Tiresome, it gets
In 1977, when I was eight years old, my father took the whole
family to see Star Wars. That film, as legend has it,
changed not only the way in which movies were made (in terms of
technological sophistication), but how audiences received film
as well. Star Wars was a marketing juggernaut and
all-around cultural event, replete with never-before-seen hype.
And I bought in. Although dad didn't pack us all into the family
car for the next two installments of the franchise, I made sure
I was in line each subsequent opening weekend, to see the
further adventures of Luke, Leia, and Han as they fought to save
the galaxy from the machinations of the evil Empire. This is to
say I, like so many others, have a lengthy history with the
Star Wars series, and in many ways am precisely the sort
of viewer director George Lucas is banking on.
Well, maybe not precisely. For me, Star Wars occupies a
specific place in idealized memories of my own childhood, and I
like to keep it that way. Okay, we all knew, even back then,
that the first three films were Episodes 4, 5, and 6, and that
inevitably Lucas would return to tell the first half of the
story. But we also knew, even then, that there was no real need.
Any attempt to represent the backstory was destined to fail in
comparison to fans' enthusiastic imaginings of same.
Such doubts were, of course, shown to be well-founded, on the
release of The Phantom Menace in 1999. The film was
largely panned by critics and casual viewers alike -- even if
many fans were a bit more forgiving. While visually stunning,
Episode I's characters were flat, the story labored, and
Jake Lloyd's Anakin Skywalker cloying.
While Lucas is a technical genius, he's never been the most
innovative director. And though he wisely handed the helm over
to others for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of
the Jedi (Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand,
respectively), he decided to stick with it himself for the
prequels. Considering the shortcomings of Episode I, the
question on everyone's mind is whether Episode II will be
marked by similar failures of plot and characterization.
It is. And I for one actually think it's worse than The
Phantom Menace. The major problems with Attack of the
Clones are its repetition of previous Star Wars
tropes, needlessly long action and romance sequences, and an
incessant overstating of the obvious. Part of this might be due
to the fact that, as Lucas acknowledged in Vanity Fair,
the film is targeted specifically to 12-year-olds. Even if this
is the case, Lucas apparently presumes pre-teens to be somewhat
dense. Young viewers have pretty sophisticated reading
abilities, and could easily follow the rather complicated plot
without the verbal cues and reminders Lucas and co-scriptwriter
Jonathan Hales provide throughout.
Early in the film, for example, Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and
Anakin (Hayden
Christensen) chase down a would-be assassin of Senator Amidala
(Natalie Portman). They catch the bad girl, but before she can
fess up to who hired her, she is killed by a toxic dart. Obi-Wan
observes: "It's a toxic dart." Ooof! This insight comes at the
end of a chase that is about ten minutes too long and sets the
tone for the rest of the movie.
As if clunky and repetitive dialogue weren't bad enough,
Attack of the Clones is further diminished by the central
role played by the Jedi-Master
Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz). He is this film's Jar Jar Binks,
whose own role is cut mercifully short. Yoda has always been a
little annoying in his sanctimonious piety, and very bothersome
for his trademark backwards Yoda-speak. Tiresome, it gets. He's
best when he shuts up altogether, as in a scene in Clones
where the little green one wields The Force and his light-saber
in battle. While you may feel some dread when this scene begins,
Lucas and the
ILM crew actually do an impressive job. Yoda flips around like
some demonic gyroscope. It's pretty cool.
Special effects have never been the problem for the franchise,
and Attack of the Clones follows suit. The film is
absolutely beautiful to look at. The settings have a realistic
feeling, especially the capital of the Republic, the urban
planet Coruscant, of which we see a good deal in the beginning
of the film. The rendering of battles, droids, alien creatures,
and technological gadgetry easily dazzle and show Lucas at his
creative best. If only he would lavish such care on pace and
narrative coherence.
To be fair, Lucas is working against his own storytelling here.
There are so very many characters playing central roles in the
second half of the series, and accounting for all of their
geneses (while introducing new, mass-marketable figures) is
tricky indeed. The most tortured character development in
Clones is the bounty hunter Boba Fett (Daniel Logan).
Boba has a central role in the last two episodes, but his story,
as told here, is just a little too convenient. It's as if in all
the vastness of the Star Wars galaxy, the same figures
and families keep running into each other. As it is the genesis
of
Boba and his relationship to his bounty hunter father Jango
(Temuera Morrison) is just one more dysfunctional father-son
dynamic in an already overburdened family drama.
Lucas seems to recognize the complications of his sprawling epic
and does try to account for some of the inconsistencies that
arose in the last film. One of the things that most befuddled me
about The Phantom Menace were the droid armies used by
the dastardly Trade Federation. While they showcased ILM's f/x
wizardry, they made little sense in narrative terms. Why would
the villains of Episode I use these technologically
advanced robot soldiers while in the future of Episode
IV, the Empire's armies are manned by real live people
inside Stormtrooper armor? Attack of the Clones answers
this question rather convincingly by offering up the clone army
alluded to in the title and that will ultimately exterminate the
Rebel Alliance under the direction of Darth Vader. It is also
made perfectly clear that the vaguely sinister Supreme
Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) will shortly become the
ruler of the galactic Empire.
Yet even these gestures toward making the long-term story cohere
can't save this newest Star Wars feature. Of course none
of this will really matter to SW fanatics or summer
moviegoers. Like its predecessor, Episode II is sure to
be a big, in-theaters-all-summer-long blockbuster. Nevertheless,
if, by most accounts, The Phantom Menace was too darn
cute, Attack of the Clones will likely be remembered as
cluttered with inconsequential character and plot details and
excessive special effects.
— 15 May 2002
