PT Thoughts/General Discussion: Attack of the Clones

I tend to sort of see green lightsabers as representing physical life, i.e. plants nature, etc. And blue lightsabers representing the more mystical, spiritual side of life.

 

Interesting take. Blue is the color around Jedi Force Ghosts, so that does fit.

 

I've watched this film a couple of times over the years, and in preparation for the Kenobi show, I'm watching the prequels, and tonight I watched AOTC. The amount of lightsaber battles with the lightsabers swinging in the Arena, is fantastic. It's beautiful and also really well done. The romance between Anakin and Padme is still very uncomfortable to watch. It is really bad. Christopher Lee was great! The factory scene was unnecessary. I really liked whenever Obi-wan was flying. He hates it, which makes for good viewing. Ewan did well in this. But this film suffers from an incredible oversaturation of CGI. The battle of the Clones with the droids was good, and makes the movie true to it's title.

This is still for me, the poorest of the 6 George Lucas films. But there are enjoyable moments.

 

Attack of the Clones is much better than people think, and I've felt that way ever since leaving the theater after watching it.

I'm happy to see more and more people calling it an underrated classic.

The thing about AOTC is that its flaws actually enhance it, in my view. Many of it's supposed flaws have faded over time, but those that have survived the test of time have the upside of creating a unique aesthetic and feel. The romance scenes, for instance, I believe can be enjoyed, and should be enjoyed, as kitschy, corny melodrama -- they are serious, silly, soaring, and simply a lot of fun, unless you're a big grump.

Overall, I find it to be the most fun prequel, and whenever I run into it on TV I can't help but watch. This is much different than my feeling about TPM and ROTS. The former mostly feels like a burden to plod through and while the latter is a better film, it's too dark and serious to watch unless you're in the right mood.

Attack of the Clones hits that vibe that ANH and ROTJ hit. Swashbuckling adventure that is primarily meant to entertain.

Plus, the title is vastly underrated. I have always loved its pulpy taste.

 

Attack of the Clones has always been my least favorite of the prequels, but I can say there was definitively NEVER a better time to be a Star Wars fan (at least after 1983). The film wasn't perfect, and had flaws, but everything that surrounded the film, in books, games, and the pure lore it added to the Star Wars mythos, made AOTC such a memorable part of why I love Star Wars.

 

There’s one thing I still don’t understand about the plot of Attack of the Clones. What does Viceroy Gunray have to do with the attempts on Padmé’s life? I mean, in the movie it's said that he’s behind the attempts on her life, but we know Palpatine was actually behind it. So how does it work? Wouldn’t it make more sense for George Lucas to make the movie say that Count Dooku was behind the attacks, and therefore Palpatine?

 

Palpatine was never behind the attacks on Padme. Gunray asks Dooku to kill her as part of his conditions for joining the Separatists, and Dooku then procures Jango’s services to actually do the deed.

Palpatine never actually enters into the equation regarding Padme’s death, and the battle of Geonosis forces the Trade Federation’s hand with regards to their allegiance, so killing her no longer matters (since the war has begun and they can’t back out anymore).

 

I'm going through the Star Wars saga with my daughter, who's 5. We're watching in chronological order so we just did Phantom Menace over the weekend and currently doing Attack of the Clones.

She's most engaged whenever R2 and R4 are onscreen. She particularly got a kick out of something I never even noticed, which was R2 trying to go up some steps after they land on Naboo, while Anakin and Padme don't even wait up because they're too busy macking it to each other.

 

I agree with pretty much all of this. This film has such a unique classic flavour that I love. It’s stylistically and tonally way better than ROTS in my opinion.

 

ROTS is my favourite star wars movie (and one of my favourite movies ever, if not the best), although I get what you guys are saying about the mood. I do like attack of the Clones, but the first part of ROTS gived you that fun feeling and it depicts much better Anakin and Obi-Wan's friendship in my opinion. That being said, attack of the Clones is iconic and the soundtrack is AMAZING. Across the stars is the most besutiful theme in all star wars for me, it makes me sad that it is barely used in the shows nowadays, if at all (at least not that I can recall). I guess the reason for this is that it is Anakin and Padmé's love theme, but still. They could use it in other kind of scenes related to Anakin or whatever. It's a shame that such a gem hasn't been used in other shows!

 

I was there when it was released, and the hype was unbelievable. I had already watched The Phantom Menace three times in the movie theaters, and I sure did the same with Attack Of The Clones.

