silence to the conversations. These scenes stand out very effectively since we see the concerned reactions from the side characters, so we can see that Anakin crosses a line of what is socially acceptable. This first happens when Anakin challenges Obi-Wan’s authority in front of Padme and everyone. It happens again when Anakin contradicts Padme in front of the Naboo Queen. These scenes are hardly comfortable to see, but that’s the point and I think it’s a good way of showing how the character’s faults make him fail in polite society.
• Perhaps the biggest step Anakin takes towards the Dark Side is when he frees Shmi, only to have her die in his arms. Sand People massacre ensues. This is when a certain threshold is crossed that he can’t uncross—he is no longer an innocent child (or even a whiny teenager), and this is the point where his childish dreams fall apart. This is when we can finally see how this guy could become the most evil character in the galaxy (…well, second to Palpatine).
• While chasing Count Dooku on Geonosis, Anakin and Obi-Wan have a brief fight. Anakin wants to turn the ship around to save Padme (who fell out of the gunship), but Obi-Wan demands that they focus on the mission to stop Dooku. It boils down to duty versus personal feelings. This scene probably could have gone in other directions that would have worked better (and there are one or two Youtubers I’ve watched that explain why pretty convincingly). And yet, I like the fact that the scene even exists. It helps underscore the moral dilemmas that Anakin faces, and his begrudging loyalty to the cold, dogmatic Jedi. It also helps break up an otherwise long, effects-heavy finale with a character-based problem—even if it only lasts a moment, it’s better than nothing at all.
• One thing the film covers that I probably wouldn't have predicted is Luke's aunt and uncle from Episode IV. Turns out Owen is literally Anakin's half-brother, so the relationship makes sense. These threads are ultimately tied in the next episode, but the bulk of the work is achieved in Attack of the Clones thanks to the amount of time Anakin spends hanging around Lars' homestead. These scenes offer quite a few good details that are necessary to connect to the later episodes.
• Even though parts of the film can try my patience, it is the Clone Wars I’ve always yearned to see in this. We have a full-blown TV series that covers its sprawling battles, but for 2002, this movie (and a brief Cartoon Network series) was all we had. So when it came to the grand finale, I was genuinely blown away by all the spectacle the film managed to cram in.
• For one thing, it includes a plethora of great things we’ve never seen in Star Wars before. Hundreds of Jedi fighting together. A crap-ton of imaginative vehicles, weapons, and droids. We see somebody use two lightsabers in a fight. We see Yoda act like a badass. It’s all a feast for the eyes.
• What really knocked me off my feet was the way the scenes escalate. First time viewing, I knew the movie was going to end but I had no idea where things were going—I half expected the arena fight to be it, and the film could have ended without any Clone Wars happening. But no, just as things looked dire, the Jedi show up and the scene becomes a huge brawl. Then the clone troopers show up and turn the arena into a kill box. When the ships take off, we see that the fight has boiled over across the surrounding landscape, and it becomes a full-blown battle (ground and air). This is all capped off with a lightsaber fight, which may not be as big-scale as the droids-vs-clones battles, but it is satisfying to tie off a film with the heroes fighting the villain mano-a-mano.
• Many qualities of The Phantom Menace carry over admirably—lovely-looking locations and settings, highly imaginative concepts and ideas, incredible-looking worlds, nice costumes and props, and the spirit of the thing. I’d even argue that Attack of the Clones looks better since it feels less rough around the edges (especially regarding the special effects) and has a little more gravitas (especially since Jar Jar is reduced to a few lines).
• One thing the movie does better than The Phantom Menace is immersing the audience in the settings. This is because the scenes in Attack of the Clones (and Revenge of the Sith) are not nearly as static. Most of TPM’s middle consisted of characters sitting in a circle and talking, which showed less of the worlds around them. With the other two prequel movies, more effort is put into staging each scene so that the characters interact with the world, and we in turn see how certain environments work. In Attack of the Clones, we see city traffic, nightclubs, diners, refugee transportation, hyperspace docking rings, more insides of the Jedi Temple, youngling training, the Jedi Archives, clone birth and training, droid building, and more. These are details that show worlds that are alive, creditable, and immersive.
• I like the Kaminoans. I don’t even know why, but I found it refreshing that they welcome Obi-Wan so cordially and speak in such a calm, civilized manner. This is probably meant in service of the story, to contrast this zen-like business transaction with the brutality of clone warfare. But what helps even more is that it gives us the unexpected—going into Kamino, Obi-Wan could have faced hostility, but what we see instead is confusing and cryptic. Our confusions matches Obi-Wan’s, but he catches on that the Kaminoans have mistaken him for somebody else and he rolls with it for more information. Pretty sly move, not only for him to gain information but also to give us more exposition. In the end though, the Kaminoans are a pretty groovy race of aliens that look distinctive and live in a very distinctive environment. 

