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Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) – G. Lucas
I am pretty sure I
fell asleep when watching this a couple of decades ago but there was no chance
of that this time, as the kids howled and booed whenever a romantic scene
(between Natalie Portman’s Senator Amidala and Hayden Christensen’s Anakin
Skywalker) came on. In truth, these did slow the movie down. Aside from this, I
still found it difficult to get my mind around the unfolding transition between
the Republic, with the Jedi as its police force, and the evil Empire, now composed
of the Trade Federation and a growing number of Separatist planets – led by
Christopher Lee’s Count Dooku (really a stand-in for Darth Sidious who I think
we can agree is also Chancellor Palpatine and later the Emperor). We were
stunned when Jar Jar Binks entered a motion to allow the Chancellor to have
unprecedented authoritarian powers – what a moron! As for the Jedi, Ewan McGregor tries his best
as Obi-Wan (left to keep the action going in scenes that alternate with the
romance plot), Samuel L. Jackson still has nothing to do as Windu – or at least
nothing that capitalises on his usual bad-ass charms, and Yoda is left to get
the audience back on board (would have loved to hear a Christopher Lee
commentary on that final battle – surely he was bemused to see this turn in his
career). Now who ordered the army of clones and whether Yoda commandeered them
for the big battle remain obscure for us. Not sure what to make of his
suggestion that the Clone Wars have begun (did we need to do some background
reading?). Boba Fett’s origin story is pretty confusing too. At any rate, we are expecting that all will
be resolved in Episode III, which has to be better than this, right?
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