Attack of the Clones - The darkest ending movie of the Saga?

Thats right. Personally speaking, I find the ending of Attack of the Clones to be the darkest and most bleak of the Saga. Looking at it this way:

TPM: Sidious becomes Chancellor and Qui-Gon dies. But Naboo is saved, Amidala is triumphant, Obi-Wan kills Maul and the Trade Federation is defeated.

ROTS: Anakin becomes Vader and Padme dies. Very bleak, but with a sense of hope with the survival of Obi-Wan and Yoda, and the hiding of the twins tells us that the darkest time was before the dawn of Tatooines twin suns that we see in the final scene. Almost the darkest ending of the Saga, but there is that slight feeling of hope and possible redemption.

ANH: Obviously the Rebellion scores it's first victory over The Empire.

ESB: Luke is defeated by Vader, but survives and doesn't give in to his anger. Emerges stronger and wiser despite the loss of Solo. Loss, but also a sense of hope, is how I would descibe the ending here.

ROTJ: The good guys win and Anakin returns to the Jedi.

Now, we come to AOTC. Where is the hope in the ending of AOTC? I look at AOTC's ending and all I see is hopelessness. The Jedi have been duped into a war that will destroy them! Darth Sidious is firmly in control of his newly forged Empire! Anakin and Padme have eloped into a marridge that will cause the demise of the pair of them. As they gaze into one anothers eyes, what should be a happy moment is actually profoundly ominous and you feel Padme is thinking "What have I done." As they turn their backs to the sceen you know that their fates are sealed and everything now will play out with the inevitability of a greek tragedy. I truely feel that AOTC is the one movie of the Saga whose ending is completely, 100% bleak, with no sense of hope or redemption to be found. Truely the begining of the downward spiral that takes us into ROTS.

Anyone agree?

 

Well, the slight lifting of the darkness of RotS is because we already know what happens in ANH and beyond. So I think that the ending of AotC also would be alleviated by that, to some extent. To those who have no clue what happens, and don't know anything about the Clone Wars or the upcoming Order 66, would have no real reason to believe the Jedi will be (all but) obliterated and the ending wouldn't be so terrible. Plus, they wouldn't know that the marriage of Anakin and Padme would lead to something bad.

Of course, that describes maybe four people.

Just my two cents (edited for typo)...

 

Yeah it was a bleak ending full of confusion and uncertainties.

I do not agree though, on Padme thinking "What have I done"... she was pass all that by the time they marry.

 

I agree. You're right - it seems to be the only movie where no hope is on the horizon, even though I can hardly agree with those people who think TPM had a "happy-end". But AOTC - there's not even an apparent victory. The GFFA is on a course of downfall, and since the downfall hasn't yet reached it's extreme there's no hope to be seen.

Chinese yin-yang theory says when one side is in the extreme the seed of the other one starts to grow. This is the case in ROTS - powerfully illustrated by infant Luke and Leia. But in AOTC, we haven't yet hit the rock bottom of the Saga. So, yes, it's the darkest ending of it.

 

Thats absolutly what I was trying to say Mandragora. Thanks for summing it up so perfectly.

 

Thanx for the "bouquet of flowers", G-Fett . AOTC never ceases to amaze me - when it came out, I thought it was a rather weak movie. But with every effort to rewatch and study, it's been continuing to reveal layers and layers of depth and meaning and relevance since then.

 

I agree with you about how good AOTC is! When it first came out, I said on this very message board that I thought it was the best Star Wars movie since ESB, and I've never changed my opinion.

And ROTS wouldn't be so darn good if it wasn't for the great set up it gets from Clones. But it've strayed from my own topic now.

 

I absolutely love the ending to AOTC. But I do feel that TPM has, if not the darkest ending, then at least the second darkest ending. I love the TPM ending because everyone is smiling and happy, but they don't know that the Republic is finished and they helped cause it.

 

I think it technically has the darkest ending but I never felt that intention on any emotional level... I don't feel a sense of real peril for any main character, and as of yet there's no sense of real tyranny looming in a political sense either.. I mean technically it's obviously right around the corner but aside from his destruction of democracy I dont yet see the threat Palpatine poses to individual planets or and peoples.

 

It all depends on how you look at it. If you watch the saga for the first time, you don't know what will happen in the future. For all you know, the war and the marriage business might very well be resolved in the next episode.
In hindsight though, it is a very dark ending. It's the last ending before the big tragedy and therefore, it's also the darkest. It's a plunge into the darkness.



Foreboding - it's dark
/LM

 

I don't know if it is the darkest ending, but it is probably the saddest, knowing where it all leads.

I think it can be quite easily summed up by Dooku's comment before he flees from Yoda:
"This is just the beginning."
This works on so many levels with Ep3. It is the beginning of the Clone Wars, and the beginning of Anakin's descent to the darkside (losing his mother, falling in love, and now he has a reason to want revenge on Dooku). ATOC is also the beginnining of a plot that involves Dooku's death as an integral part.


For some reason the end of ATOC can be summed up for me by the music that plays when Dooku's ship is getting away (the same music that plays when he is on his speeder-bike).
It works so well with the scene, Padme's futile attempts to shoot down the fleeing ship, carrying away the Sith they believe responsible for the war that has just begun.