Even Nute Gunray can't stand watching this stuff.

• One minor villain makes a surprise re-appearance: Nute Gunray. What I love about his scenes is that the film succeeds in characterizing him as a slimy coward. It only took a few short scenes during the arena fight to show this: first by having him turn away from the violence, then showing him protest when Padme fights back. Nute is officially one of the best villains I love to hate in these movies.
• Sound design—I may gripe about how some sounds in the prequels are repeated annoyingly, but Attack of the Clones really blows me away. One of the biggest and most awe-inspiring uses of sound is the seismic charges Jango drops in the asteroid field—just a few seconds of silence, then a huge metallic bang, and it sounds so punchy and powerful. Watching those things go off always gave me chills.
• One of the greater triumphs of the sound design might be the Geonosian language. The other movies have pretty wild sounds for their aliens (especially A New Hope’s bar scene), but this is a language that genuinely sounds like something bug people would say, and it is as alien as it gets. No human tongue could possibly recreate it, but we hear it in full, organic sentences and phrases. It’s a superb aspect of the world-building.
• John Williams’ score is on-point as usual. It’s very radical how he incorporates an electric guitar during the Coruscant chase scenes. But the biggest standout is easily the Love Theme, which is a grand, sweeping score that exudes a sense of romance, wonder, and conflict. You know, all the things we should be seeing in the movie. It’s encapsulated in the music perfectly, and the theme always manages to hit me in the feels.
• As usual, there are a few standout scenes that draw the eye through their composition and meaning. Some of the best shots in the movie are:
• The opening approach to Coruscant, fog and chrome and all.
• When Anakin speeds off to search for Shmi, there’s a pretty decent montage of sunset scenes, ending with a wide shot of Anakin questioning Jawas in front of a red sky.
• When Anakin fights Dooku, the camera focuses on their faces against a dark background while the red and blue light of the lightsabers light them up. It is a visually theatrical (and stunning) way of toying around with the light and darkness, and it kinda makes me wonder if this effect was inspired from Henri-Georges Clouzot’s unfinished film Inferno, in which rotating colored lights achieve the same effect.
• The second-to-last scene in the movie, Palpatine and some other guys look down from a balcony and watch the clone army mobilize.

This Is Getting Out of Hand. Now There Are Two Plots!

The strangest thing to reconcile with Attack of the Clones is its plot. I always felt it hit up all the same notes as The Empire Strikes Back just fine, but without a major reveal and with the structure flipped backwards. On closer inspection, it’s apparent that the film also strived to encompass a lot more. It’s a sweeping romance in the midst of war—essentially the same as Doctor Zhivago, the film of which was well over three hours. Attack of the Clones also features a huge mystery subplot, and along the way that includes assassination attempts on Padme, a chase scene on Coruscant, encountering the Fetts, an asteroid chase, and a whole mess of stuff on Geonosis. There are some lingering plot threads from the last movie that needed to be addressed (namely, Anakin’s mom). There are threads in the next movie that needed to connect (all the politics, Anakin’s continuing arc). Really, it’s too much for just one film.

The overall structure generally works, and I don’t mind that it splits the POV between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Unfortunately, both threads have their issues.

Too Afraid to Tease a Senator

Deep inside of me there's a ten-year-old barfing at this.

Anakin’s narrative is the one that should take the center stage. There is a problem though—because this plotline is modelled after the sweeping romantic epic of Doctor Zhivago, the film by nature abandons its actual roots as serialized pulp adventure. There is a fundamental difference in genres, and Star Wars works at its best when it’s quick, punchy, campy, and perhaps a little imperfect. Just about every beat leads to another through continual problems (or peril) that stacks up. It becomes a chain of one thing leading to another. And none of that happens with Anakin and Padme when they’re on Naboo and Tatooine. In order to capture the gravitas of the epic romance, the film slows way the hell down and forces our focus on the two leads, expecting us to feel for their relationship.

