My take on the Attack of the Clones
Jun. 1st, 2002 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerI've seen a few people talk about Attack of the Clones, and I've finally seen it myself. Here are my impressions...
Most of what I've heard are complaints, so I went in expecting a bad movie held together with awesome special effects. Instead, I saw what I think of as a pretty good movie, with a few problems.
A lot of complaints centered around Anakin's portrayal. I think the problem was that Hayden Christenson had to try to portray something nearly impossible. He's supposed to get across that he's a phenomenally skilled jedi, with serious problems, that aren't visible to himself, and that will clearly lead to his becoming Darth Vader.
Overall, I think he succeeded, and I think if he'd done it differently, there'd be other complaints. I don't think it was possible to do Anakin "right". He has to go from sweet kid to good guy to major villian in such a way that a single show of bravery from his son is enough to turn him around.
I've seen complaints over Padme Amidala falling in love with him... he was creepy and posessive and so forth. But, at the same time, I can easily see him representing a simpler time, when "simple" heroics were enough to save the day. Some of the rest of the creepiness fades out if you assume that she feels the same way about him as he feels about her. The rest of it's necessary because this isn't a love story, it's a tragedy.
There's a joke going around that "It's all Jar-Jar's fault!"... I *DO* hope people realize that the reason they were going after Padme was probably to drive her off planet for the sole purpose of having Jar-Jar, alone, so that he could be manipulated.
There were things that drove me crazy.
"A poison dart!". Wow, I figured it was, like, a bomb or something... I never figured out that if someone gets hit by a tiny projectile, and then dies horribly, that it was probably poisoned.
"Someone erased the records". (this should be loud enough to shake the walls of a concrete bunker) *DUH*!!!!!!! If you want this to have any meaning at all, you *HAVE* to establish that the records *CAN NOT* be altered, and you don't establish that with a single librarian saying that it doesn't exist if it's not in the archives.
Overall, it was a good movie, in my opinion, but I do feel that the storytelling is not going well... I think a person needs to fill in too many gaps on their own to make things work.
Plus... if it turns out that Senator Palpatine is *NOT* the same person as Emporer Palpatine, I want it noted that I see this as a real possibility. Lucas seems to be going too far to avoid letting you realize who Darth Sidious really is.
Most of what I've heard are complaints, so I went in expecting a bad movie held together with awesome special effects. Instead, I saw what I think of as a pretty good movie, with a few problems.
A lot of complaints centered around Anakin's portrayal. I think the problem was that Hayden Christenson had to try to portray something nearly impossible. He's supposed to get across that he's a phenomenally skilled jedi, with serious problems, that aren't visible to himself, and that will clearly lead to his becoming Darth Vader.
Overall, I think he succeeded, and I think if he'd done it differently, there'd be other complaints. I don't think it was possible to do Anakin "right". He has to go from sweet kid to good guy to major villian in such a way that a single show of bravery from his son is enough to turn him around.
I've seen complaints over Padme Amidala falling in love with him... he was creepy and posessive and so forth. But, at the same time, I can easily see him representing a simpler time, when "simple" heroics were enough to save the day. Some of the rest of the creepiness fades out if you assume that she feels the same way about him as he feels about her. The rest of it's necessary because this isn't a love story, it's a tragedy.
There's a joke going around that "It's all Jar-Jar's fault!"... I *DO* hope people realize that the reason they were going after Padme was probably to drive her off planet for the sole purpose of having Jar-Jar, alone, so that he could be manipulated.
There were things that drove me crazy.
"A poison dart!". Wow, I figured it was, like, a bomb or something... I never figured out that if someone gets hit by a tiny projectile, and then dies horribly, that it was probably poisoned.
"Someone erased the records". (this should be loud enough to shake the walls of a concrete bunker) *DUH*!!!!!!! If you want this to have any meaning at all, you *HAVE* to establish that the records *CAN NOT* be altered, and you don't establish that with a single librarian saying that it doesn't exist if it's not in the archives.
Overall, it was a good movie, in my opinion, but I do feel that the storytelling is not going well... I think a person needs to fill in too many gaps on their own to make things work.
Plus... if it turns out that Senator Palpatine is *NOT* the same person as Emporer Palpatine, I want it noted that I see this as a real possibility. Lucas seems to be going too far to avoid letting you realize who Darth Sidious really is.
