Either George Lucas is a warped genius or an absolute moron, because we’re getting some very extreme reactions to Episode II.

Once again, we’ve been undercut. We know and love Darth Vader and we expect to see little Darth in Episode I; we get a sweet, cloying little boy, instead. Yuck.

Now in Attack of the Clones he’s older so we expect to see the badass Vaderism come out. Nope. Now he’s a whiny, arrogant teenage brat who falls madly in love with Padme Amidala, the former Queen of Naboo. Double yuck. Vader is remembered as many things, but brat is not one of them.

Thus does Episode II cause much hand-wringing and squirming amongst the Star Wars faithful and casual filmgoers. And rumblings of dissatisfaction are running rampant.

Except from two sources. The kids and the fans, the devoted fans who mull over every minutiae and revel in the mythology of the whole thing. And that is Star Wars’s true shameful secret, folks. Lucas cares not a whit about the average moviegoer. He wants to engage your children and the fans. Star Wars are (gasp) kids movies and to enjoy this chapter you have to see it as you would a child.

Episode II takes place ten years after Phantom Menace. The Republic is suffering from secession as frustrated solar systems have begun leaving under the leadership of Count Dooku, a former Jedi Knight who has left the Order. The greatest controversy lies ahead. Now discussion has begun on a vast army to replace the overwhelmed Jedi Knights who are rapidly losing members. The Republic has never needed an army before.

Enter Padme Amidala, now a Naboo senator. She is the chief opponent of this military creation act. It seems that someone wants to assassinate her. Against her wishes, Chancellor Palpatine, the future Emperor, suggests she be under the protection of two old friends: Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan pupil, Anakin Skywalker.

The two Jedi have changed since we last saw them. Obi-Wan has grown into his role as Anakin’s teacher, calm, confident, and reminiscent of the old hermit Luke meets in A New Hope (AKA Star Wars). He is no longer the brash warrior he was in Episode I. That little character flaw lies with Anakin. He has grown into quite the handsome Jedi. His power in the Force has exceeded expectations. And he’s a cocky, headstrong, and stubborn punk. Obi-Wan is exasperated with him.

It’s going to get worse and not in the way he suspects. Anakin still harbors feelings for the beautiful senator, even if to feel such emotions is forbidden. The Jedi are warrior monks. They have dedicated their lives to the Force and cannot betray their commitment to the ways of the Force, to the metaphysical mysteries of the universe; they cannot allow themselves to be attached to worldly things, regardless of its life-affirming feelings like passionate emotional connections. In a sense, training to be a Jedi requires sacrifice. Anakin has to make a choice: Does he choose to be a Jedi or to love?

Padme is delighted to see her old friends, but she is pleasantly surprised by Anakin. Anakin is truthfully delighted as well. Awkwardly so. Padme unwittingly emasculates him by saying he will always be the little boy on Tatooine, where they first met. It’s the last thing the smitten young man wants to hear.

Another attack is made on Padme by the bounty hunter, Zam Wessel, in a giddy and breathtaking chase through Coruscant’s Blade Runner-like megalopolis. Humorously, though not enough so, Obi-Wan chastises Anakin for his insane speeder piloting. Anakin apologizes by rote. He’s heard this before.

Finally, they track Wessel to a nightclub. Brilliantly, the differences between them come through again. Anakin wants to find her quickly. Obi-Wan wants a drink. Why a drink? Instead of them seeking her, she will take advantage and come to them, hoping to catch them unawares and kill them. Sure enough, Obi-Wan disarms (literally) Wessel when she is about to attack and the two confront her outside the nightclub. Before they can learn who hired her, she is killed by a mysterious dart.

Like Empire, the two heroes take separate paths. Obi-Wan is ordered to investigate the assassination attempt while Anakin is to protect Padme. When Anakin meets with Padme, she is not happy to be forced into this. Anakin calmly tells her that sometimes we have to set aside prideful feelings, something that will prove a fallacy where his own life is concerned. Impressed, she does admit that he has grown up. It is here where Anakin’s frustration shows as he whines about Obi-Wan’s lack of faith in him. The audience laughed during this, but I think this was intentional on Lucas’s part. The Force is strong but it can’t quell a teenager’s whininess.

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan once again proves how much he has changed. Before, he ridiculed his old master, Qui-Gon Jinn, for taking up with pathetic life forms. Now, after a fruitless search for the mysterious dart through the Jedi archives, he goes to seek help from a lower-class friend, a 300-hundred pound alien diner owner by the name of Dexter Jettster. True to his name, he’s been around and he tells Obi-Wan that the dart comes from Kamino. When Kenobi goes back to the archives to look up the planet, he can’t find it.

