So here was the plan: I'd find a nice pad of paper, a pencil, and my watch, and I'd go into the theater. Then I'd start up the fancy stopwatch feature and make notes, and then everyone, everyone, could thrill to a me-annotated guide to Attack of the Clones.
I found no paper, I grabbed a pen, and my watch is somewhere where I'm not. So no notes were taken.
Some background: I saw Attack of the Clones today, for the very first time. For awhile I was debating whether I was going to see it at all. I mean, it's just a movie, right? There's lots of movies I don't see in the theater, because I am a sad recluse. And there are lots of movies I never see at all, because I am a lazy recluse. But it didn't seem right to not see a Star Wars film in the theater, because I am, if nothing else, a product of my environment.
So rather than a detailed commentary track, I'll just be handing out some awards, in a vaguely chronological order. Yeah. Oh, wait, sub-topic, before I begin: I went and saw Star Wars all by myself today. This was the first time I ever went to a theater alone. I think a girl had invited me to go see it with her for her birthday, back when it came out, but did I? See the recluse bits. Right, anyway, the setting: Simon, 3:30 in the afternoon, a small theater with a few people in it, some kids, mercifully quiet. And so we begin.
Worst theater entrance: And the award goes to me, for getting there late, and thus not having time for my eyes to adjust, and thus wandering aimlessly through the theater for a few horrible seconds. Then I had to walk in front of some people who were enjoying their Men In Black 2 preview, and I bumped into a man's leg! It was not good.
Best trailer featuring Master P's son: Like Mike. He gets magic shoes and is super at basketball! It's like an updating of The Nutty Professor update, but this time without the anthropomorphic flubber.
Major plot element Simon liked least: The Galactic Republic has no army? Uh, sure it doesn't, George. Also, queens are elected and are passionate democrats. So why did the Trade Federation bother with invading Naboo and not, oh, I don't know, the capital of the entire galaxy? Also, no military, but plenty of huge robotic death-dealing walking machines and foreshadowing cruisers. Perhaps used for parades?
Major plot element Simon liked most: Palpatine's plan actually making some sense this time.
Best pickup lines indistinguishable from erotic Star Wars fan fiction: Anakin's. Also, in my experience, when a girl tells you they don't like the way you're looking at them, romance very, very rarely follows. This is a good rule of thumb.
Best Jedi, though unfortunately with the least convincing tough guy hipster line: Mace Windu. "The party's over."? Yeah. Better than "The jig's up, Dooku. The only robot you'll be seeing is the wardenbot at Jedi Prison." I suppose.
Would have been best Jedi if it wasn't for Frank Oz sounding kind of off during the whole thing: Yoda. He spins and stuff! But did he sound quite so weird in The Phantom Menace?
Most lost opportunity: Count Dooku. Chalk it up to Christopher Lee's acting chops, but when he claimed to have a genuine grudge against the way the Republic was doing things, I believed him. Why not have him be telling the truth? He can still be working for Palpatine, even if he doesn't know it.
Slowest getaway vehicle ever: Dooku's solar-sail equipped ship. Great choice, Count, we'll be the fastest ship in the system, providing we're willing to wait several weeks to get the thing moving in the first place.
Hottest actress Simon could be dating this very minute if Tom had held up his part of the plan!: Natalie Portman. Ok, maybe not. The highlight of today's Parade supplement in the Sunday paper was a breathless letter worrying about Ms. Portman being conscripted in the Israeli Army.
Characters most viciously removed of any personality: R2-D2 and C-3PO, arguably some of the best characters in the first three films. Here reduced to terrible one-liners. (Even though some of the people whose comedic sense I trust the most don't seem to agree.) I didn't really have much of a problem with R2 flying around, though.
Lucas' greatest failing as a writer: No, not dialogue, you cynics, though I guess I could argue that. It's confusing whining for anger/sadness/deepfelt emotion. When Lucas wants us to know just how wracked with pain Anakin is, he has him...whine. This is not good. Darth Vader should not whine, even more than he should not say yippee.
Lucasarts' single greatest strength as a film company: Sound. Best sound ever. One of the few bits I still like from The Phantom Menace is the sound of...uh...Sebulba's pod racer. Killer. Beaten here by all sorts of weird engine sounds and funky weapon sounds and so on. Sound!
Scene most reminiscent of The Simpsons: Anakin talking up Obi-wan before whining about him to Amidala. "He's as wise as Master Yoda and as powerful as Master Windu." Surely I wasn't the only one thinking "Oh honey, you're as pretty as Princess Leia and as smart as Yoda."
