PT Thoughts/General Discussion: Attack of the Clones

I wonder if Lucas had just had only male sand-people (who are the only ones we ever saw before AOTC) being cut down would anyone be reacting to that?

Not much I think hence why Lucas specifically had them in there and have Anakin admit it to her.

As I have said before Anakin is about trying to fix things beyond his control while Padme does the same to people but in a more realistic way.

Her problem might be that she hangs on too long and believes in people too much even when they don't in themselves which is another Luke trait in regards to Padme to Anakin and Luke to Vader.

What I find odd is when there is the talk of what Padme should do about Anakin in regards to the sand-people (get away etc) when comparing that to Luke's actions to what he does later as Vader for which there is no remorse at all.

 

The Obi-Wan detective plot is very interesting and has a lot of parallels to TESB's Han Solo scenes leading up to Cloud City. AOTC also gives us a lot of insight in the inner workings of the Trade Federation, a large amount of world building, and a sprinkle of the early Empire (death star plans).

 

so people's main gripe with this movie is the anakin and padme love story scenes. yes some of the dialogue is awkward and cheesy but that makes it work for me. we all remember being his age and how awkward we were around our first love interest our first kiss and all that. if we looked back and seen it all we would cringe.

you then add to that the fact anakin was a slave and other then his mother padme was the first female that was ever nice to him so its normal for him to be attached to her. he then goes to the jedi where all this is forbidden yet his hormones have already started. he feels alienated in the jedi order as well because most of them don't trust him even though he has given them no reason not too.

then the movie happens and he is experiencing all the emotions he is now a man and the woman of his affections is in front of him he wants to win her affection but has no idea how. she is taken aback at how good he looks and the attraction is wrong she hides it probably thinking its wrong.

then they share stories and anakin acts like any jealous teenager does when he hears the woman he loves had someone else. padme starts falling for anakin deeper and finally on geonosis when they are both about to die she gives into it and what they both want.

to me its good writing. its not like anakin is han solo who has been womanizing around the galaxy his whole life with a woman in every port. it shows a different side to the chosen one deeply confident in his skills with a saber and mastery of the force an ace fighter pilot and can make or fix anything as well as a great leader of men. is terrified of how to start/have a relationship

 

Although old fashioned and romantic, the love between Ani and Padme is very realistic, as you described it, because the beloved ones actually don't know what to do with their feelings, at least in the beginning. In ROTS they already feel moe comfortable in their love, but in AOTC this is impossible and not only because this love is forbidden.

 

By the way, I think Padme's 'refugee' costume is inspired by the Russian traditional wedding clothes. I recognized the specific 'crown' that I had always like in their traditional female costumes. Some examples:
Here, the girl on the right.


And here:

The traditional color is red, but there are also blue and golden ones (I couldn't find good pictures with them).

So, in the end Padme and Anakin went to Naboo in wedding costumes. I don't know it is deliberate, but it fits perfectly in the vibe of the movie.

 

When all is said and done, this is supposed to be entertainment. If something doesn't entertain you, then you are doing yourself a disservice to try and force it. Life's too short for that. Giving it a couple of tries and thinking over what you have problems with is fine. But after dozens and dozens of views, it is best to accept it isn't your thing. Why torture yourself?

Let's say you have a divided legislative branch. You want to get them to pass ABC. The Y Party is for it. The N Party is against it. If you poke at Y, you are just going to get Y stating this is proof we need ABC. That doesn't change the vote at all. Unfortunately, politics gets so partisan that an attack on Y is of little concern to N. N might even claim Y's support of ABC is what actually provoked the attack. But attack N and the N voters might think "wait. We've been the cool ones. Why are they attacking us? Maybe ABC is all these people will respond to after all."

We have real life proof. Wikileaks has been around for quite a long time. Many on the "N" side really didn't see them as a problem for a decade. Definitely not worth giving up civil rights to get them. Besides. Wikileaks was just exposing what "we" did wrong, so it is really our own fault (see above). Wikileaks suddenly attacks the N party directly and Wikileaks goes from not really a problem (even thumbs up from many) to Public Enemy #1.

So we can hardly say what Lucas presented was unrealistic.