As Anakin and Padme travel to Naboo, they talk about Anakin’s commitment to the Jedi, that he is forbidden to love. He refers both to Padme and his mother in the scene. He has been taken away from his mother, who has been haunting him through dreams, and cannot be with Padme; his commitment comes at the price of being alone for the rest of his life. Ironically, Anakin tells Padme that Jedi can love unconditionally--Agape. But there is a world of difference between Agape and Eros, a difference Anakin will fail to recognize.

Obi-Wan’s investigations have turned up nothing so he sees Yoda. In a charming scene, we see the Jedi Master training young boys in the ways of the Force; they use their own lightsabers and floating seeker balls. Yoda is informed that Kamino has not been found, but a young boy explains that the planet was erased from the archive memory. Most likely from a Jedi, something heretofore inconceivable. But wise Yoda explains that a young mind is uncluttered by arrogance and presumptions. Obi-Wan uses this new found wisdom in A New Hope when he deduces that Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star, something that was also heretofore inconceivable.

Reaching Naboo, Anakin learns of Padme’s dedication to her people, how she avoided another term as Queen only to serve as Senator. She can’t stay away from her station just as Anakin can’t forsake his loyalty to the Jedi Code. Both are prisoners of their destinies. When they speak with Governor Sio Bibble, we learn that the Trade Federation from Episode I has not been punished. They’re still around and flourishing while the Republic is still besieged by infighting and squabbling. Compound that with the critical bill about to pass and one can sense the Bantha poodoo about to go down.

Speaking of said bill, Obi-Wan reaches Kamino only to meet with the prime minister and being told that the shipment is ready for transport to the Rebublic. Clones. Thousands of military issue clones with the removal of their free will, weak-minded they are. The host from which the clones sprung from is an interesting bounty hunter by the name of Jango Fett. He said he’d do it if he was given an unaltered younger version of himself, a ten-year-old boy named Boba. When Obi-Wan meets with Jango, the two stare each other down like a Spaghetti Western gone outer space. After Kenobi leaves, he informs Boba that they’re leaving.

In the midst of this powder keg, a more emotionally tragic kind is stirring on Naboo as Anakin and Padme continue to reconnect. This time, their life experiences are contrasted as Padme talks about swimming in Naboo’s lakes and lying in the sand. Bad mention. Anakin grew up on a desert planet and has seen enough sand to last a lifetime; he may also be talking about his life as a slave when everything was “rough and coarse”, just as he has become. But Padme is gentle and smooths out his rough exterior. He can let his guard down around her, be himself. The two kiss as John William’s score plays its bittersweet theme, then…it abruptly cuts out as Padme stops. The audience laughed gently during this scene as a bewildered “What-the-heck?” look from Anakin cuts dramatically…

To Obi-Wan as he details his findings to Yoda and Mace Windu. Deception is afoot. No request has been made by a Jedi Master for clones. But the Republic requesting an army of clones is surprising news indeed. Knowing that Jango is the key to this, Obi-Wan goes to seek him out. Get ready for Fett vs. Jedi, Round One. Star Wars fans get some great stuff here. From seeing Slave I in action operated by a tiny, yet resourcefully murderous tot to Jango showing off the hidden tricks in his rocket pack, this fight provides a welcome exciting distraction to the slowly unfolding love story.

In true romantic fashion, Anakin and Padme are having a picnic. Padme begins to talk about his past loves, and sure enough, it’s someone from when she was twelve, as she was growing into her role as Queen. He went on to be an artist. Anakin agreed he made the right decision. Being a politician ties your hands; you can’t be creative. Anakin feels this same kind restriction as a Padawan; he wants to explore his powers, see what else he can do. In a foreshadowing admission, he admits that he wants to see decisions made swiftly in the senate. People should be made to decide on issues, not debate about them in a democracy. “That sounds like a dictatorship to me,” Padme says. “Whatever works,” he says only half teasing. Padme is so charmed by Anakin, she doesn’t pick up on the warning signals, his over-confidence and lack of regard for people’s freedom of choice. The ends justify the means, a philosophy that will seem very similar in the birth of the Empire.