Loved this movie when it came out, love it 20 years later. It has aged like fine wine, and the iconic scenes from it outweigh all the minor nitpicking that some people might have. They don't just outweigh it, they crush it like Obi-Wan crushed those Magnaguards in ROTS.

Between:

• The attempts on Padme's life in her apartment on Coruscant
• Obi-Wan and Anakin chasing the bounty hunter
• Everything and anything about Kamino
• Obi-Wan's pursuit of Jango Fett
• The story about the creation of the clones
• Anakin and Padme falling in love
• Geonosis
• Anakin and Obi-Wan VS Count Dooku
• Yoda VS Count Dooku
• Anakin and Padme getting married

it still baffles me how people consider this a weak movie or anything of the sort.
Out of the classic 6 SW movies, I prefer it over TPM and ANH.

 

Very well said @Master Jedi Fixxxer !!!

 

Well said and deserving my Paul gif of approval

 

Last night my five year old girl spotted my old Prequel DVD set. She says "Is that Attakin' the Cones? I love Attakin' the Cones!"

So this morning she's watching Attakin' the Cones.

 

The prequels, and YES, maybe especially AOTC, will be remembered long after all the haters are nothing but dust and bones in their graves. Give it a couple more years, and nobody will be talking about how much worse the PT is compared to the sacred "originals". There will just be the saga. Not speaking for Disney here, but I myself have long come to view the two Lucas trilogies as an inseparable unit.

 

I kid you not, when people ask me about my fav SW movie my first response is always that I see all 6 of them as one movie since 2005.

 

My thoughts precisely my friend!

 

AOTC is the only Star Wars movie I couldn't afford to watch in the theaters as many times as I wanted. After eight visits, I had to wait impatiently for months to get the DVD

I went to see ROTS eight times as well. That time around, I could afford more, but after that last viewing I was satisfied. The story had come full circle, after all. There was no longer that feeling of burning anticipation to keep me coming back for more, like in 2002.

AOTC might be the one I've seen the most times overall, because of that period of anticipation between 2002 and 2005.
...and because I was spellbound by Hayden's Anakin

 

I did and do dislike the aspect of Padme suspecting Dooku when she's against creating an army which would suggest he wants her to be around. I think I read that deleted dialogue or an adaptation has a character pointing that out and Padme replying no, with him trying to divide the Republic regardless of the army issue they're very much on opposing sides, adversaries and that would have really quickly and effectively explained more of the context and conflicts.

I do really dislike the asteroid chase scene, it's too blatantly long direct parallel to the much better one in Empire, though it isn't quite as long as I remembered it it feels too there to be there (as does the factory scene) and I also dislike that Jango's ship and weapons are depicted as more advanced than Obi-Wan's, Jango as the brutal aggressor, cheap, forced ways to try to make Obi-Wan seem like the underdog.

I think the love story is decent, aside mostly from the fireplace scene dialogue being excessive, otherwise it's OK (and the joke that Padme showed no interest in him until after the revealing the killing is kind of funny but really unfair and not the case) and makes sense but you have to read a lot into the characters and relationships for it to make sense and it's not really hard to do so (basically they both altruistically serve the public and generally don't regret it but do increasingly regret the costs especially loneliness) but there's little to directly convey that.

Not fond of either Obi-Wan or Anakin, they have moments but too often come off as respectively stickler and too immature.

LOL, not a big deal but it does feel kind of weird that it got longer for just that movie, and seemingly just so that there would be visual contrast rather than too much similarity with Anakin.

 

I do like a lot that the film, especially the Battle of Geonosis, is strongly, effectively anti-war (which is still very rare in action/war films) and yet not in an overbearing, offputting preachy way, it effectively communicates that that message, works as both fun, engaging action and also as disturbing action, gets the viewer to see why the protagonists and the Republic overall think they are doing the right thing and in some sense are and in another sense are going down very wrong paths.

 

Is Geonosis a little too similar looking to Tatooine? They're both fine but Geonosis is probably the most similar-looking new planet we had, to the point that Tatooine could have outright been the setting of the Confederacy headquarters and plot and battle too if not for ANH already establishing that it's far from the center of power/importance (although that could be pretty recent, with TPM having that it's close to Naboo and Naboo seeming, at least becoming, really important).