Why did Dooku want the ABC bill to pass? Well, we know why (as it was all a false flag operation). But how would he sell that to the Separatists? First, did he. Well, Nute Gunray had a vendetta for her after Episode 1. Did Dooku let those beyond Gunray know? I don't recall. Did the Separatists want war? Perhaps. But maybe they (the leadership specifically) wanted to make sure they were seen as the attacked and not the attacker, which is what we ended up with. Sure, they had OB1, Anakin and Padme. Spies that were caught infiltrating and participating in industrial espionage. They were tried and convicted as such. The Republic didn't get them back with Delta Squad. They went in with a full military force.

This is very much like the Union and Confederates of the Civil War. The Confederates left the Union and were attacked under the premise the Confederates needed to return military bases to the Union. The idea that wars are started by simply taking territory of others usually is not the case. There will be claims of territory disputes, espionage, weapons programs that violate treaties, claims the other side was clearly poised to attack within hours or days or even the assassination of an archduke.

Now why didn't Palpatine and Dooku just conspire to let the Separatists win by defeating an unarmed Republic. Simple. That scenario ends with the core world and government under occupation. The Palps route ended with the core world and government cheering and hailing him a hero and calling for disarming the general population so an armed insurrection couldn't happen again.

Your first question answers your second comment.

As for Mace, he has more riding on his answer. This would almost be like a family member or employee doing something illegal (but clandestinely). First, you might think you knew them well enough to rule out them doing said event. Second, you might actually think it is a possibility, but you are not really sure yourself. After all, you didn't physically see them do it. So rather than raise flags which might be used against you later (in a court of law even), you play coy with the idea that you will first verify if they actually did it yourself.

What if you said "yes, my sister definitely could have done this" to the cops, and it turns out she didn't. Now you might be up on the stand asking why you thought she could have done this. Perhaps her friend did it, but your sister is now on trial. You tell the cops the sister's friend admitted it to you but it is hearsay, so your sister is still on the hook and now you are envisioning some jury member telling others "even her own brother thinks she did it. His first reaction was she did it. He only changed his story to get her off the hook."

Not only that, but now your family name, business or other entity you care a great deal about is looked at with unwarranted suspicion. It is very clear in RotS that it took the Jedi too long to admit to the Senate what they already knew. Their ability to use the force had diminished. Why did they wait? Because they knew it would be used against them. Just like an ex-Jedi openly suspected of assassination of a Senator.

Not only all very logical, but really well thought out. If the Prequels would have simply been the Emperor assuming power via military coup and converting Anakin to Vader by simply offering him the power to rule by his side, then I would agree that the Prequels sucked. I was incredibly happy with the way it actually went down. Obviously nobody can be 100% pleased of every aspect, but I liked a lot more than I disliked.

 

No, I can't defend it. It's easily my least favorite SW film, even less so than TPM. The only memorable scene was Yoda vs. Dooku.

Christensen is probably the worst mis-cast in cinema history (due to the importance of the role and the importance of the franchise). I can barely get through any of his scenes, especially with Padme.

Of course, I largely blame Lucas for everything I just stated. He cast Hayden, he wrote the script, he directed the film. It was a bad case of the blind leading the blind.

 

First, the assassination of Padme WAS talked about in front of a few other seps leader, from memory, the techno union guy and the Geonosian guy were there and there might have been others.
So other seps leader knew that Nute and Dooku had hired an assassin to kill Padme, an advocate for peace and they were apparently fine with it.

Second, the seps very much want war. And they are not in any way interested in being seen as the "good guys" here.
They have built up a huge army while as far as they know, the republic have no defenses other than the Jedi. No army, no fleet, nothing.
So they expect a quick victory, a swift attack that deal with the Jedi and then the republic is at their mercy and they can enforce what ever demands they have. Dooku says this directly. But he doesn't mention what their actual demands are.

Third, the seps had been working on this for some time. The plan to attack was made long before Obi-Wan, Anakin or Padme were captured so their actions didn't matter here.