The two smitten star-crossed lovers are having dinner and dessert when Anakin shows off his Jedi powers. It is our first indication of Anakin’s growing flamboyance where the Force is concerned; just remember as Vader he turns the chokehold into his trademark. Lucas doesn’t portray the Dark Side as degrees, what’s important is that Anakin’s playfulness with the Force betrays a lack of respect for it and therefore a lack of appreciation of its imposed limitations. There’s a reason why Jedi don’t show off their powers. Later, the two are curled up by a fireplace. I really thought Lucas would have had some kind of lead-in here, but instead the audience is caught off-guard by Anakin’s admission of his feelings. We are put in Padme’s shoes as it’s becoming clear how uncomfortable Anakin is making her feel, and it’s interesting to note that he is growing more intense by the minute. He wants her, and not unconditionally, either. Padme comes to her senses and tells him of their respective paths. She’s a senator and he’s training to be a Jedi. Their love cannot be, regardless of how she is beginning to feel. Anakin’s rationality, a responsible Jedi’s necessary boundary from self-delusion, is swept aside. “We could keep it a secret,” he says. But Padme brings him back to reality, to rationality. She can’t live like that and neither can he. He reluctantly agrees. But the subject has already come up and subjects are not easily forgotten.

Obi-Wan tracks Fett to the planet Geonosis, a rock planet. Appropriately, both opponents wind their way through an asteroid field as we are shown even more of Slave I’s hidden arsenal, the best one being sonic depth charges. Obi-Wan fools Jango by releasing his spare parts canister and hiding on the side of an asteroid. Thinking they’ve destroyed the ship, they head to Geonosis. Boba Fett will learn this lesson well as Han Solo will recreate a similar subterfuge in Empire Strikes Back.

Turmoil continues for Anakin. First with the unreturned love of Padme and now with the increasingly disturbing dream about his mother. Finally, after feeling her pain, he tells Padme that he must go to Tatooine. Padme agrees to go with him. She may not be allowed to love him in a romantic sense, but, as she said in Phantom Menace, she will still care for him. More importantly, though, Anakin’s son Luke will be confronted by a choice spurred from the Force as well when he senses his friends’ pain on Bespin in Empire. And like his father, he feels he has no choice. Both fail to recognize that destinies and life paths are based on choices. Nevertheless, Anakin disobeys his mandate and journeys with Padme to Tatooine, another disregard for the Jedi Way.

Now things are getting more and more disconcerting. The first thing that Obi-Wan sees on Geonosis are Trade Federation ships and a battle droid factory within the Geonosian castle walls. It gets worse. Count Dooku is seen in a meeting with Nute Gunray and other nefarious “businessmen.” It becomes clear that the separatists are actually seeking to fund a war to challenge the Republic which will eventually make them the most powerful army in the galaxy. Obi-Wan goes to transmit a warning to the Jedi Council.

Anakin and Padme reach Tatooine and they fly into Mos Espa where Anakin reunites with his old owner, Watoo. Watoo is in sorry shape. Anakin’s defying the odds-makers at the Pod Race in Episode I have left the gambler in debt. As a result, he ended up selling Shmi, Anakin’s mother, to a moisture farmer named Cliegg Lars. Lars lives in Mos Eisley, a place that will be very familiar to Star Wars fans.

And a delightful reunion takes place as Threepio meets up with his original owner and his friend. From there, Anakin is introduced to his step-brother Owen and his girlfriend, Beru Whitesun, who will eventually become Luke’s uncle and aunt. In a very obvious, and slightly illogical, homage to “The Searchers,” Anakin learns that the month before Tusken Raiders (Sand People) have captured his mother. A lot of anal fanboys brought up the unlikeliness that Shmi would still be alive after a month, then mentioned how come Tatooine authorities didn’t just get her. But if we go back to Episode I, Tatooine is not recognized by the Republic, therefore settlers and the like are on their own. The only law of the land is the one established by the Hutts. Remember how lawful Jabba was?

Anakin goes off to search for his mother. Cliegg warns his stepson that his mother is dead. Anakin can still feel her presence and vows to save her. Padme’s compassion is stirred again. She felt it when he was a boy, her instinct to be a surrogate parent for him. She feels it now. Ominously, his shadow looks a lot like Vader’s and the billowing cape only provides a clearer glimpse of his fate.

Anakin scours Tatooine’s desert to look for his mother. Finally, he sees the Tuken encampment in the shadows of the night. He leaps from the cliff to the camp, another nod to “The Searchers.” He finds her strapped to a stake, severely beaten. He takes his dying mother in his arms as she passes from him. She saw him again, now she can die in peace. Anakin feels no peace. His face shows great sorrow only to reveal dark rage and anger. He slaughters the camp.

