Attack of the Clones

[andrewducker]

Finally, getting around to this, before commenting on Attack of the Clones becomes completely passe, and people starting commenting on Episode 3 instead...

I liked it, a lot. I disagree with most of the criticisms I've heard of it, so I'm gonna rant about those first:
1) Anakin is too whiny. Is he fuck. I've been 20. I've hung around with a lot of 20 year olds, many of whom listen(ed) to loud rock music and wore lots of black. Anakin's not even close to whiny. He's about as angsty as you'd expect from a 20 year old. I can see why they start training Jedi at age 2 (or whenever), because they bloody well need to have their emotions under control by the time they reach 13, or "Bam!" it's dark side time. So I thought he was portrayed just fine.
2) Love scenes being dull. I didn't find that at all. I also didn't find them to be unrealistic (within the style of the film). Two people, thrust together in an unusual, stressful situation. He's been hot for her for years. He's her protector (ooh, bodyguard situation), broody, wears lots of black, obviously needs to be mothered (nightmares, the poor thing) and hell, he saved her life. Anyway, I hear all the girls love a Jedi.
3) Confusing plot. Nope. Wasn't confused for a second. Sure, there's still some things we don't know (why Sidious is arranging things exactly the way he is), but I'm sure that'll be explained later. In the meantime, I didn't spot any gaping holes.

Sure, the dialogue was occasionally bad (you get the feeling that George never really reads his dialogue out loud. It's all very functional, but doesn't really sound like real people. If he actually talking the actors through how he wanted it to sound, I suspect it'd get a few more rewrites), but I can forgive that in this kind of film in the same way that I can forgive Disney films for having sickly sweet songs - it's just part of the territory.

The special effects were beyond special. When we got to the bar scene, I basically thought "I have no idea if he's wandering through a dark room full of people who are CGI'd later on, or if he's wandering through a big blue room with the whole thing matted in later." Suddenly none of it mattered. When the CGI is indistringuishable from the real things, you don't need to go "Ooh, cool CGI any more, it's all just real. And that's fantastic.

Having had it hammered home that George liked Saturday Morning Serials, I was watching out a bit, and I have to say that Coruscant looked like the wet dream of the designers of Metropolis and Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Oh, and later on, that was definitely a scene from 1 million years BC, complete with the modern equivalent of a pet lizard filled in extreme close-up.

The Jedi fight scenes were all lovely. The bit with Anakin's mum was amazingly fantastic (the bit where he lost it gave me the shivers). Jar Jar being manipulated was an extremely nice touch.

Things I didn't like: the 2 terrible attempts at humour. "What a drag" and "I'm beside myself" both stuck out as being out of context - C3PO has never made jokes before, so either he started out with a sense of humour that's never mentioned other than there, or he's supposed to have been funny unintentionally. Either way it didn't work for me. On the other hand, the humor inherent in his head on the wrong body was just fine with me. Stupid and unlikely, yes. Fun, yes! The other thing was (and I admit that I'm probably the only person on the planet who feels this way) the battle scene went on too long. Not the Jedi battle scene (which was amazingly cool) but the assault afterwards. It felt a bit directionless, you weren't sure which side was winning, what the various ships were, etc. etc. It was just one pretty explosion after another. This was fine for the first two minutes, but after that I wanted to care about something again, not just watch the pretty explosions.

But those are two pretty minor gripes in an otherwise great film. It didn't grab me as much as it could have done, but it definitely gave me a high, and I had a big grin on my face for pretty much the whole thing. I think I have to see it a second time before I can give a definitive score, but I'm going to give it a tentative 8 for the moment (checking my IMDB ratings, that makes it as good as
The Mummy, Batman, Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan)

Comments

[derumi.livejournal.com]

I didn't find anything confusing about the plot, I thought a lot of it was well done, if forced. Overall, I thought it was a good movie. I imagine it doesn't seem that way when you read my review, but I can't help comparing it to the other Star Wars movies and the other blockbuster that came out earlier.

I thought "What a drag" was funny, but when that next bad joke kicked in, it made both unfunny. Overdone. Anyhoo, I did like the movie. I could've bought popcorn and still not think I was wasting money. There's not too many movies like that, and I got to see two of them this year. (Death to Smoochie, unfortunately, I bought popcorn for.)

Confusing

[wordofblake.livejournal.com]

The only bit that confused me was when they'd all split up and Obi Wan was in a dark sandy place and Anakin was in a dark sandy place and they suddenly cut between them.

I saw Obi Wan go round a corner and then... tents? what were they doing in tents? oh they're sand people.

Re: Confusing

[andrewducker]

Yeah, but I can forgive them for causing a couple of seconds confusion. Long term confusion doesn't do a lot for me, but a few moments is just fine. In fact, itgives me a feeling of "Oooh, right." when it becomes clear, which is kinda cool.

done to death

[andrewducker]

You're right. What a drag was actually kinda funny. It was the repetition of a similar joke within 10 seconds that ruined it.

[lapis-lazuli.livejournal.com]

Hey... I kinda wandered randomly to your journal and I like the way you write.

I expected to hate this film but I ended up really liking it, and I agree with the points you mentioned above. I would add that it just felt like it took the actors about half the movie to settle into their characters. They were all so stiff in the beginning, that I thought to myself, "this is the first time I've ever seen Samuel L Jackson just reading lines instead of acting". The scene with Anakin and Padme after he gets back from the raiders' camp is when it turned around for me. He nailed that scene in a big, serious way.

Those sonic flares were way cool. I didn't mind CGI Yoda as much as I thought I would (and I'm glad he was CGI all the way through and consistent, because otherwise that lightsabre fight would have looked out of context). I didn't think the plot was difficult to understand, and I was impressed that it was subtle instead of heavy-handed. As one of my friends commented, it's easy for things to seem contrived when you know what the plot has lead to, but it's harder to make those expected transitions seem interesting instead of obvious.

Anyway, sorry to rattle on in your journal... just thought I'd say hi and offer my comments.

-LL