Alas, this doesn’t work. Biggest problem is that the chemistry between the characters is dull—partly because the performances are stiff, and also because the lines are horrible. Romantic chemistry works when the characters can connect on a level that’s more than physical, which means that the characters should share something in common. The only thing Anakin and Padme share is a cute little joke about “aggressive negotiations.” That’s like a one-liner that would have been fitting in a James Bond film. Up that point, Anakin keeps creeping on her and everything he says is something awkward, cringey, and unnatural in tone. It almost plays out as if he whines and whines and whines until she caves.

I feel as though there’s an attempt at conflict. There’s friction between the two as Anakin makes his moves and Padme resists them. But this only happens at certain moments—it’s nonexistent for entire scenes (such as the waterfall or dinner scenes), and it makes those scenes drag more. The scenes on Tatooine pick up more because they have a goal—to find Shmi—so there’s a sense of mystery, discovery, and ultimately violence that has to be reconciled.

I can’t help but to think they only went to Naboo and Tatooine because of the whims of the script—these scenes just had to happen, so the film pushed the characters in that direction in a stiff, artificial manner. The little staycation on Naboo feels especially convenience, since we all know that Anakin and Padme have to fall in love eventually, and Anakin couldn’t ask for a better opportunity than to hang out by the lake with her.

Storm Kamino, See Dem Cloners

LOOK AT ALL THESE SPECIAL EFFECTS!

Obi-Wan’s mission to track down Jango Fett is the more interesting half, if for no other reason than it’s driven purely by mystery and action. It is a string of events that shows us (rather than tell) how the clone army is created and what the Confederacy is up to. This is also where a few of the more interesting setpieces—Obi-Wan fighting Jango in the rain, and the asteroid field chase—happen.

What Obi-Wan finds out is that the Jedi Archives were tampered with, and whoever did it got away with it because the Jedi are so confident in their system that “if it’s not in the archives, it doesn’t exist!” Only younglings and Yoda can think beyond that box. Once on the trail, Obi-Wan finds the Kamino cloners, but seeing as this a movie about the Clone Wars, this is unsurprising. We see the Confederacy building a droid army, but so what? We’ve seen them in the last movie too. Count Dooku tells Obi-Wan that the Jedi and Republic have been compromised, but knowing who Palpatine is, this does nothing but poke holes at any dramatic irony the films manage to hold up.

I can accept the Confederacy army as it is—it’s explained that it’s a combination of the Trade Federation and the Techno Union Army. But the clones had to have been grown some years ago, and the film’s explanation is that some random Jedi named Sifo Dyas placed an order for them without anybody else’s knowledge. This is weird as it is—how does one order a million clones? Is it a website? Mail-order? TV shopping network? More head-scratching is that Obi-Wan recognizes the name and claims he passed away ten years ago. But Sifo Dyas is a fake identity set up by Count Dooku and Sidious, so how did Obi-Wan (and possibly other Jedi) ever know of him? How did Sifo Dyas gain any kind of reputation if he never really existed?

Frankly, name-dropping Sifo Dyas always felt off to me—it’s a significant plot enabler that’s never addressed again. We simply have to accept that Sidious ordered the clones and expected the Republic to pick up the bill. For a galactic-wide civilization—one that’s described as having a burgeoning bureaucracy nonetheless—it seems very fast and loose that the Jedi Council learns of the clone army, asks a few questions, but goes ahead and uses them anyway for the Geonosis battle. Who does get that bill anyway? Do clones come with warranties?

The clone army is a product, and I can understand it being treated as one. It still feels off and ridiculous to me that the army’s development and deployment is treated like an Amazon package. One million personnel, each with armor, weapons, and vehicles, takes a huge amount of logistical leverage that the film seems to hand-wave by showing us spaceships appearing when they’re needed. I find it hard to believe that the Kaminoans would release all these clones all at once without some assurance that their bill would be paid, or some kind of contract set up with the Republic. I find it hard to accept that the Republic would just roll with picking up the bill and using the army without debate or pushback (although this is probably something that’s circumvented with Palpatine’s emergency powers). Above all, I find it hard to swallow that the clones arrive on Geonosis so fast.