The view of Dooku arriving on a fiery-red Coruscant (in the evening), followed by the only cloaked-Sidious scene in the movie, is also a nice touch.
Sidious: "You have done well."
Heh, I actually feel sorry for Dooku here. He is doing everything Sidious asks, and we know what his "reward" will be in EP3.

 

I was talking about AOTC being the darkest ending for those of us that know whats going to happen, but even for those that don't know how its all going to unfold in the next movie, I think there is still a deep sense of malice, unease and tragedy about the way the ending is filmed, the colors that are used, the way the actors look (especially at the wedding) The music that used and the overall tone of the shots. Even if you had no idea of whats to follow, I still think you get a deep sense of dread from the ending.

 

The ending of AOTC is only sad if you've seen the OT first. You know that things are about to go very badly for our characters, and the galaxy in general. If you are completely new to Star Wars, then you might think, "Anakin IS going to destroy the Sith in the next movie, tell the Jedi that he is married to Padme, and become the most powerful Jedi on the Council". Wrong!

 

I'd so much love to adopt an alternative personality for three days and watch SW in I to VI sequence knowing nothing about the Ot - just to explore how it feels to experience the Saga being told like this...

 

But I do feel that TPM has, if not the darkest ending, then at least the second darkest ending. I love the TPM ending because everyone is smiling and happy, but they don't know that the Republic is finished and they helped cause it.

The conclusion to "The Phantom Menace" is far less independent than the respective passage in "Attack of the Clones," because it appears both in terms of visuals and tonality, to suggest a certain degree of (superficial) uplift. The only aspect of TPM?s final scenes that could be reasonably construed (in a self-contained manner) as being ominous or foreboding, is the sequence which describes Qui-Gon?s funeral pyre, which closes on an exchange between Mace Windu and Yoda that reveals a certain degree of uncertainty: "Which was destroyed ? the master or the apprentice?" This, of course, culminates with a "reveal" of Palpatine?s figure ? an obvious gesture towards the audience, furthering the construct of dramatic irony that Lucas has woven into his narrative (i.e. we have a greater bearing on the material and all of its myriad intricacies than most of the characters do).

The ending of AOTC is only sad if you've seen the OT first. You know that things are about to go very badly for our characters, and the galaxy in general. If you are completely new to Star Wars, then you might think, "Anakin IS going to destroy the Sith in the next movie, tell the Jedi that he is married to Padme, and become the most powerful Jedi on the Council". Wrong!

I am in agreement with G-FETT; AOTC?s conclusion is portentous on its own terms. Traditional descriptors used to suggest the denouement in strict relation to the incidental material it contains, do not always address the more abstract notions which are cultivated internally, through a series of technical flourishes.

One of the things I most admire about "Attack of the Clones," is the manner in which Lucas is able to manipulate the visual palette of his film so that it corresponds with the thematic elements which develop over the course of the picture. The film is relatively controlled in this respect, and Lucas gradually feeds darker hues into his compositions as the film progresses, deepening with scenes which possess tragic implications. For the first two-thirds of its running time, "Clones" displays a conflicting visual schematic ? Lucas and his cinematographer, David Tattersall, alternate between formal compositions using a very controlled color foundation, foreboding environments adorned with a concentration of darker hues, and a layering of heavily-saturated, romantic imagery. After the extended speeder-chase above the streets of Coruscant, which serves as the movie?s obligatory opening action sequence, Lucas intercuts two concurrent plot strands ? the Anakin-Padme courtship, and Obi-Wan?s investigation on Kamino; the parallel arcs sit in visual opposition to one another, and yet cumulatively propagate a brooding narrative quality that is enhanced by their somewhat disparate aesthetic details, in addition to the moderated precision of John Williams? musical score. The musical passages are developed in proportion to the picture?s underlying structural and thematic elements, all of which converge in the moment that signifies the story?s turning point, which is when Anakin decides to leave the Lars Homestead and search for his mother in the deserts of Tatooine.

Following the urgent emotional issues which transpire as a result of the aforementioned details, Lucas advances most of the action to the planet of Geonosis, where he uses the crimson terrain and atmosphere to suggest the impending tragedy that is to (eventually) befall the film?s central characters. Even if we do not know the ultimate outcome of the saga, and all of its many intricacies, these details are effective in an immediate sense, as the director tones down the giddy operatic thrill in his action scenes to impart them with a fated precision, which ultimately yields a dense, moody texture to his narrative backdrop. Carefully, the director deepens his ci

 

whoa... easy on the vocabulary
You have some good ideas, but you could have said that in far less words.

 

On the subject of endings - and I know I've said this before, and countless of others probably - TPM appears to be happy. But the music (which we had to listen to in a music lesson once, just thought I'd point that out) is sort of a happy version, but the same tune as Palpatine/the Sith's theme. That's pretty good I think because although it's a victory they've just ochestrated their own downfall because of it.

 

AOTC ending was somewhat dark to me, but the most dark and emotional ending is the ROTS ending.

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