PT Thoughts/General Discussion: Attack of the Clones

I heartily agree with SW Saga Fan. And another aspect of "Attack of the Clones" that I love is that it had a epic feel to it, matched by "Empire Strikes Back".

 

I can defend it in that there's plenty of good stuff in it & alot of positives to focus on. I like Kamino, Jango, Dooku, the music. A few scenes involving Anakin are good.

 

Honestly, its hard to defend any of the Prequel films.... I find them highly offensive too. Because as fans, we've spent collectively millions of dollars on prequel merchandise before the film only to have the final product filled with absolutely lazy non-sense. Of all of us making him a billionare, Lucas couldn't even do us the favor of rewriting another draft of the script. Instead, from the research has been done, he wrote one draft "The Beginning" and just changed scenes here and there, sometimes a day before the shoot. And after we gave him our money, purchased the tickets, praised him as one of the all time greats - his ultimate response for a terrible script was "well, they are my movies, I'm making them for me". Its a complete insult to the fans who really believed in him as a filmmaker. He couldn't just say "i've made some mistakes and went a little too far in some areas, I think I'm going assemble a great team and tackle Episode II as a team the same way I did with the OT". But that was never said... Instead, he continued to write non-sense and claim it is all of our faults that we dont like it. Because the idea of him writing bad material never donned on him. Sadly, the pressure did get to him years later as his love of Star Wars and the enjoyment of every fan worshipping you turned into attacks on his character and his writing & directing ability which caused him to eventually just give up and sell Star Wars to Disney. Did he do that for the money ? Hell no, he donated a ton of it to charity, schools. He didnt need the money. Honorable indeed. But would he have sold Star Wars if he made a fantastic beloved Prequel Trilogy ? I personally doubt it.... I think he was sick of the criticism of his prequel trilogy that exposed him as a bad filmmaker. His original idea was to have his three buddies direct each Episode... Coppla for Ep.1 , Ron Howard for Ep.2 and then Spielberg to finish off the trilogy with Ep.3. But all three told him no. Ron Howard said to have told Lucas "Star Wars is your thing, you are the only one that should direct". And he listened to his Hollywood friends. But if those three prequel films were written by professional writers and directed by those three - Good God, imagine the Prequel Trilogy we would have gotten. Just wow.... Spielberg probably would have talked Leo DiCaprio in the role of Anakin Skywalker - without a doubt the best actor in that age range at the time !

 

I don't have a problem with your views, but the part I made bold struck me as a bit of an oddity. Is it a criticism of Lucas or something? If you somehow feel cheated, then you should have known better and not buy the merchandise before the movies were actually released.

I don't get this whole merchandise craze anyway, especially with TFA and Force Friday. I don't know why anyone would want to spend money on toys featuring characters we don't know anything about and from a movie that hasn't even been released yet.

 

I dont understand how my opinion is somehow prohibited on this forum ? I've never ever been in trouble in any forum I've ever been a part of. I never insulted any members who enjoy the prequels at all. If you want to like bad films - thats your choice. But if there is a section I can read that tells me what is prequel bashing and what is just voicing my opinion - I'd love to read it and follow it. Otherwise, it seems people will be punished for having a different opinion than fellow SW fans , which is extremely nazi like that we must all think the same, imo.... No disrespect, I just dont understand.

 

You're correct on it was our faults we bought TPM merchandise. And believe me, money was not spent before AOTC or ROTS ! But it would have been nice if Lucas at least attempted a decent script on Ep.2 + 3. I will forgive him on Ep.1, we all make mistakes - but the thing I will not forgive him for is the fact that he never listened to the fans and tried to improve the Ep.2 and Ep.3 with help from ppl around him when it was painfully obvious he needed help with the writing. Instead, he used the excuse "they are wrong, I dont care what they think, these are my movies and I'm going to make the movies for myself" attitude. This arrogance is pretty disrespectful considering we collectively made him a billionaire. I guess we won in the end though as the criticism eventually got to him to the point he wanted nothing to do with Star Wars and sold it to Disney.

 

What a bizarre tirade. It's not the opinion that's prohibited, BretHart, it's throwing insults left and right without substantiating any of it. All your "I think" and "I guess" conjecture is flat wrong, BTW. You conflate misremembered "making of" details with your own hate-filled imagination, and cling to the resulting ravings as somehow meaningful or insightful. They aren't. They're just wrong. Why you continue to stew in your contempt for movies you decided you disliked 16 years ago remains an open question.

 

This is the kind of wording that will earn you zero respect very quickly. There's no definition for what is a bad movie and even objectivity is still in the realms of personal subjective experience. Read this post of mine if you want an elaboration.

He followed his own artistic vision, with prequels especially, because it was largely financed out of his own pocket. If you were a shareholder in the making of the movie, then I'd understand your frustration if you thought the movies sucked, but Lucas made the best films he could make and they simply weren't up your alley. Lucas didn't put a gun to your head and say you need to buy the merchandise or even watch the movies.

You make it sound like Lucas' sole purpose was to create movies that people would dislike, which is utterly ridiculous.

 

disregard.

 

With great ease and tremendous joy.

Actually as great as I thought AOTC was the views of other fans pointing out all the awesome things about it over the years has made one of the greatest films ever made in cinema history that much better.

Coming out of the theater in 2002 I couldn't wait to get back in.

The characters, story, visual story-telling on all levels is in the top percentile of movies all-time.

I thought the dialogue was simply good and supportive of the story. What I have learned over the years from what fans have pointed out is that it's far more than that. It's downright Shakespearean it in layering as it weaves the narrative, characters and story together.

"Can you defend Attack of the Clones?"

That's like saying to me Can you defend A New Hope? Can you defend The Empire Strikes Back? Can you defend Return of the Jedi? Can you defend The Phantom Menace? Can you defend Revenge of the Sith?

Really what it asks me is Can you defend Star Wars?

Most assuredly the answer is yes.

 

Gonna get hate here, but it's my least favorite of the PT. Less because I think it's bad, but more just that I really enjoy TPM and ROTS more. But I still generally enjoy it, and from the Arena scene on, it's pure gold.

That said, the writing and acting for the romance is horrible. My personal favorite is the scene in Padme's apartment, where anakin tells her that sometimes people must do what is asked of them, even if they don't want to. She remarks how much he's grown up / matured, then he proceeds to have a whiny fit about Kenobi. Yeah.

 

There's not a thing wrong about saying what's your least favorite (especially when backed up with your "why" you think so). You acknowledged what was decent/good/great in your eyes and stated what fell short in your eyes. No poster should "hate" your post - disagree or agree, but what's there to hate? Just like I, with my PT-like, can easily point to scenes that didn't work for me AS WELL as say what did work for me.

 

I know most consider AOTC a superior film, but I really enjoyed Episode I, for seeing an actual Jedi Order, and I LOVED the political stuff. this was stuff we had never been exposed to in a SW film before, and I ate it up !

ROTS, I enjoyed the action, and the vibe of oncoming doom it gave. You know crap is going to go down, and it's going ot end with heartbreak, death. mutilation, and a Republic destroyed, but getting to that point is half the fun!

AOTC... has it's good point, which outweigh the bad. Kenobi, trying ( and failing) to be the Jedi Master to Anakin that Qui-Gon would've been, everything Palpatine, Jango, the action scenes. But those awkward, creepy romance scenes almost derail the whole thing. and I can say Shmi's death scene was one of the worst acted in the history of motion pictures. The way her head just falls back suddenly, with her arm still up in the air.... that's some Monty Python death scene acting there.

 

Which is fine.

I disagree of course but it's not like you are saying everyone hates it and it ruined your life or anything.

I think the writing and acting for the romance is brilliant myself.

It does exactly what it's supposed to do as per the form of courtly love:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=Wf...A#v=onepage&q=steps of f courtly love&f=false

 

Bah! The romance scenes capture youthful ardor and earnest-yet-clumsy poetry better than any genre film I've ever seen. I find them extremely moving insofar as they remind me of my own awkward attempts at expressing powerful emotions and urges when I was 19. They are atypical of Hollywood romance movies but they ring true (for me, at least) as realistic portrayals of the pain of unrequited love.

Shmi's head falls back suddenly because she dies. Her arms remains aloft in part because she's tied to a post, and in part because Anakin has shifted her around to see him.

 

Yeah I thought Shmi's death was pretty authentic. It's very haunting. Pernilla August was superb in the PT.

 

Even if someone doesn't like the PT there is nothing offensive about the films. It's not like they're full of content such as films like A Serbian Film or Schizophreniac: The Whore Mangler and it's sequels. What the hell is offensive about family space adventure films?

 

Really. "Offensive" is such a bizarrely inappropriate word to use in criticizing Star Wars movies.

 

He has watched too much RLM...

 

"Wupiupi?!??!" is a pretty offensive noise. I take it all back.