HPPUB MOVIE REVIEWs of Star Wars: Episode II, Attack of the Clones; Episode III. Revenge of the Sith
Title: Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones
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Release Date: 2002 |
Nationality and Language: |
Running time: 132 Minutes |
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Distributor and Production Company: 20th Centurt Fox, LucasFilm |
Director; Writer: George Lucas |
Producer: Rick McCallum |
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christiansen, Christopher Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Oz |
Technical: Digital Shot Panavision, 2:1 ration |
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Review: Well, even in the days of the democratization of movie making and the media, a cultural legend can set moviegoers up in camps and make hundreds of millions. Media machines still work. What is interesting about this movie, besides the Romeo and Juliet story, is the transplantation of politics. I guess on an intergalactic level the basic problems can be the same. Here, we have a war over the right to secede. Them treachery and murky loyalties And the moral issue of breeding cannon-fodder soldiers. Yet, the clones, however spectacular the mass-battle scenes, seem to be in the background most of the time. The moral issues are left to other filmmakers. The varied planets and worlds (separated by parsecs that measure like miles) make fascinating viewing, especially the ocean-planet inhabited by tall grays. But more
interesting is the destiny Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi knight that starts to
go wrong with a touch of evil at the height of his young manhood, just as he
comes into his powers. Bitter at the death of his mother, he takes horrible
revenge on women and children as well as men (as if that distinction is
valid) and admits later to sadistic pleasure. In the final coliseum battle
resembling Gladiator, he is scathed, a dismemberment that will continue in
Episode Hayden Christiansen plays this ambiguous and troubling role with an over-rehearsed, sometimes stilted delivery, that seems to match his immaturity. It seems as though these young Romeos are to look as “young” as possible, as if the completion of puberty must itself bring on evil. Episode Really, though, there is more to it that even that. There is the whole question in their society of what kind of man Anakin is. He is apparently A Superior Man (the kind who as a kid was at the top of every class in high school), in a society that has biologically different beings with similar intellects but with an obvious invitation to racial assignment of roles and living spaces. Perhaps that is common in other civilizations throughout the Milky Way. (On earth we are lucky that homo sapiens is really very biologically consistent.) If he has some kind of godly status, can he still then father children? (In Greek and Roman mythology, the gods could.) But what has happened is that he has reached a turning point, where his loyalties to others come into question, and he makes irrevocable choices. This happens to real people (including me) all the time. The Sith, after all, represent some good things, too. Freedom. Technical advancement. Mobility. Flat-world style communication. So the road to tragedy is laid. He will have his final battle on a planet that looks like Io with an atmosphere (including a confrontation with his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor)). And the med-evac Siths can cover his charred body with a new Darth Vader suit, right on the shores of a lava dome, and complete the transformation. In the meantime, Padme has her twins, but dies of grief. The kids are adopted by heterosexual couples in a way that would please Maggie Gallagher. Then you hook to the original Star Wars I movie of 1977. Christiansen plays his role and says his lines with a straightforward authority that befits a couple characters in my own scripts. However, he has been breached already. He has lost an arm, and his body has been shaved and manipulated into buff. Perhaps the breach is a warning of his eventual vulnerability to downfall—as to the universal rules as to what can happen to each kind of character. Angels can take up the Dark Side and fail, because they assume they have the knowledge of Good and Evil. Perhaps this world does not have a Savior (or maybe it will some day). An interesting problem could occur if another character “sacrificed” himself for Skywalker; could he loose his salvation too? The worlds of the movie are visually fascinating. In the
opening sequence, we see the home planet from the air, and it looks like a
covering or circular cities, each one of which is populated with high rise
buildings (like One of the tasks in an NBC Apprentice episode was to design an ad for this film.
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