 

CLee, I believe you were correct. Geonesis needed more background, and that's why the EU was able to explain more about the place. But as usual, George came up with a ton of good scenes. He needed more context. Dooku's relationship with Archduke Poggle is intriguing, given the interpretation that this was amongst the rare times that Docku was not racist/speciesist is interesting. However, I can't really imagine Dooku, an ex-jedi, being racist, but I can see why his aristocratic lineage in both versions of the canon (both alternative universes, if you will), encouraging that Sith-like ethnocentrism to come out.



But as usual, Dooku/Tyranus needed more explanation in the prequels in general. It's funny how he was this skilled duelist who could use two blades originally, and in the old EU, they turned him into a person who preferred Form II and hated how many of his apprentices (Jedi, Sith acolyte, and Grievous) would use two or more blades. But as usual, Dooku's portrayal is explained with more nuance in the EU. He's a fascist who was corrupted from good intentions by his own intellect and ambition. Then in the Disney version, he's closer to what some of you guys have said: a Jedi who was bent toward Sith ideology. Still, he wanted to make the galaxy a better place, and he would have agreed more with Plagueis had he actually known the Machiavellian, lawful neutral/pure neutral philosopher. Even so, Dooku was bent more toward Sidious' ambitions, and Dooku was technically responsible for more crimes than Vader and Maul combined...and that's saying something. That was not what he intended to be in the beginning. And that's the danger of fascism and elitism. Such ideologies hold that enlightened individuals know better than the masses, and these poor people deserve better than all this nonsense. It's analogous to hating disorganized corruption and then answering with another form of elite corruption.

Darth Traya would have had a field day talking with Dooku about these things. Heh.

Anyhow, on a more positive note, Anakin actually had the right idea. The Jedi were supposed to encourage empathy for other beings, and that was supposed to be a good thing. Unfortunately, Anakin became a bit too fixated on Ms. Padme Amidala. But that's another kettle of fish. I think Anakin and Dooku have more in common than they realize. They get too fixated on things. Mace Windu actually has a bit more in common with them, as well. He just chose to align himself with old Jedi ideology and the Republic instead, but it's a similar problem. They become too ATTACHED, and you could say that Anakin's a Grey Jedi suffering from attachments, Mace is a traditional Jedi struggling with it, and Dooku is a Dark Jedi-turned-Sith struggling with it.

 

I love it!
Not sure how it went to supposedly the most hated of all SW films from day 1, when at day 1 it got a LOT of praise. People seemed pretty damn pumped over it when it came out. But that's the youtube clikcbait hater geek era we are in.... But at least that is a bit fading since some of that lots attention has now turned to new things to hate on, the ST.
I'm sure the ST trilogy will eventually also re-rise in on the net esteem once some more time has passed. One thing I can say is I never, ever encounter even close to negative sense towards any of the films in the real world as you get on the net (or from the media once many of them went into hater mode too or just peeked at online discussions and got a fake impression that they matched the real world- also keep in mind many SW fans just got so fed up with the non-stop hate bashing of the hater group, that a large many simple dropped out and don't bother discussing on the net much for years now), not even remotely close. If anyone's local circle or region actually mirrors the net, I kinda have to say I feel sorry for them.

 

I think TPM was importnat though. What we needed is not TPM being AOTC. But a fourth film stuck inbetween AOTC and ROTS if it were to be ideal since we lost as much time for the mains to all go on adventures together (like in second half of ANH) and a lot had to be crammed or dropped from ROTS. If it had to be three films, it was fine as it went.

(One interesting side note is that TFA was supposed to cover all the story it did plus a lot of TLJ and Lucas was a touch worried that there might be a rush for 8 and 9 after TFA didn't get as far as originally planned.)

 

I was around here but did not post back in 2002 and I remember quite well that a number of people here were initially happy with AotC. Even some of the so called "Bashers" of TPM did like AotC better.
And the reasons some gave was "Less Jar Jar", "no kid Anakin", "more serious tone", "more Jedi action."

But I also remember that a common complaint even then was the romance, some did not feel it worked.
And I also remember that some months later, say oct/nov of 2002, that some were less happy with the film. Not that they hated it but the flaws had become more noticeable.

This is not unique to SW, a film can open and if it is very anticipated, then people can be really happy with it initially. But as time goes by, the problems can become more noticeable.
It does not have to happen and feelings on a film can change over time. I know films that I really liked first time I saw them but then seeing them again I did not like them as much. And the opposite has also happened, the first time was not as good but further viewings made me like them better.
ESB is one example, the first time I liked it but liked RotJ better. Now I hold ESB as better than RotJ.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor