Ranking the "Star Wars" Movies: #9 - Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Welcome back. You know something that you may not know about me is my utter disdain for visiting beaches. Why, you probably ponder to yourself? Well you see... I don't like sand. It's coarse, it's rough and it's irritating... and it gets everywhere. Not like you, reader. You're everything soft... and smooth.

Are you creeped out yet? Well buckle up, because we only have another forty minutes worth of that level of verbal diarrhea to spew onto you. We only just scraped the bottom of the Star Wars intergalactic shit barrel, and now we're getting into some real crusty stuff. By 2002, people were still adamant that the Star Wars prequel trilogy, which by now consisted of only The Phantom Menace released in 1999, could be salvaged and entertaining. A lot of people still held out plenty of hope! Franchises are built on hope, at least this one is. People were sure that Episode II would be much better and more entertaining than Episode I and there would be a day where we'd have five good Star Wars movies and everyone would kind of just look back on The Phantom Menace as being the really bad one. Well... whoo boy, on top of the dragging narrative hangover this movie suffers, the dialogue is pitifully bland and weird, the characters are cartoonish mannequins... how I'm not really sure, and the few and far between action scenes we get are enteraining, sure, but not enough to really snap you back into the story and keep you invested. The love story? Well, it's pretty forced... and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I don't buy a lot of it, but hey, why sit here and tell you, when I could walk you through the plot and... well, tell you. Let's get this bullshit ball rolling! This is chapter two of the Star Wars saga, Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Now, for the sake of your reading, and the length of this turkey post... I'm going to link my nitpicks of Episode II here, so that you can read them at your leisure. If I take the time to stick them all back in here, we'll be here all bloody day! You're welcome.

Threepio gets to star in this movie as a slapstick gimmick.
Thank you for coming Anthony Daniels. Your check is
in the mail.

Ten years after the Trade Federation's invasion on Naboo, the Galactic Republic is threatened by a Separatist movement organized by former Jedi Master Count Dooku (Christopher Motherfucking Lee). Senator Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) comes to Coruscant to vote on a motion to create an army to assist the Jedi against the threat. Narrowly avoiding an assassination attempt upon her arrival, she is placed under the protection of Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). She proclaims that she "shouldn't have come back", but she's a senator and I don't think she really has the power to just say no. Or maybe she does... hell I don't know, I'm pretty sure Lucas was just making this shit up as he went along. It probably explains how she could go from a Queen of a planet, to a Senator representative of said planet and somehow maintain the same level of power. She was also a democratically elected Queen, so I guess Naboo's government is a "democratic monarchy"? Maybe that's a thing. Anywho, way off track, we snap back in as the two Jedi thwart a second attempt on her life and subdue the assassin, Zam Wesell (Leeanna Walsman), who is killed by her client, a bounty hunter, before she can reveal his identity. The Jedi Council instructs Obi-Wan to find the bounty hunter, while Anakin is tasked to protect Padmé and escort her back to Naboo, where he expresses his romantic feelings for her... in all the painful and awkward ways you could imagine. If there was a writing award for "best adaptation of what it's like going through puberty and trying to do something with your first boner", George Lucas would win it for years.

"Should we like... move or something?"
"Stand still, we must. Look cool, this does."

Obi-Wan's investigation leads him to some poorly-computer-generated fuck named Dexter Jettster... no that's not a typo... who leads him to some elderly bitch in the Jedi archives library that tells him he's nuts and that his planet doesn't exist... which leads to him and Master Yoda (Frank Oz) getting schooled by a toddler on the mission at hand... which finally leads him to the mysterious ocean planet of Kamino, where he discovers an army of clones being produced for the Republic in a deceased Jedi's name, with bounty hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison) serving as their genetic template. Who was the deceased Jedi? Sifo-Dyas. Who was he? Who cares. Obi-Wan deduces Jango to be the bounty hunter he is seeking... which at this point, anybody with a brain stem could figure out, and after a brief battle, places a homing beacon on Jango's ship, the Slave I. Oh and by the way... yes, a child Boba Fett is shoehorned into the movie just for fans to gleam over. So long, incredibly mysterious and interesting backstory. Obi-Wan then follows Jango and Boba to the planet Geonosis, which looks like a better version of Saturn.

"AROUND THE BLOG TEXT A PERIMETER CREATE."

Meanwhile, Anakin is troubled by visions of his mother, Shmi, in pain and decides to head to Tatooine with Padmé to save her, giving an utmost middle finger to his mission. His old boss, Jewish-stereotype Watto (we'll get to that) reveals that he sold Shmi to moisture farmer Cliegg Lars (Jack Thompson), who then freed and married her. Cliegg tells Anakin that she was abducted by Tusken Raiders weeks earlier and was likely dead. You never heard of Tusken Raiders acting this evil, so this is actually an interesting twist on the lore. At least... if you're like me, you didn't hear about that. Kids who spent money on one of those useless books probably already knew. Anakin ventures out and discovers Shmi at the Tusken campsite, still alive, but she dies in his arms. Enraged, Anakin massacres the tribe... which is a real "fuck me" moment. He later declares to Padmé that he will find a way to prevent the deaths of those he loves... which she somehow finds attractive because soon enough, she'll confirm her love for him. See how this doesn't make sense? Haha.