Except this is not very similar.
The seps had made it clear that they wanted to leave the republic but given the film, they hadn't yet done so. This number, that the crawl talks about, was several hundred systems but Dooku talks about 10 000 systems joining their cause with the TF's support.
And speaking about that. The TF are know as the guys that attacked and invaded a weak and defenseless world and put the entire population in camps and were starving them.
So they would not really be known as noble good guys. And yet according to Dooku, more systems would join them due to the TF's support. Those systems are not likely to very noble either.
In fact, given that the seps plan is to build a big army and attack the weak republic, those that want to join could be those that see that such a war would quickly end with a seps victory and they want to be on the side that wins.

Getting back the to the subject, the seps have been building an army, while doing negotiations.
This army is not know but apparently the TF and the Commerce guild have said that if the seps need help, they will help them. So the seps have some military might.
The republic meanwhile has no army. There is talk to vote on making one but it hasn't passed yet.

So at the start of the film, the republic can not attack the seps as it doesn't have an army. The North very much had an army.
The seps, as I've said, is building up an army with the intent to use it against a weak republic in order to enforce what ever demands they have.
Plus, Mace says that if talks with the seps fail, then there won't be enough Jedi to protect the republic.
Indicating that the seps would attack if negotiations fail. And this was before he knew about the big droid army.
In all, it seems that the only way for the seps to not go to war is if the republic gave in to all their demands.

[/QUOTE]

Except I don't find all of it very well thought out.
Far too often the plot is contrived, characters do or say things because the plot needs them to and not because it makes logical sense.
Ex Qui-Gon taking a nine year boy into a war-zone for no reason, The plot needs him to be there.
Or why the TF removed their blockade for no reason, which was very lucky for Padme as she was going back to Naboo despite not knowing this.
Or that the TF leave fueled and armed Naboo ships just sitting there in the palace that they control.

Then you have plot threads that are set up and then forgotten about.
The Jedi know that Jango, the clone template, works for Dooku, the seps leader. And yet they at no point ever mention this or what it could mean.

The basic story is good, very good even.
That Palpatine first creates a false crisis to get elected into a position of power.
Then he creates a fake war to get even more power and to weaken his enemy, the Jedi.

But to me, the execution of the story was less than great at times. the acting, writing and directing were at times forced, stilted or not natural. In a way it is a great recipe for a meal but it hasn't been cooked all that great.
Note, I don't think the PT are bad films, they are average or a little above.
Some good is there to make them watchable but enough bad is there to keep me from watching them all that often.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

These can be explained quite easily.

With the first, Anakin is Qui-Gon's responsibility, and Qui-Gon likely wants to keep an eye on him. It's not really different from there just happening to be a spare X-wing for Luke in ANH. I suppose Anakin could have stayed with the Gungan leaders, but this puts him away from Qui-Gon, and leaves him vulnerable to the Droid army, which could easily have wiped out the leaders after beating the army. Qui-Gon just likely wants to keep Anakin close so that he's knows he's safe. Once inside the hangar, Qui-Gon considers an anonymous cockpit a safe place to hide while they capture the Viceroy, which would have been a simple task if not for Maul.

The second is the most trivial, as the Neimoidians no longer need their blockade. They own the planet. So they send the now non-essential blockade away. The Neimoidians learn that Padme is returning only after she's already arrived, so they have no time to contact or gather reinforcements.

Why would the Neimoidians bother to un-fuel the ships? They've owned the planet for a few days, taking the fuel out of the fighters in the hangar seems like a low priority. The TF have been rounding people into camps, and hunting down the Gungans, they don't have the time or inclination to remove all these ships. Why would they anyway? They aren't expecting an attack, so they rightly leave the hangar while they secure the planet.

 

There are a lot of reasons why things happen but we are given just enough to recognize events as having parallels to real life so we can assume equivalency to fill in the rest. For one, it would mean more political talk in the movie. And for all the complaints about too much political talk, Lucas actually took some complex "geopolitical" ideas and gave us just enough without being overbearing.

A good example might be to compare the earth to the galaxy, nations as planets, with some nations becoming empires of sorts. Probably recent comparisons would be the Soviet Empire and the British Empire.

