Koala's longer spiel about Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

Sad - but I saw it for the first time on 28 May 2002. Twelve days after it opened. Why so slow you may ask? I bought tickets to La Premiere weeks back but got such bad flu that I had to give my ticket away.

What was worse was when I came in on the Monday morning there were all these emails asking me how I found the movie and people who thought they were funny by leaving Yoda voice mails on my phone about how strong he was with the Force and there was me shouting: "Arggggh! I got sick, I haven't seen it yet!"

Rant over. I've seen it now. I'll get my negatives out of the way first.

SPOILER WARNING

What I didn't like

• I hope they explain what happens to R2 and C3PO - they're hanging out with Obi Wan all the time and then all of a sudden in Ep IV they can't remember Obi Wan? ie "He claims to be the property of an Obi Wan Kenobi". I mean, who could forget Ewan I mean Obi Wan after having met him?

[OK, this has been explained to my satisfaction now: May 27, 2002: E! Daily News interviewed Star Wars creator George Lucas and finally got an answer on the mystery surrounding what R2-D2 and C-3PO should and shouldn't remember of their adventures in the prequels. "Well, one, his brains have, his memory system has been erased and so has R2's. So, they don't remember anything from the first trilogy. I'm telling you something from Episode III, but I shouldn't be telling you that, but I think most of the fans already know that."]

• While I get the Decline of the Jedi concept, Ep 2 makes it look as if they've become completely blind and incompetent. Palpatine is right there guys. Could he look or behave any more evil if he had a big sign on his back saying:"Hullo - I Am The Big Bad Guy". (I am informed by reliable sources that they will be adding this sign in by CGI in the Special Edition version). Ep2 makes it look as if the Dark Side is so much more powerful than the light side of the force. See below for further discussion about why this might be a 'good' thing though.

• Some of the delivery and dialogue was soooo bad. I agree with everyone who says that Hayden and Natalie were pretty awkward during the romantic sequences. That scene before the fireplace when Anakin was declaring himself seemed so forced and it was almost as though George told Hayden - now pretend you're still Jake Lloyd and pout at Padme - pretend she broke your playstation - and yeah, that Obi guy - he won't let you watch Pokemon.

• Shmi hangs around for 10 years, lasts one month with the Tuskan raiders (how?) yet dies one minute after Anakin finds her. Right.

[Cat - But this can happen ie hanging on until she discovers that Anakin is ok]

• The animosity between Anakin and Obi Wan didn't ring true. They've been together for ten years. I understand that in any relationship there will be snarking, but but surely there is genuine emotion in there as well. I got the feeling that Obi cared about Anakin but didn't pick up the reverse vibe. I would have been more convinced if they had shown a nice and loving bond between them at the beginning of the movie and then something happened (at the beginning of the movie) to create tension. As it was, there was snarking and animosity right from the beginning of the movie so if you didn't know better, you might have thought they didn't like each other at all.

Things I loved

• All the Obi Wan sequences. I thought Ewan was amazing. He looked, sounded, acted amazing and everyone else has gone into a lot of detail and I agree with all the positive points. While I am not happy that he was defeated so easily and seemed to get into trouble all the time, to a certain extent it makes sense. His own training was slightly cut short by Qui Gonn's demise and even in Eps 4 - 6, we never get the sense that Obi Wan was a hotshot kickass jedi the same way that Anakin was ie, he wasn't a prodigy.

• Obi's voice. Oh, I already mentioned Obi. Oops. :)

• I thought Hayden totally looked the part. The boy is gorgeous - and frequently prettier than Padme and she's absolutely beautiful. Tall, lanky and dressed in the leather and the black cloaks he looked extremely sexy and rebellious - until he opened his mouth. I thought it was a shame that they made him sound so bratty although Christensen is very good at projecting darkness and pain and he definitely has a very expressive face. I'm going to give him the benefit of a doubt and blame the script for some of the cringey moments.

• I liked Anakin's fight sequence with Dooku - thought it was very good although not long enough. Same with the Obi vs Dooku fight - TPM was amazing although this fight was better because we didn't have to keep cutting away to boring old people in whom we weren't interested. In Ep2 the focus always remained with Obi and Anakin which was good.