Yoda senses Anakin’s pain. The distant voice of Qui-Gon Jinn, who had such faith in Anakin, rises in grief. The Chosen One, the one foretold to bring balance to the Force, has slipped to the dark side.

Meanwhile, the Jedi Council has received Obi-Wan’s transmission. Now an army seems necessary to deal with the separatists, but to enforce it, the Chancellor must be given emergency martial powers. Naboo Representative Jar Jar Binks proposes the idea to the Senate. It is a unanimous decision. Palpatine is given absolute power. The Empire is almost born. Lucas makes Binks, who was so vilified in Episode I, a tragic dupe.

Palpatine’s first act is to create a grand army. This gives the Jedi the go ahead to rescue Obi-Wan while Yoda takes a trip to Kamino.
Obi-Wan is captured and suspended by weightless lasered chains. Count Dooku makes his presence known and tries to convince Obi-Wan to join him, stating that the Senate is under the control of Darth Sidious, the Sith lord from Phantom Menace. Obi-Wan doesn’t believe him, ironic because it’s the truth. Obi-Wan lets his arrogance in the Council out in the open by stating the Jedi would have sensed it and prevented it. But Dooku explains the power of the dark side. It shrouds. The balance of the Force has been altered not only spiritually but physically as well. Darkness has fallen over the galaxy as the Republic continues its collapse.

Anakin returns to the Lars homestead with the body of his mother. Owen and Cliegg see her. Anakin scowls at them in betrayal. In his mind they have failed her just as he has. Later, Padme tries to console him. Anakin explodes in a mournful anger. Obi-Wan has kept Anakin from his true potential. He could be all-powerful and stop people from dying. If he would have used his utmost ability he could have saved her. He promises to become the most powerful Jedi ever. Then he admits his atrocious act. How he murdered the women and children along with the Tusken guards. How he hates them. Padme is there with him regardless.

There has been some talk about the logic of her comforting him. He is, after all, a murderer. And, though I wish more of the scene could have been shown, remember what Anakin says about unconditional love. Padme truly personifies unconditional love while Anakin does not. He does not pardon the actions of the Tuskens while Padme pardons his. It is Anakin’s pain and weakness that makes Padme love him, not his bravado. She wants to save him, just as she wanted to save the little boy.

Padme is buried and Cliegg and Anakin say their goodbyes. Cliegg’s is beautiful and accepting. He knows she is in a better place now. She can rest. Anakin feels nothing but failure and need. He misses her. He can’t let her go. And it becomes clear that he feels guilty for her death. He feels he failed her. So every failure that the future Vader experiences, from his officers, from himself, are personal. They didn’t fail in their duty. They failed him.

Anakin and Padme learn of the events transpiring on Geonosis. Ironically, Anakin wants to obey the Council and stay on Tatooine. But Padme will have none of it. Now the roles are reversed, a little of Anakin has rubbed off on her after all. Threepio is brought along. His adventures with Artoo now truly begin.

Entering Geonosis’s castle is like entering Hell itself with its fiery glow and rocky terrain. It’s a trap. Padme and Anakin are thrust onto a conveyer belt while Threepio follows after a loyal Artoo. Threepio gets put into a battle droid assembly line while Artoo goes to rescue Padme from a fiery demise.

But Anakin is the one who suffers worst. Somehow, he gets his arm clamped into a piece of machinery, disabling his lightsaber and pinning him to the belt. There’s also a bit of foreshadowing here, one very obvious bit that will become clear later at the end of the film, the other tragically symbolic.



Anakin and Padme are captured and sent to die with Obi-Wan in a gladiatorial arena with three fearsome creatures. Before they are carted, Padme finally admits that she loves him. Now when their lives are on the line, duty has given way to emotion. The Senator’s tough resolve is crumbling. Anakin doesn’t appreciate it, stating immaturely how he thought their love is forbidden. But Padme doesn’t care. She’s been through too much, seen too much to lie to herself now. And with the galaxy on the throes of civil war, it doesn’t matter anyway.

When Anakin is reunited with Obi-Wan, he is less than elated to be reunited with his Padawan in a dryly funny scene. But it is Padme who proves the most resourceful, breaking free from her bonds and single-handedly taking out her beast. As Obi-Wan says “she’s on top of things.” Meanwhile, the two warriors subdue their opponents as well. Obi-Wan with a spear, a la the Sinbad movies and Anakin, ironically, bringing his to a peaceful sleep with a Jedi mind trick, a non-violent solution to a violent dilemma.