A guy who looks like Boba Fett. May not look like much,
but this image in the trailer probably sold a shitload of tickets.

Meanwhile, back on Geonosis, Obi-Wan discovers a Separatist gathering led by Count Dooku, who is developing a droid army with Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray (Silas Carson). Obi-Wan transmits his findings to the Jedi Council, but is subdued by Separatist droids. Senate Representative Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) (we will get to him, do not worry) proposes a vote to grant emergency powers to Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), where the successful outcome allows the clone army to be authorized. Aside from that, Anakin and Padmé go to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, but are captured by Jango and taken away. You're probably wondering why the bad guys don't just kill them and be done with it? Why do they put them in a situation where they can clearly escape? Well, keep wondering those things. In the Geonosis colosseum, Dooku sentences the trio to death, but they are saved by a battalion of clone troopers led by Yoda, Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson), and other Jedi. Which is just... a terrible misuse of Jedi. So many of them die! I thought the Jedi were supposed to be smarter than that! Windu beheads Jango during the ensuing chaos. Obi-Wan and Anakin, following a pretty cool desert gun battle, intercept Dooku, and the three engage in a lightsaber battle. Easily the weakest and feelings-lacking lightsaber duel of the saga. Better than VIII though, which really didn't even have a lightsaber duel. Dooku injures Obi-Wan and severs Anakin's right arm, but Yoda intercepts and defends them. Why does Yoda duel? Fan service. He just jumps around like nuts while Dooku kind of just spins his blade around in circles. In a real dick move, Dooku uses Force powers to distract Yoda and flees to Coruscant, where he delivers information for a superweapon to his Sith master, Darth Sidious. As the Jedi acknowledge the beginning of the Clone Wars, Anakin is fitted with a robotic hand and secretly marries Padmé on Naboo with C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) as witnesses. That's right... it's like getting married and listing your toaster and your oven as witnesses. That's it, bam. Music swells. End credits.

Love in Star Wars. Creepy and weird in other films.

So that was basically, that was Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones. It's pretty dull. It's the middle of the prequels, which are the second group of movies produced for the saga. The prequels, as a whole, are often regarded as the worst movies in the saga, but thanks to the sequels that have come since, that has been tossed up in the air for debate. Me? It certainly is more entertaining than Star Wars: The Last Jedi, that's for sure... but that's not saying much. That's like saying a can of Diet Pepsi is more entertaining than a library card... like neither of which are entertaining the slightest, but at least the Diet Pepsi can has more to read on it. Ewan McGregor strained his back carrying the movie... did I make that joke already? Well who cares, I'll make it again. Natalie Portman tries desperately to save the movie herself with her acting, but the dud that falls flat is Hayden Christensen. Like... if he is good at playing a horny teenager, that doesn't change the fact that it's an outright uncomfortable performance to watch. I mean, there are scenes where he's tolerable, but then there are scenes where he's so dry and so emotionless that you wonder if he's even really there. He gawks at Padme like a creep, he plays grabass with his respect to Obi-Wan, he blames his problems on others, and he basically suffers from A.D.D. as in one scene he talks about four different conversation topics in two minutes. It's an overwhelmingly awful performance, but upon rewatching the film recently, it doesn't really detract from the movie too much... but it is painful to sit through in some scenes.

Hang in there, Ewan. Only one more movie you have to
help carry.

I don't know, it's just a boring, awkward movie. It's very, very cartoony, as this is the film where the CGI was really starting to get out of control. I mean like... nearly everything in this movie is at least ninety percent digitally animated. There's not one clone trooper in this movie that's a flesh and blood actor, they're all digitally created people. So many shots for this movie were just completed in front of green screens and people who weren't even in the same room with one another are no bouncing movie lines off one another on screen. It's crazy because not even a whole lot happens, except lots of talking about politics and misguided boner feelings. You can tell these movies felt like they came off an assembly line, like they were all basically two hour toy advertisements, as every battle, planet, or even discussion scene had to show off something new. This is where the heyday of Star Wars fandom came in for me when I was growing up, but this movie also had an absurd amount of tie-in games, many of which were good, many of which are forgettable. It's just a weird, cartoonish, child-like entry in the Star Wars saga. A symbol of a bizarre place in motion picture history.

For more of my nitpicks and gripes about the filmmaking and the lore, in greater detail, check out the link I put above leading you to the "Nitpick Express" post I did nearly three years ago (Jesus H. Christ, time sure moves fast). Check in soon for when we unravel the boringest thing in the history of boring things...