• Jedi who live in swanky digs on Coruscant might not condone slavery but you would think they could have liberated Shmi a little while ago and damnit, you'd think that they could have done something about slavery. This was going to be a negative but when I thought about it, it makes sense and perhaps it is linked to their decline. The jedi observe, they keep the peace, they don't get involved and as a result of this isolationist, non-interventionist stance, they get out of touch, lose their edge and eventually decline. It's a bit like that famous Martin Niemöller quote:

When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned. (Congressional Record, 14, October 1968, page 31636)

Maybe it's the same deal with the jedi - they became so remote and detached and removed from 'ordinary' people, that perhaps their decline and ultimate decimation didn't really affect that ordinary, average person/alien.

• I loved those aliens on Kamino. They were so graceful and long and their eyes were so beautiful.

• I loved Yoda. I am a big fan of old so it was nice to see the little green guy get a bit of action.

Things I was mixed about

• Use of the Darth Vader imperial theme during the "Anakin being evil" scenes. Slight overkill.

• Was hoping to see more jedi action and ass-kicking. This is pretty much the last one where the jedi are in their prime and to be frank, they already look fairly faded in terms of former glory. I was a bit perplexed by the small numbers that went to rescue Obi.

• Not sure how I felt about the fact that the "big battle" was between clones and droids. Sure, dog fights can get old but I like the battles where you can feel genuine concern about the parties eg rebels vs imperial troops on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back, Luke et al vs Death Star in A New Hope. I didn't care about the clones, there weren't enough jedi and I didn't feel much at all about the droid army ...

Pocket's longer spiel about Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

I found the chemistry between Anakin and Armidala was a bit weak (funny how Anakin is recognised by the Word dictionary), the way he was basically just acting like a shit about Obi Wan, and not caring about being a Jedi, and the forced anger and his whole thing with the pain he was in seeing Armidala etc etc. The fact that Amidala finds out that Anakin kills an entire village and she's still cool with him.. ...and his temper tantrums.. like PSYCHO! The whole running in the fields laughing etc was somewhat painful to watch.

I liked how Amidala's top strategically gets ripped so that you can see her tummy;)

The storyline about the missing planet etc was rather dumb too, Like Obi Wan could see stars were revolving around it, couldn't find it, but then because Yoda tells him to - he goes there anyway;)

And things like Organa and so forth was lame - probably introducing him the same way Mace Windu was introduced in the first one.

Jar Jar was at a minimum which was good but still managed to be annoying. C3PO was minor comic relief but I still found it kind of dragged.

All the New Zealand Islander actors proved to be rather annoying. It's an awful accent to act with, and they all sounded so dumb - the captain of Amidala's security, even the storm troopers. Those clone creator thingies were weird looking and I found them a little freaky, but well done.

I did find the "death stick" sequence with Mouse from The Matrix was kind of funny. I did however find the movie tried to hard to have references to the other movies "I got a bad feeling about this" from Anakin was really forced.

Dooku's lightning out of his hands is to replicate the emperor's from ROTJ- join the darkside and get electricity? Noo cos Vader doesn't have this skill. And it is confusing about how he is actually down with Sidius, yet acts like he's not when he is with Obi Wan.

You can tell Mace Windu is going to get the ass from Boba in the next movie.. It was cool that he got some screen time and killed Jango in a cool way. It was a bit gross with Boba holding Jango's head... I was expecting it to fall out the bottom ;)

I don't think Jango Fett was nearly as cool as Boba was in Empire, and not as cool as Darth Maul as this movie's cool character. The chick bounty hunter was also very weak - if you don't develop your characters you have to make them visibly cool and her outfit sucked.

[Koala - I didn't mind her costume - I liked the face scarf thing]

Also the ships are all ugly as and look like they're made out of origami. While the storm troopers look cool enough and you can see how they will evolve, all the other technology looks cheesy - I guess it's supposed to be like the 70's and 80's, bad taste city;) Jedi's looked timeless though which is good, although the girls behind me couldn't get over Anakin's hairdo.. then again it was ten times better than Obiwan's.

[Koala - Cat didn't like Anakin's hairdo either but I thought it was fine. Then again maybe that's just because I think Anakin is cute :) ]

Yoda was the best in this movie. He was very well done and true to his character and the facials were very convincing.

Back to Movies with Cat, Frog & Koala