Review of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) by Robert B — 01 Nov 2015

Rating: 8/10.

I'll tell you this immediately, Attack of the Clones was my least favourite of the series and I've watched it only once, when I first viewed it about 10 years ago. I was a bit disappointed by this movie when I first watched. But a large part of my disappointment came from the fact that I had too many expectations and I've already imagined the story in my head after having watched Revenge of the Sith first, contrary to The Phantom Menace. But there were few things that I did like about this movie as the scenes in Kamino and the battle of Geonosis. Sometimes, a few years back, I happen to pop my old DVD in my computer and watch those specific scenes and skip all the romantic scenes between Anakin and Padme. But I also used to do that with The Empire Strikes Back by skipping all the romantic scenes between Han and Leia.

I used to find love stories boring and awkward, not just in Star Wars, but in every movies, when I was a teenager. I remember once, in one of my classes of literature, when we were studying the book El-Cid, which is a French tragicomic drama written by Pierre Corneille, our teacher showed us the movie El-Cid from 1961 directed by Anthony Mann featuring Charlton Heston as the protagonist. And since there were a lot of romantic scenes in the movie, many of my friends around me used to mock it and I was too busy thinking to myself: "Come on! Come on! Hurry up! Skip! Skip!".

But going back to Attack of the Clones, I've watched this movie two times this week-end in order to clarify my thoughts about it. The first time I've watched it, Friday evening, I wasn't really in a good mood in order to enjoy it during the first half of the movie since I was apprehending the romance scenes which were spoken so negatively during the last 13 years and from which I was embarrassed when watching this movie for the first time when I was a teenager.

But when arriving to the specific scene of the fireplace, when Anakin wanted to confess his love for Padme, something struck me and sounded suddenly familiar. Since I didn't watch the movie in English, I've watched it in French from Canada instead (I understand both English and French), I've realized that it wasn't Lucas' writing and script that were the problem for that specific scene. The lines and dialogue were the same in both English and French, with very few exceptions. The only difference is that the dialogue and the romantic lines sounded much better and more convincing in French than in English.

The reason why those lines sounded familiar to me is because I remember that during my classes of literature we came across many romantic poems and drama plays. The one that came back to my mind was a French play which is still very popular today in France, Cyrano de Bergerac, which is a screenplay made of many poems written by Edmond Rostand in the late 19th century. But even if the play was written in the 19th century, the story takes place in the 17th century, a more classic era in France with the revival of art and literature. The play is very hard to come across, particularly the dialogue, and the lines for the main character are very imposing and it takes a lot of training for the ones who have to act in the theater. I remember when I had to read the book, it was just painful trying to understand the lines and I had to ask a lot of help from my teacher.

So I'm pretty sure that Lucas must have taken its inspiration from those kinds of writings in order to write the dialogue during that specific scene, which, I think, is kind of a good idea and very audacious if you want to illustrate a more classic and civilized era in the Star Wars universe. But the reason, I think, why those lines sounded bad is because of the way they were delivered by the actors, it wasn't the lines themselves. As I said earlier, this usually takes a lot of training for the ones who have to act and say those kinds of lines. I've compared the same scene on the fireplace in both English and French, and the persons who had to do the voice acting in French did a better job in order to deliver those lines than the actors themselves.

But I'll be among the people who acknowledge that the romance does feel forced on the first scene when Anakin and Padme are in front of the lake on Naboo, but also too honeyed and cliché and some parts. And despite what I've described earlier concerning the dialogue on the fireplace scene, it doesn't cover some of the "questionable" lines I would say, especially the line with "sand" which made me scratch my head a little bit. But I think that you have to keep in mind that the main difference between the romance between Han and Leia in The Empire Strikes Back, and the one between Anakin and Padme is that we are dealing with different characters on two different time period. The romance between an outlaw and a princess in a time of civil war is a very seductive concept, especially for the nerd world, and that might be why it works better. In Attack of the Clones we are dealing with a romance between two people who have both strategic and important roles in a more civilized and classic society, a time period before the war. One is a senator and is responsible to represent her people before the government and the entire galaxy and was before Queen, the other one is the guardian of peace and justice and is also responsible for her protection. With such important roles, I rather think that it should be easy to understand why they are not allowed to succumb to their passion and why this romance may sound wobbly and forced.