Shade Runner

Following Obi-Wan’s trail felt more and more like a stretch the more I scrutinized it.

In all the gin joints in all the galaxy, you had to go to this one...

See if you can dig this: Obi-Wan finds a dart off of Zam’s body, so he visits his ol’ buddy Dex running a diner (…a freaking diner, are you kidding me?) A trip to the Jedi Archives comes gives him no information because their librarian is an a-hole. Yoda and his students gives Obi-Wan the idea that the archives could have been tampered with, so he flies off to Kamino. He meets/fights Jango Fett there, who very visibly seems to be up to something shady. Obi-Wan tracks Jango to Geonosis, where they fight in an asteroid field and Jango tries quite convincingly to outrun and kill Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan tricks him, then sneaks around the planet until he’s captured.

At face value, it looks as though Obi-Wan had caught Jango unaware, and that felt off to me. To accept this means accepting that Jango flew off to Kamino and stayed there for no particular reason. Then he flew to Geonosis for no particular reason (I mean, sure, his employers were there, but if he just fought a Jedi he could have gone anywhere else in the galaxy to avoid being tracked. He is a bounty hunter, right?) To have Obi-Wan stumble across all this seems overly-convenient.

Unless you think about this from the villains’ perspective. In order for Sidious’ plan to take shape, he needed war to break out. That meant leading the Jedi to Kamino and Geonosis on purpose, so they can put two-and-two together and alert the Republic. With the threat of civil war, Palpatine’s emergency powers are granted, and he gets what he wants. All of this hinges on Obi-Wan making the discovery—it didn’t have to be Obi-Wan specifically, and it didn’t matter if Padme is successfully assassinated or not, so long as some Jedi somewhere follows the clues. Leaving this up to Count Dooku to figure out, Dooku leaves it up to Jango to lay down the trail (while simultaneously trying to take out Padme).

This means that Jango might have planted the Kaminoan dart on purpose—not to silence Zam necessarily, but to plant the first clue that Obi-Wan follows. On Kamino, Jango would have waited patiently, then go through the motions of fleeing with the expectation that Obi-Wan would follow. In this light, the plot actually seems to make more sense.

A Simple Man at the Center of the Universe

In The Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett was a minor villain we loved to watch, if for no other reason than because he has an awesome helmet and costume. He didn’t do much in reality, but his ominous voice and stoic mannerisms suggested a cold man of business capable of some dirty business. Easily the best shady character in the series.

By Grapthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged!

Just as Lucas brought back C-3PO and Jabba the Hutt in The Phantom Menace, he seemed very hellbent to bring Boba back and give more of his backstory. I do like how he rounds off the scenes with young Boba—the shot of him holding Jango’s helmet is pretty sobering, and it foreshadows things to come. It’s one of the very few scenes in the movie that achieves a greater meaning through mere imagery, just as a good film should do.

And yet, the inclusion of the Fetts in Attack of the Clones always struck me as simply feeding the fans more nostalgia. Bringing in Jango/Boba as bounty hunters is fine and all, but the film really grates on me when it pushes Jango as the father of all the clones. That’s one million Jango Fetts working for the Republic. I’m not sure if this is on Palpatine’s orders or what. I suppose it’s creditable that Jango donated his DNA, got paid for it, and that’s that. But I can’t help but to ask why? What makes Jango so special that he has to be the source?

Jango is literally just a dude. He describes himself as “a simple man making my way through the universe.” He can stand toe-to-toe with Obi-Wan only because of armor and gadgets. Years of bounty-hunting probably gave him instinct and reflexes. But for a cloned killing machine, couldn’t the Republic have done better?

I’d argue that the Kaminoans should have used a candidate with greater physical strength and muscle. Imagine how intimidating and spectacular it would have been to see an army of Dolph Lundgren types mowing down the droid army? As it is, I feel like Lucas made the decision to clone Jango because of the love of the character, but without really addressing what it is that makes Jango and Boba work. We don’t love them because they can fight and become an army. We love them for their mystique, which is eroded slightly (and perhaps cheapened) by making them something they are not.

You know what would have been more creditable? If the Kaminoans cloned Chuck Norris. A million Chuck Norrises would have conquered the galaxy for Palpatine in a matter of days. The Jedi wouldn’t even stand a chance, and it would have been spectacular to see.

Machines Making Machines?