The trade taxation could be generically aligned with something like the Cuban missile crisis. You talk about Mace saying the Seps have a war machine as proof they will use it. That was the feeling there. The Soviet demands were not "the missiles stay or we ... give up and go home." The demand was *justified* first by invasions into Cuba and the need for Cuba to defend itself. But everything is more complex than that. It also increases first strike capability exponentially. First, by proximity and second, by creating a new negotiator in the process (Cuba). So the demand was backed by what is commonly referred to in the nuclear age as "all options are on the table." Does that mean the Soviet plan was to create a reason to start a nuclear war and found a way to make it not look like naked aggression? History shows otherwise. But from the US side, they weren't watching a movie screen and "Mace" warned what the road *could* lead to.

What about Russia and former Soviet satellite nations. Like Georgia and Ukraine. Talk to an American and Russia is simply grabbing land (Crimea). Talk to a Russian and America tried to turn a friendly nation against Russia. Their Trade Route associated with Crimea was jeopardized. The idea that there is simply a good guy and a bad guy, a clear right and wrong rarely happens in history. Those that simply don't point to Nazi Germany as pure evil also realize that part of what helped Hitler's rise were the crushing *sanctions* on Germany post WW1. Hence, the Marshall Plan.

Some could say that TPM was a small WW1 with the TF suffering the consequences a decade later. Other systems empathizing that the TF was "just reacting to an unfair law". And it seems clear (to the audience) that the law was meant to be unfair (usually pushed by hiding it as good intentions) to put Palp's larger plans in motion.

Let's take the Union and Confederates again. North is highly industrialized, mainly due to terrain v. the south. Well, a Senator makes a claim that this automation is hurting the "blue collar" workers. Therefore, a tax must be set up on this automation with the fund created acting as a safety net. Manual hands working gets a business refundable tax benefit. Murky law text leaves slave workers as a "dependent" for this tax credit. Essentially, the money ends up being redistributed from the North to the South. Of course, there are many people in the North benefiting from this safety net as well, even though the net effect is the South comes out ahead. So repealing it is just business being mean to the working schlub. Now we have the North leaving the US instead of the South.

Point being, most people aren't bad for the sake of being bad. And some people manipulate systems for their own advantage (Palps) at the expense of "the greater good" while still being seen as a hero for "the greater good."

One of the only truly bad guys was Palps. Everybody else was just being played off one another.

 

There is whole thread, dedicated to that.
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/historical-references-in-the-prequels.50038237/
Very underrated aspect of the prequels, I think.

 

Tonyg
Thanks. The forum is so huge that unless we are talking about Rogue One, I'm pretty positive I'm just repeating something that has been discussed multiple times. Maybe even on Page 11 of this thread.

I really loved the idea of the background plots to both trilogies use history of real geopolitical events as a mold. This is why I kind of like the idea of the new trilogy possibly using post-Cold War, the Age of Terrorism and mainly shifting alliances where we've gone from two superpowers to many less-superpowers. I thought the Resistance/Republic angle was a nice touch in the ST. And R1 touched slightly on factions of an alliance and freedom fighters/terrorists.

And yet at the same time, the trilogies use the real life events as an anchor but less of a commentary. That's great, because preachy documentaries disguised as fiction can be the worst.

 

Yeah I can defend AOTC. That shot of him in the binary sunset is just so epic. Especially they music as he embraces Padme and departs.



If I watch Anakin leaving his mother right before this scene I can be moved to tears. I especially love how he kisses his mother's hand and the tear that drops from both his and his mother's eye when she passes.

The music and lighting just gets me every time.

At the end of the day I have a simple criteria. Was I entertained? Did I enjoy the movie? Yes? Then I can defend the movie. It's so simple.

 

First, by this logic, soldiers, who also have children, if they are ordered to go to war in another country, not only would the children go with them to this other country, they would also take them into battle. This sounds reasonable to you?

Or what about parents that work as airline pilots, in nuclear plants or as prison guards.
They are responsible for their children right so bring the kids to work.

