Moderators Note: This is an invaluable and memorable post made at the height of Episode II's release, and will remain permanently on the 2002 Film List. -- JW
Updated with Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, an awful mess of a movie, and by far the worst in a series that's gradually going down the tubes. Just as a point of reference, here's how I'd rate all of the films in the series (out of ****): A New Hope (****); The Empire Strikes Back (****); Return of the Jedi (***); The Phantom Menace (**½); Attack of the Clones (*½).
So what's so bad about the movie? Everything, basically, but more specifically, a consistently lifeless, dull, boring aesthetic and a sense that everything exists to provide a flimsy backbone for the CG to rest on. And the fact that Lucas seems to have completely done away with his own self-described notion that the movies should play like an homage to "Saturday Matinee's". Excuse me, but since when were Saturday Matinee's so concerned with dead-boring politics for 50-75% of their running time?
Just for a laugh, I'll bring up a thought that I had while trying to escape watching some of the clumsy dialogue-heavy scenes. The acting, at times, inadvertently evokes the extremely restrained, drained emotion of Robert Bresson's approach. Minus the ideological means to an end, the sense of a style bourne out of a filmmaker's need to create a specific vision, it's merely unpleasant to view. The stoic impassivity here is an accident (or a shortcoming of Lucas in the script and directing departments, as well as the falseness of the blue-screened environment), not a choice. At other times, the acting obesely tilts the scale in the other direction, wallowing in melodramatic excess not far removed from "Days of Our Lives" or "General Hospital" (the crisp video look doesn't help in dispelling connections to afternoon soap operas). There's just no balance here. This is NOT, as some fans will argue, the style of the entire Star Wars series. The original trilogy had the benefit of witty yet naturalistic performances -- energetic, compulsive, and entertaining.
I'm not going to bother talking about the story since the die-hard fans already know it and everyone else isn't going to give a crap about its hum-drum politics and portentous referential in-threads, so let's move on to the CGI. Is it good? Sure, mostly anyway (though it seems no one, even ILM, has figured out how to render a life-like looking human being tossed about on the back of a creature). But there's nothing new here like there was in The Phantom Menace, which was fairly revolutionary in this regard. Here, it's obvious that Lucas wants us to once again gawk at his extraordinary worlds, but I saw nothing here worthy of that. It's the same flying through asteroid fields, show-off of creature animation (which is good, of course), and windowed backdrops of sparkling futuristic cities drained of spectacle by having to watch the human cardboard occupying the frontal plane. I think we've finally come to the point that CG is novelty -- if you're not gonna back it up with a strong story, characters, etc., don't bother.
And the action scenes? Generally good, but nothing even close to the Pod Race sequence in The Phantom Menace.
What are you people who are rating this movie so high seeing in it? Couldn't be the acting, couldn't be the dialogue/script, couldn't be Lucas's entirely uninspiring directorial vision. Guess it could be the story, but I didn't find it that engaging personally. So is it just the 20 or so minutes of real action -- a CG Yoda doing kung-fu; yet another battle with some mean lookin' monsters in an enclosed area? Is that justification for a positive mark when everything else is so so insipid?
I see a movie that's a few dollars in production value and a couple of competently cut action scenes away from the likes of Battlefield Earth.
And that's sad.
(Edit: I kinda made it sound like I disliked the Yoda scene. I didn't -- really liked it. My fave scene in the movie. Not good enough to redeem the rest of it at all.
)
Updated with Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, an awful mess of a movie, and by far the worst in a series that's gradually going down the tubes. Just as a point of reference, here's how I'd rate all of the films in the series (out of ****): A New Hope (****); The Empire Strikes Back (****); Return of the Jedi (***); The Phantom Menace (**½); Attack of the Clones (*½).
So what's so bad about the movie? Everything, basically, but more specifically, a consistently lifeless, dull, boring aesthetic and a sense that everything exists to provide a flimsy backbone for the CG to rest on. And the fact that Lucas seems to have completely done away with his own self-described notion that the movies should play like an homage to "Saturday Matinee's". Excuse me, but since when were Saturday Matinee's so concerned with dead-boring politics for 50-75% of their running time?
Just for a laugh, I'll bring up a thought that I had while trying to escape watching some of the clumsy dialogue-heavy scenes. The acting, at times, inadvertently evokes the extremely restrained, drained emotion of Robert Bresson's approach. Minus the ideological means to an end, the sense of a style bourne out of a filmmaker's need to create a specific vision, it's merely unpleasant to view. The stoic impassivity here is an accident (or a shortcoming of Lucas in the script and directing departments, as well as the falseness of the blue-screened environment), not a choice. At other times, the acting obesely tilts the scale in the other direction, wallowing in melodramatic excess not far removed from "Days of Our Lives" or "General Hospital" (the crisp video look doesn't help in dispelling connections to afternoon soap operas). There's just no balance here. This is NOT, as some fans will argue, the style of the entire Star Wars series. The original trilogy had the benefit of witty yet naturalistic performances -- energetic, compulsive, and entertaining.
I'm not going to bother talking about the story since the die-hard fans already know it and everyone else isn't going to give a crap about its hum-drum politics and portentous referential in-threads, so let's move on to the CGI. Is it good? Sure, mostly anyway (though it seems no one, even ILM, has figured out how to render a life-like looking human being tossed about on the back of a creature). But there's nothing new here like there was in The Phantom Menace, which was fairly revolutionary in this regard. Here, it's obvious that Lucas wants us to once again gawk at his extraordinary worlds, but I saw nothing here worthy of that. It's the same flying through asteroid fields, show-off of creature animation (which is good, of course), and windowed backdrops of sparkling futuristic cities drained of spectacle by having to watch the human cardboard occupying the frontal plane. I think we've finally come to the point that CG is novelty -- if you're not gonna back it up with a strong story, characters, etc., don't bother.
And the action scenes? Generally good, but nothing even close to the Pod Race sequence in The Phantom Menace.
What are you people who are rating this movie so high seeing in it? Couldn't be the acting, couldn't be the dialogue/script, couldn't be Lucas's entirely uninspiring directorial vision. Guess it could be the story, but I didn't find it that engaging personally. So is it just the 20 or so minutes of real action -- a CG Yoda doing kung-fu; yet another battle with some mean lookin' monsters in an enclosed area? Is that justification for a positive mark when everything else is so so insipid?
I see a movie that's a few dollars in production value and a couple of competently cut action scenes away from the likes of Battlefield Earth.
And that's sad.
(Edit: I kinda made it sound like I disliked the Yoda scene. I didn't -- really liked it. My fave scene in the movie. Not good enough to redeem the rest of it at all.
)
Spun
**