With that being said, it could be hard to believe that Anakin and Padme are falling in love for the first time in that movie. However, I won't suggest that there weren't any emotional connection or any care between the two before the events on that movie. And I think that one of the reasons why this romance seemed to have happened too suddenly to many fans and viewers is because many of them have discarded The Phantom Menace previously. There's a key scene in The Phantom Menace, that I haven't paid any attention to it until having watched the movie lately, suggesting that there was already a connection starting to rise between Anakin and Padme. It's the scene after they are leaving Tatooine and Anakin gives to Padme a necklace as a present, and Padme says to him: "Many things will change when we'll reach the capital Ani. But my caring for you will never leave.".

To conclude about the romantic side of the movie, yes it's not perfect and it's wobbly on many parts, especially concerning the way the lines are being delivered. But you know, I've seen far worst and much sillier love stories in other movies and TV series than Attack of the Clones. The romance scene could have been better, especially when finding that the voice-acting in French was better than the actors themselves delivering the lines, making those scenes more convincing than I originally thought it would be. And with that being said, I think that we can agree that Lucas is at the same the solution and the problem for his saga. He can have many great and ambitious ideas but sometimes it's the way he exposes them that can be problematic.

Concerning the other aspects of the movie I'll get to it immediately. Globally, after facing the fact that the romance and the dialogue weren't as bad and I thought after all these years, I've found that Attack of the Clones was a more enjoyable movie than The Phantom Menace when watching it for the second time. Contrary to The Phantom Menace, the pacing seems to be a little bit faster, especially in the second half of the movie, and it felt to be lighter than the first prequel in which the heaviness of its script leaden its pace. Visually, this movie is stunning and I really liked the color scheme in each different scenes. I liked the atmosphere of the movie being one of doubt and ambiguity and the different color scheme help to translate this atmosphere to the viewer. I enjoyed all the scenes with Obi-Wan doing the detective work and Kamino remains one of my favourite locations in the movie alongside Geonosis and Coruscant during the night. The action sequences and the chase with the speeders through Coruscant are still cool until today. The story told in this movie is more interesting to follow and richer on this time period than the prologue presented in The Phantom Menace,and there's a lot more of things going one.

My favourite moment on that movie is when Anakin decides to go and look for his kidnapped mother on the hot desert of Tatooine and when you hear the Duel of the Fates score playing, another of my favourite score, making it another powerful moment in the saga, meaning that Aankin's fate has already been sealed. My other little favourite moment is the shadow play when Padme goes to see Anakin and he tells her to wait for him. Has anyone ever noticed that Anakin's head, on his shadow, looks almost exactly like the Darth Vader's helmet? I've never listened to the DVD or Blu-Ray comments but was the reason behind the choice of Anakin's hair style for Episode II and to film his shadow instead of him on that scene were the reasons to show the Darth Vader shadow on that specific moment?

My little disappointment is that I would have liked if Count Dooku was given more time on screen, especially since it's Christopher Lee playing the character. The other thing that I've found wasn't right is the CGI in this movie. Strangely enough, the CGI used in The Phantom Menace looked better than inAttack of the Clones despite the fact that the second prequel is a more recent movie than Episode I. I don't know if it's because they were using the digital technology for the first time on this movie and it hasn't been done on any other movies before. Even the CGI Yoda in The Phantom Menace (a more recent version than the first CGI Yoda used in 2002 since the change has been done in 2011) looked better than Episode II, particularly in terms of the textures for his skin. Even the clone troopers seemed to be a little bit too shiny. But the CGI still remained very good for the battle droids, the Geonosians and also the 3 big monsters used in the arena for the execution. The special effects mostly hold up very well, but some adjustments and work might be needed on some of the textures for the CGI. I would also admit that Hayden's acting on this movie isn't particularly good, especially on the scene when he reveals that he has killed the Sand people on Tatooine. It even sounded a bit clumsy even when watching it in French.

One of the arguments against this movie (excluding the romance) that can be discarded is that many people have complained about the speeder chase in Coruscant and the scenes with Anakin and Padme in the droid factory being nothing else than fillers. But you know what? The same thing can be easily said about the giant worm trying to eat the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back and the speeder bike chase on Endor in Return of the Jedi. :p.

To conclude about Attack of the Clones: I ended up liking it very well, maybe a little bit more than The Phantom Menace, which I still appreciated it. Who knows? And since this movie went up in my estimation and I no longer let myself be surrounded by all the negativity after having watched it for the second time, my rating certainly has gone up from what I've given previously.

I'll give Attack of the Clones a score of 8/10.