Second, Qui-Gon is responsible for Anakin yes and part of that responsibility includes not putting Anakin's life at risk for no reason. With the race he put Anakin at risk but it was for a reason and he didn't have many other options.
Here Qui-Gon has plenty of options, leaving him at the gungan hideout is safer and even safer would be to have Padme order 1-2 of her hand-maidens to stay with Anakin in the apartment she used while on Coruscant.
Also, if the droid army wins and is not shut down and they fail to get Nute. They loose and Anakin is now alone in a palace crawling with enemies. Not sure why that is better than at the hideout.
This was not supposed to be a long mission, 1-2 days tops. So Qui-Gon can leave Anakin alone for that long, no problem.
As for Maul, the main reason why Qui-Gon went to Naboo was to fight and apprehend Maul so he knew that he would cross blades with Maul.
In short, Anakin tagging along makes no sense, is not done for any other reason other than plot requirement and no one questions this.
Massively contrived.

Third, as for Luke, the alliance needed pilots, Luke is one and Biggs even vouched for him.
Luke even asks Han to help. So they aren't short of fighters but of people to man them.

Imagine that Luke brought his ten year old brother along, he just climbs into an X-Wing, starts it, flies off and manages to blow up the DS. That would be contrived.

Except that the TF deny that an invasion has even taken place so it would be in their interest to make sure that it looks like nothing has changed. So keep the blockade.
Plus if those ships aren't needed elsewhere, which is never established, why remove them?
At some point they have to come back and pick up all the droids they left behind.
And anyway, neither Padme nor Qui-Gon knew beforehand that the blockade was gone. So for all they knew, they would face the same blockade that they barely got through the last time.
So odds are that their ship would be blown up or boarded before they could even land.
And yet that doesn't deter Qui-Gon from taking Anakin, who also happens to be the most important person alive today. He is the chosen one, if he dies, then all is lost.

[/QUOTE]

When you invade a country or city or some such, neutralizing the enemies military capabilities is a top priority. Those fighters could have been used against their forces so dealing with them is far more important than rounding up regular citizens. You don't leave military hardware just lying around for anyone to get.
And they don't have to defuel them, just destroy them. The TF have no need of them and it isn't like they would give them back to the Naboo later.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

ISIS disagrees

As far as Anakin, padawans learn by traveling with their master. Especially when it is in defiance of the Jedi Temple. So he couldn't just stay there. If Anakin was going to learn from Qui Gon, he had to be with him. And Qui Gon was an active Jedi. If anything is made clear, it is that Anakin was too old, not too young to become a Jedi.

 

Really?
So if ISIS were to capture a military base, they would just remove the soldiers but they would leave all the tanks, helicopters, weapons and ammo lying around?

[/QUOTE]

Again really?
So if a Jedi has a padwan that is say eight and he has to go into vey hostile territory where there could be battle. He takes the young kid along, no need to be careful, the kid has to learn?
Odds are all the kid would learn is how to die.
I would imagine the Jedi being sensible enough NOT to assign very deadly missions to those with very young padawans. I would also think that the Jedi keep the young padawans IN the temple until they reach a certain age.
Also, I never said that Qui-Gon would leave Anakin in the temple, I said he could have left him in Padme's apartment.
Plus, Qui-Gon didn't bring Anakin so that he could learn anything. All he wanted Anakin to do was to find a safe place and hide.
"Back on Coruscant is a safer place than anywhere on Naboo, Qui-Gon!"

This was just a short mission, find and capture Maul and bring him back. Anakin is already too old, waiting 2-3 more days is hardly going to matter.
And Qui-Gon being an active Jedi. So?
This is not an excuse to bring small children into a warzone for no reason. Esp when safer alternatives exists and Qui-Gon didn't want Anakin to do anything except to hide.
Qui-Gon was quite busy, protect Padme, find, fight and capture Maul. Doing that while also being on the lookout for Anakin is not smart.

If he brought Anakin so that he could learn to fight and survive a battle, that would at least have been a reason. Not a good one, but a reason.
Instead Anakin just tags along and no one questions or even comments on the wisdom in bringing a small kid into battle.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

To repeat a similar point in response to the above point elsewhere:

Some people blame the actors but dependent on whether they like the character or not. It's not at all uncommon for people in the audience to conflate an actor with a character and judge a performance by how much they like the character. It's seem that many people expect that they should like characters in a movie that are supposed to be in the heroic or central roles.This as noted led to rewrites and reshoots in both TFA and R1 to make characters more "likeable".