Oddest effects sequence: The whole scene where the evil farmers try to turn Anakin and Amidala into pies.
I think I stretched that beyond all limits of good taste. Uh, ultimate verdict: Good, for now. Admittedly, I was enraptured by TPM for a few hours too, but I think this film was, at worst, just mediocre, and not terrible. Plus the basic underlying plot wasn't built on coincidences and dumb luck. Except...
What was with the whole Tuskin Raider thing? They keep her alive for a month...why? And she just conveniently dies after he arrives. I half expected to find out that this was a humanitarian camp from the Tuskin Raiders chapter of Doctors Without Borders (or "Urk UUUUURGGHHH urk urk"), and Anakin had unstrapped his mother from her cumbersome and primitive-looking life support machinery.
Oh, I almost forgot. Favorite character: Owen Lars. He was cool.
Posted by Ultra Magnus Pym (Member # 239) on :
Yes, yes, YES!
Also, "Hottest actress Simon could be dating this very minute if Tom had held up his part of the plan"
Tom? Plan? Rape? Oy? Elaborate?
Bow, onlookers. Bow, indeed.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
It is a very strained reference to a person Tom knows who happened to attend Harvard and saw, in passing, once, Natalie Portman, who also attends Harvard. My plan, while admittedly vague in its details, went something like this:
1.) Meet Portman via guy who saw her once via Tom. 2.) True love.
Posted by Ultra Magnus Pym (Member # 239) on :
It's too bad that didn't work out for you. Although, I once saw David Suzuki at a bookstore.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
I believe the secret plot involved Cambridge, MA. Or possibly not. It's an old joke, in any case. But if my little grey cells are working correctly and I'm remembering this properly, I'll pass the blame along to my deceptively-friendly high school guidance counselor. (I'm not bitter. No. Not in the slightest.)
[Edit: Simon and his lightning-quick dragon powers! Drat!
Incidentally, I can count a two-or-three-degree separation from Her Royal Highness through multiple different people now. (The preceding sentence makes sense. Read it again, slowly) So, yeah, laugh at me for being dorky, but you must love me deep down, for I am TEH GEEK MASTUR!]
[ June 30, 2002, 22:54: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
Posted by Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:involved Cambridge, MA.
Which, oddly enough, is the geographical location of Harvard.
quote:for I am TEH GEEK MASTUR!]
And I get in trouble for making fun of how people type?
[ June 30, 2002, 23:07: Message edited by: Snay ]
Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
Didn't even need two reads.
And Owen was cool. Farm Boy makes good. The future Auntie looks to be a hellcat.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
To pull some Hitchhiker into things, I liked Owen because he was just this guy, you know? Everyone else was a Jedi or an ex-queen or some other grand high muckity-muck. Not Owen, though. I bet he voted, paid his taxes, but was more worried about taking Beru out for a night of Tatooine skee-ball and dancing on the weekend.
Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
And he has to deal with a cripple for a father now, too.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, his dad did say "until it heals," to which I would respond "Wishful thinking, you grizzled old sand farmer, your leg's clean off!" But then I suppose anything is possible with the fancy medical technology of the Old Republic, though it can't apparently replace limbs with non-frightening bionic ones yet.
[ July 01, 2002, 00:20: Message edited by: Sol System ]
Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
I thought he was on oxygen in that scene, from smoker's hack.
I have a faulty movie memory though.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
'Tis but a scratch.
And so Liam and I liked C3P0's one-liners. Hardly a crime, especially given how Simon, Mr. Post-Modern himself, was so unwilling to discuss the phallicity of lightsabres over ICQ last night.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
I have another one: Line most reminiscent of a James Bond movie: "She seems to be on top of things." Obi Wan said it about Padme in the big arena.
Posted by Snay (Member # 411) on :
Hah-hah!
By showing Padme on top of a penis-like object (the column), and with Obi-Wan's remark ("she's on top of it"), George Lucas is doing two things: a) providing a topic for Lee & Simon to discuss on their next phallicity ICQ talk and b) showing that Padme likes to be "on top." Which is good, because without his arm, I don't think Anakin could keep his balance.
Posted by Nim Pim (Member # 205) on :
Sol Precinct: "Also, no military, but plenty of huge robotic death-dealing walking machines and foreshadowing cruisers. Perhaps used for parades?"
Robotic deathdealing things, did you mean the little Iron elephants with howitzers on the back? The AT-TEs, as well as the cool "Mi-24 Hind"-looking gunships and the pre-Star Destroyers, were all equipment built for the Clone Army in secret and that task force was brand new, it hadn't acted as an official Republic Force before.