An army of Jedi led by Mace Windu makes it to Geonosis. Windu holds his lightsaber up to Jango Fett’s neck telling him to let the prisoners go. But Dooku reveals the battle droids in Geonosis’s underbelly as the dread robots converge on the overwhelmed Jedi. It is a massacre, as Jedi after Jedi begin to fall. Finally, it is down to at least fourteen out of the two hundred which were sent to rescue Obi-Wan. And at that moment Yoda and the clones arrive.

Perversity runs rampant in Clones, and it is never more apparent than the battle between the Federation Battle Droids facing off against the Clonetroopers and Jedi. Just keep in mind, the Clonetroopers will eventually become Imperial Stormtroopers. So bad tidings are a-comin’.

Dooku makes his way back to the control center of the Geonosian Lord, Poggle the Lesser, (God, why do I know this crap!) Dooku tells Poggle that he must get the plans away from the battle. What those plans contain are a mind-blowing treat.

Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme make their way to a Republic Gunship and chase down Dooku. Padme gets blown out of the ship and Anakin screams for them to set down. Obi-Wan argues that if they capture Dooku this whole thing could end, no more threat to a galactic conflict that would endanger countless lives. But the only life Anakin cares about is Padme. “I can’t leave her,” he says.

Obi Wan tries a different tact. If Anakin fails in his duty as a Jedi he will be banished from the Jedi Council. He will no longer be a Jedi. “What would Padme do?” he says.

And as Padme has picked up on Anakin’s rebelliousness, the young Padawan has learned a few things from his love. “She would do her duty.” And so the two Jedi prepare for their battle with Dooku.

Padme, meanwhile (and rather unrealistically, but this is Star Wars) recovers from her fall and orders the Clonetroopers to engage Dooku. It’s now or never.

Dooku prepares to leave on his solar sailer when Anakin and Obi-Wan arrive. His master tells him to wait until they can take him together, but Anakin’s rage and despair are at their zenith. He takes the former Jedi himself and suffers accordingly as he is brought down in a powerful demonstration of the dark side of the Force. Dooku has slipped over. As for Anakin this will not be the last time he suffers from the dreaded lightning bolts.

Obi-Wan, however, deflects the lightning and the two combatants go at it with their lightsabers. Dooku taunts Kenobi. “Come Master Kenobi. Put me out of my misery.”

Finally he disables his old Padawan’s pupil and prepares to deliver the final blow. But Anakin, just as he will do when his own son has a chance to destroy his Emperor, blocks the blow. So he saves his surrogate father in both instances, one a positive figure while the other is negative. And there’s a particular irony in that he protects his surrogate father here while in the Death Star in Jedi he faced off against his son.

Dooku is impressed and momentarily overwhelmed by the gifted Padawan. At one point Obi-Wan flings his saber to his pupil leaving Dooku at a temporary disadvantage. But Dooku severs Anakin’s hand and he is flung unconscious into the wall. It seems our heroes have met their end.

But Dooku is only one Jedi in a long line, and every one of them had a master. In the climactic showdown. Dooku faces off against his master, foreshadowing the future betrayal of Anakin to his master. But Dooku lives to fight another day. Anakin is reunited with Padme and for the moment things have come to an end.

But a dark time is beginning for the galaxy. Dooku arrives at Coruscant to give the news to his master, Sidious. And the dark lord ominously states that things are proceeding as planned. Like the Naboo campaign in Phantom Menace when Palpatine was voted as Chancellor of the Republic, it was all a ploy. The puppet master played both sides perfectly, eradicating his obsolete droid army and paving the way for the Clone Army. And as for the Jedi, they have been immeasurably decimated. Sidious has played everyone like a fiddle. And now he can sit back and watch…

…As the Clone War has begun. In two of what will soon be the most iconic images in the saga, thousands upon thousands of Clonetroopers board precurcors to the massive Imperial Star Destroyers to engage in a civil war. To underline this, the Imperial Theme begins playing. For all intents and purposes, the Empire is born right under the Republic’s nose. And it will be too late to realize the grave mistake they have made.

The other is far more bittersweet. As two forbidden lovers seal their fate, their pain, their tragedy, and ironically, the birth of a new hope.