As I have said many times Leia and Han would be first on the list if doing ANH or TESB today. They simply aren't as likeable as they should be by today's standards. I don't think there is a more likeable bunch of hero characters than in TFA with Rey, Finn, BB-8 and Poe. Imagine if Finn treated Rey the way Han did in those movies. Anakin had only some hints of the Han attitude towards Padme and see how that went over with some people.

I find Anakin quite "likeable" but certainly not in the same way as Luke or Rey. Lucas simply wasn't going for that. If he was then he would have done it in the writing, the way the character was formulated and in his direction with HC on what he wanted in the performance. That clearly is not what he wanted. For some reason there are people that think this is evidence that Lucas didn't know what he was doing because your main character is supposed to be "likeable" in the familiar way seen with both Luke and Rey and now again with Jyn. Look how many people didn't care for Jyn based on a few lines from the trailers that got cut out of the movie.

The idea that you want the audience on their side is something that Lucas clearly was not going for. If he was actually trying to do that then Anakin's portrayal and character would be a total failure. The problem with that is that there is no reason at all to believe that is what Lucas was going for at all. The point is that Anankin ,unlike Luke, does fall to the Dark Side and his hero's journey turns out the opposite of Luke's

That being the case the feeling about Anakin should if successfully done should therefore be opposite to Luke's. So obviously Lucas and HC totally hit a grand slam home run with many people in that regard. The problem is those people expected something completely different. That kind of catharsis ie the restoration and renewal in Anakin doesn't happen in the PT. That only really happens to the adult Anakin in ROTJ. 9 year old Anakin does that by winning the podrace but he doesn't even know he is racing for his freedom and marrying Padme is presented as really not being a good thing and that is the way it turns out to be.

Brilliant writing and directing and arguably the best casting and performance ever seen or will be seen in SW.

Obviously the "mistake" that Lucas made in terms of what many people would have liked to see is to start Anakin so young then have to change actor and not show a full movie of the hero Anakin that so many wanted to see.

 

You have it backward. ISIS was the group seizing the military equipment, not losing it. Basically, real life occurrence verifying that many of the things people say would never happen in real life ... happen in real life. Really life.

 

You seem to miss that the post I was responding to argued that neutralizing or seizing these fighters are not important and the TF had no reason to do anything about them.
My counter was that when doing an invasion, dealing with military hardware left behind is NOT trivial or unimportant.
So that ISIS was able to take military hardware and make use of it only proves my point.

So the TF could have spent a little less effort in rounding up farmers and shop owners and taken 10-15 minutes to destroy these fighters.

And did the Naboo known that the TF were this sloppy? That these fighters were left untouched?

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

My point is that we have history, even very recent history, to prove it happens all the time. Therefore, it is not a problem with the movie, but rather a real life representation. Although I just looked at the title of the thread, and this seems to be a TPM complaint, not an AotC complaint.

Wars and battles are filled with moves that seemed obvious in hindsight. In the case of the TF Naboo invasion, the invasion was so easy that assuming weaponry was secure was a safe bet and therefore, low priority. Why should they suspect that the Naboo would be more difficult post capture than before?

 

To me, arguing "Morons exist in real life so it is fine to make these characters morons." that is not a good explanation.
To me, it is contrived or lazy writing and to me this is found in both TPM and AotC.
Things happen, not for any logical reason but because the plot needs it to.

These Naboo fighters are for no reason left alone by the TF, the Naboo people for some reason know that they are still there and in perfect working order. And all just so that we can have a space battle at the end of the film.

As for the TF, those fighters are sitting in the palace hanger, they are not hard to spot.
So that no one in the TF knew that they were there is stretching things.
And if they have seen them the obvious question is, Hey should we do something about these fighters?"
Yes the TF is painted as quite dumb and cowardly but if you push this too far it can bother me.

But yes this is more about TPM, so I'll leave this alone.

Bye
Old Stoneface

 

A lot? Is there ever any mention of what the TF actually trades?

 

Yes its amazing thats all u need to know

 

Yes, it's an amazing film filled with great mystery, exciting battles, creative new characters, rad new planets, solid acting performances, and an excellent score.

Plus it has Zam Wesell!

 

The chase through Coruscant is one of the best scenes of the entire series.