The Kaminoans (the cloning people) didn't have the resources to build vehichles and starcraft for the Maori-Warriors, so the contract for "Things That Can Fly, Grind And Walk Whilst Shooting/SpaceBombing" was outsourced on a subsidiary to Kuat Drive Yards (future Empire Shipbuilding FatCats).
Most of this came from the "Ep II Cross-sections" book.
When did farmers try to turn Annie and Ami into pies?
Posted by Capped In Mic (Member # 709) on :
the Republic is made up of many planets, including Naboo, and we've seen that Naboo has its own military, such as its fighter force and the Guardsmen who fought in the Trade Federation's attack.
Perhaps the Republic left the powers of military protection to the individual planets involved... thats why ordering the creation of a Republic army was so disruptive in the long run.. the lack of a unified military was part of a checks and balance system that made sure that the larger government didnt become more powerful that the pieces that made it up.. basically, once there was a Republic military, it took powers away from the individual planets (as did the 'emergency powers' act which allowed Palpatine to become a military dictator)... one the military power was out of the hands of the individual states making up the Republic, it removed their ability to assert their own interests over that of the larger federal body.
so basically, if anyone attacked any Republic world, it would be defended by their own military, not the Republics (again, what happened on Naboo).. plus i would assume that even if there wasnt a large naval force, those cruisers could also be designed and used as part of some sort of 'coast guard' system and then were ceded to the control of the new unified military force.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
You simply can't have an effective government without a military. Naboo's "security forces" were crushed within minutes by a bunch of droids. The bulk of the elitest group of Jedi around would have been wiped out by a bunch of droids. Palpatine has now been the indirect owner of two seperate droid armies. So, again, why waste time with all this subtle decades long manuvering when you could just invade Coruscant and win in 10, 15 minutes tops? If it's that important to Palpatine to look like a hero to the general public, he can always appear to cut a deal with the invaders, placing himself bravely between the new "masters" of the galaxy and the masses.
And if the Republic had left defense up to the individual planets, then surely there would be legislation in place to call up those militaries for the general defense? And wouldn't that be a solution far more palatable to people like Amidala?
I'm afraid the fact of the matter is that Lucas' grasp on political issues is terribly shakey, and a strength of the first trilogy was that all the political stuff took place offscreen.
Of course, come to think of it, if the Empire was truly heir to a military tradition that was younger than many of its officers, that would explain the general level of incompetance at work within the Empire. Maybe, by galactic standards, Stormtroopers really are the most accurate shots in the galaxy. Scary.
Posted by Eclipse (Member # 472) on :
quote:Originally posted by Snay: By showing Padme on top of a penis-like object (the column), and with Obi-Wan's remark ("she's on top of it"), George Lucas is doing two things: a) providing a topic for Lee & Simon to discuss on their next phallicity ICQ talk and b) showing that Padme likes to be "on top." Which is good, because without his arm, I don't think Anakin could keep his balance.
ROFLMAO!
Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
quote:When did farmers try to turn Annie and Ami into pies?
Watch Chicken Run, and compare it to the droid factory sequence. Lucas is a creative genius, yes he is.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Jedi go in, pies come out...
Posted by Fedaykin Supastar (Member # 704) on :
apple pies?? Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
First realization about the character of Anakin, made during phone conversation with friend: Anakin's technique with women? Pure Charlie X.
Posted by Nim Pim (Member # 205) on :
About the army topic: Private armies are forbidden in ep II, the Trade Federation's droid army is not allowed but they hide behind so many scheisters that they're virtually untouchable.
The Naboo world only had a security force. The gungans didn't have interstellar spacetravel, so their army shouldn't be a threat to anyone, nevermind the fact that they've got no offensive weapons whatsoever, except for Electro-dampening grenades and bombs. Well how convenient, when faced with a droid army...
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
I'm going to take a wild guess that George Lucas lost his touch and sucks as a writer?
Ever since Episode 1, I always have said that Lucas should at least write the first draft then send it through a few good writers for plotlines and so on checks. His directing isn't that bad but still afterall he's not as good as your average director IMO. I mean look at Episode 5 and 6, they're not even touched by Lucas except for his name being in the credits from my understanding.
This movie, Episode 2, just supports what I think, in letting good writers and good directors take over before he really crumbles his favorite little hobby.
I hope to god that if they make a IJ 4, that he does not even come close to a mile from the scripts and the dirctors chair.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
IJ 4?
To clarify slightly, Episode 2 was co-written by someone. And...