In a previous post, I finally came around to realizing how useless the Podrace scene in Episode I actually is. I can still watch and enjoy it for all its action beats and such, but I can see why it may be considered a drag. It goes to show that some action scenes are sometimes shoved into a story for no real purpose.

This happens again in Attack of the Clones when Anakin and Padme snoop around Geonosis and stumble their way into a droid factory. For like ten minutes or more, they both have to fight Geonosian guards while avoiding the perils of the factory’s machines. At the same time C-3PO bumbles around and has his head swapped with a battle droid’s body (this ultimately happens because R2-D2 shoved him for some reason, then R2 flies across the factory and saves Padme from death).

It’s fun and all, but if you cut the scene out of the movie little changes. All the heroes are captured in the end, C-3PO has his head cut off, Anakin loses a lightsaber (but gains more sabers later), but that’s all that happens.

As I understand it, this scene didn’t really exist in the original draft. It was an impromptu decision to have all these shenanigans added in, and it kinda shows in how it happens so suddenly. It’s technically impressive how the actors performed on an all-green studio and the VFX artists literally painted the factory around them—it looks really sharp and real at times.

The problem is, for the amount of time this goes on the story doesn’t move forward at all. No new character beats are established (other than maybe showing more of Anakin’s recklessness). The film teases us a few times, almost to the point of pranking us—we’re teased that Anakin might lose his hand (but doesn’t) and that Padme might be killed with lava (which the editing makes you gasp when it seems like it happens, but doesn’t—very mean trick there, George). You could argue that the scene shows us how droids are made, but we’ve already seen that briefly when Obi-Wan first landed on the planet. So…what’s the point again?

The Shroud of the Dark Side Has Fallen

There are a few other specific things that bug me in this movie.

• Count Dooku is a strange villain to reconcile. I can't fault Christopher Lee, or the decision to cast him, because he's absolutely delicious to watch in this role, and fresh in the zeitgeist thanks to his simultaneous appearance as Saruman. I suspect Lucas penned Dooku as a deliberate callback to Lee's role as Count Dracula in the 70s (because think about it: Dracula, Dooku, both are counts, and behind the scenes Lucas pulled out a vampire Yoda statue for a laugh). When reading the novelization for Revenge of the Sith, I was intrigued to see Dooku portrayed as a pompous, elitist kind of person who looked down on Anakin and other characters. I feel like this is what he's supposed to be, but none of these characteristics come through in the films. His motivations are never revealed (other than he works for Sidious). He spends most of the movies looking rigid, says a few evil things, and fights a few times. That's it. I wish there was more action or dialogue that revealed his character more.
• In the same light as the above, there is an odd scene where Dooku interrogates Obi-Wan, and he says some cryptic (possibly untrue things) and tries to turn Obi-Wan to the Dark Side. This should be a significant moment, same as Vader tempting Luke. It falls completely flat, and the dialogue always confused me. It doesn't help that the delivery is so bland.
• Did I really need to see Dex pulling his pants up?
• Anakin joy-riding a fat-bottomed cow creature. It was a cheesy, weird, cringey scene in 2002, and remains so today.
• R2-D2 and his rockets. R2 is a good character and all, but I did not need to see him take flight and whiz around like he did. In a way, it feels like a shortcut for him to traverse the droid factory.
• When Padme and Anakin kiss finally, this serious, romantic moment is interrupted by a high-pitched “hiyah!” from a droid. This is the kind of nonsense that makes the prequel sound design grating, because I can’t stop laughing at this random “hiyah!” moment.
• Same thing happens when Count Dooku takes off in his sailboat thing. The droid pilot says some nonsense that sounds like “yippie hayo horsey.” That kind of phrasing can’t be unheard, and once again I can’t stop laughing.

Funny thing is, the more I think back on the movie and write about it the more I admire it. Action scenes may be frivolous, but they are ambitious and exciting. Acting and writing may be janky, but the overall story has an appealing structure. For every bland or cringey aspect, there is something else that’s kind of awesome.

There are many missed opportunities with this film, but what we have is an interesting piece of pulp science fantasy that delivers a few spectacles we had never seen before. I might always admire the film for its finale, even if the build-up to it is a confusing slog.

Well, it’s Star Wars all the same and the movie does succeed in lining things up for a promising third film.

They'll keep fighting, and they'll win!