First the good. Look above. Clones begins to bring things into focus as the audience glimpses how events are set up. Now the story of Anakin’s fall is becoming clear. Even more impressive is the whole mundanity of it. Why is that impressive? Because it goes against everything we’ve been ingrained with. Darth Vader as imposing, mythic, embodiment of evil used to be a teenage brat who went to the dark side because of the death of his mother. Owen turns out to be Anakin’s stepbrother, making Owen’s words to Luke even more poignant. And the most frightening, disturbing implication. The Empire didn’t end the Republic. The Republic ended the Republic, and the Empire was just the end result of a subtle, meticulous transformation. We have met the enemy, and it is us. As for Anakin, his transformation into Vader wasn’t because of the mask, that’s for sure. Maybe he always was Vader. Lucas once again goes for subtlety over hitting us over the head. He forces us to pay attention.

The acting is for the most part good, with a few areas of very good acting. Hayden Christensen builds as he goes along, with his apex being the confession scene. One thing Lucas emphasizes is Anakin’s anger and arrogance. It’s not too impossible now to see the cute slave boy from Tatooine becoming the most feared villain in the galaxy. As for the love scenes, focus not so much on the corniness as the desperation and impatience. Anakin isn’t playing with a full deck. He is one troubled guy. He wants to hold on to everything and in the end it will cost him everything.

So why does Padme Amidala fall for him? We don’t get much of an answer from Natalie Portman, but she is a lot more comfortable in her role now. She does a fine job in the meadow scene and her scenes on Tatooine, but she doesn’t do action scenes very well. I don’t see Leia’s mom in her just yet. On the other hand, her regality is still there, even if she no longer holds a royal station.

Ewan McGregor is the man. He is perfect as Kenobi, as we begin to see more of the characteristics Sir Alec Guiness gave the old Jedi Knight. Pay particular attention to his mannerisms on Kamino. He’s been doing his homework.

The special effects as always are great. And what Lucas faults in dialogue, although to be fair it wasn’t that bad actually, he makes up for in some very nice images and touches: The silhouette of Anakin and Padme before he goes to find his mother and Anakin getting shrouded in the encroaching darkness as he fights Dooku. Soon only their lightsabers can be seen. The way the Clonetroopers are shrouded in dust on Geonosis and they have to shoot through a dust cloud. And then there’s the small peck Padme gives Anakin in the arena. It’s stuff like this that make me keep watching this crazy series.

Do I detect some cynicism? Yeah, I admit it. I had rude awakening the first week I saw it. The first night, I saw an afternoon show with children and families and they were just caught up in the whole thing. Then I saw it a couple nights later and it was a totally different vibe. An older crowd of fanboys sneering at the love scenes and the clunkiness of the dialogue. It also doesn’t help when Threepio is going through so many crazy shenanigans and bad puns, while the Jedi are getting slaughtered. We need some pathos, George.

But I admit a scary thing happened that night. I could see why they were being so cynical. Now, I think it’s very easy to be cynical when watching any Star Wars movie, quite frankly.

Which is why you have to see this in the spirit they were made. Matinee serials. Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers clones. Fairy tales. Or in this case operatic tragedy. It’s over the top, somewhat soap-operaish, and even kind of turgid. I mean Trade Federations? Military Bills? Systems seceding? What does this have to do with Star Wars?

Everything. The period the prequels are set is a civilized era of gentility and formality. We’re not in a state of war. The dialogue will hopefully seem less mannered and expository in the final film, I actually like how it kind of vacillates between the two extremes throughout Clones, like everyone’s trying to stay Spock when they want to Bones like crazy. But if you’re expecting a Han Solo character, forget it. This thing is going to come to a heartbreaking end. And if audiences cheer the arrival of Vader, which is going to be the case unfortunately, they will have completely missed the point. But make no mistake, the prequels will not be as loved as the originals, so stop trying to compare them. Even Lucas said he’d be surprised if Episode III was a hit. Clearly, I doubt it’s designed to be. The good guys lose at the end!

So take them as intended, costume dramas set in space. This isn’t Lord of the Rings, this is a pale comparison. I mean, man, they are all a pale comparisons compared to Lord of the Rings. It’s freaking Tolkien! Even Lucas admitted he copped a lot of stuff from him.

For better or worse this is Lucas’s baby. He knows what he’s doing. This is his world; this is his story and he’s going to tell it the way he wants to. And I think when this whole thing is eventually finished, he’ll have the last laugh, adding more layers, more developments, more stuff to just blow our mind. To completely change our perspective on characters and stories we think we know like the back of our hand. Star Wars fans and regular moviegoers will be completing this journey Lucas started soon enough.

Even if it takes us awhile to catch up.

P.S. Attack of the Clones must be seen digitally to really appreciate it. Celluloid presentation makes everything look blurry and very artificial. That ruins it. To buy the story, you have to buy the world first.











































Recommended: Yes