"I mean look at Episode 5 and 6, they're not even touched by Lucas except for his name being in the credits from my understanding."
is just wrong. He came up with the story, wrote at least some of the drafts, and directed several parts of Jedi himself (and surprisingly, those are the Vadar/Luke/Emperor parts. I.e., the good parts).
I agree about Anakin though. People said they weren't convinced by the romance. I don't think you were meant to. I was terrified by him personally. Scary Jedi power weilding madman who STEALS WOMENS PEARS!
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Indiana Jones. Like, duh.
And that romance business was good for a few laughs, although I am convinced it wasn't intended as comic relief Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
No, I'm pretty sure Anakin was supposed to be a stalker. And you know, I'm not totally convinced that Amidala has a strong mind...so...
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
creepy.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
I was under the apparently wrong impression that Lucas never touched Episodes 5 and 6. So how come isn't Lucas doing what he did with those movies with Episode 1 and 2?
It's Indiana Jones 4, whcih he says he would maybe make after Episode 3 comes out.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote: So how come isn't Lucas doing what he did with those movies with Episode 1 and 2?
Because he doesn't want to?
Lucus did have the least to do with Empire (which is, coincidentally or not, the most popular/best), but he certainly did more than "nothing".
And anyway, he is. Episode 1 he wrote by himself. ANH he wrote (99%) by himself. Empire and Jedi he had someone else co-write teh script. Episode 2 (and presumably ep 3) he has a co-writer.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Will they have the Victory class Star Destroyer in the next movie? or will the used the things featured at the end of EP2? And will we see the original T.I.E starfighter? The one originally made by Republic Seinar Systems?
Posted by Nim Pim (Member # 205) on :
I hope they'll stick to the Accumulator Class a little while longer, I haven't seen enough of it. Hopefully the Victory Class will be shown as well, that indeed had begun its career in the midst of the Clone Wars.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
Doubt it. Lucas hardly even mentions anything that was written in the books around this time. I dobut he'll start now. But it's always nice hope for it.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
While reading Dark Force Rising, I notice that Mara Jade tells Luke that the Emperor took off Vader's right hand after the Battle of Yavin. Secondly, I noticed they always mention the Clone Wars as being somehwere around 50 years prior to Yavin, as opposed to the now-official 20-something.
*sigh* More indications as to Lucas' tampering... Yes, I know he can do whatever he wants because he has billions of dollars and created the trilogy, but I'd like to see stuff that doesn't contradict the books.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
And, y'see, that's why it's not tampering. Because it's his. And if he thinks that the story works better if we actually see Anakin having his hand chopped off, then so be it.
Posted by Jernau Morat Gurgeh (Member # 318) on :
Maybe the emperor doesn't like Anakin's clone hand and removes it in favour of a robotic one?
Another thing: What's the story about using the Force unnecessarily? When Anakin was fooling around with the Force as Amidala was preparing to leave Coruscant, he said that Obi-wan would be angry if he saw it. But when Obi-wan goes to Yoda about the map discrepancy he uses the force to take the map crystal from the holder. i.e would it be okay to use the Force to get your TV remote, but not to levitate it for amusement?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Don't use the Force to pick up chicks.
Which, really, would lead to the utter extinction of the Jedi, because, what's the point?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jernau Morat Gurgeh: Maybe the emperor doesn't like Anakin's clone hand and removes it in favour of a robotic one?
I think we are using different definitions of "clone" and "robotic" here. Unless that was a clone of Mecha Big Bird's hand...
Posted by Nim Pim (Member # 205) on :
You unintentionally raised an interesting point there, Yul Brynner.
The people of the Star Wars galaxy can clone (or grow)legions of maori buffed-ups, but not a hand (or arm)?? I mean, fark, WE aren't more than a couple of years (or decades) from total limb replacement (or regrowth).
Posted by Ultra Magnus Pym (Member # 239) on :
That is (or was) a good (or interesting) point (or concept).
Posted by Nim Pim (Member # 205) on :
Oh no, they're on to me.
What I meant was that this "concept" is one of the very few times where technology-sophistication in a story is lessened to reach a goal (Vader the monster).
Or rather, the techlevel before the latest point in the timeline has been heightened. Not as uncommon...
[ July 17, 2002, 13:48: Message edited by: Nim Pim ]
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Don't use the Force to pick up chicks."
...literally or figuratively.
Posted by Red BWC (Member # 818) on :
*lurk*
Posted by Ultra Magnus Pym (Member # 239) on :
the "fuck"?
Posted by Red BWC (Member # 818) on :
Check your PMs!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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