An Appreciation of George Lucas’ Star Wars Saga: Part 2 — Attack of the Clones
Welcome back to part 2 of this deep-dive into the six Star Wars films that were overseen by George Lucas. If you have not yet read Part 1, or you would like to refresh your memory, click here to read my thoughts on Episode I — The Phantom Menace. And now, without further ado, onto Attack of the Clones.
With the exception of a few reviewers, and the children who, by George’s own admission, were his target audience, few people at the time liked The Phantom Menace. To both his credit and his detriment, Lucas continued with his vision, disregarding the naysayers and plowing forward to create his next installment, Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones.
I’ve laid the groundwork for a discussion of the prequel trilogy as a whole in the previous installment of this series, so I need not go into the same level of detail. Needless to say, in Attack of the Clones, Lucas continues his commitment to expanding the world of the original trilogy, taking viewers to several new planets, including the ocean planet Kamino, and the rocky, desert planet Utapau. We also see more of the bustling metropolis Coruscant, seen in the first movie, but expanded here, notably in an exciting chase sequence through the crowded skies of the city.
There are some differences of course, some for the better, some for the worse. Unlike The Phantom Menace, this film is shot entirely on digital cameras, and the age of the CGI effects is more immediately noticeable, with several scenes looking like video-game cutscenes. But at the same time, Lucas once again constructs some beautiful and expressive images throughout the film, such as this one of Anakin and Padme:
This is foreshadowing Anakin’s turn into darkness which truly begins with this film. Hayden Christensen, replacing Jake Lloyd to play a teenage Anakin, is one of the bright spots of the film in terms of his performance. Once again, he struggles with some of the clunky dialogue, most infamously the “I don’t like sand” monologue, but at other times he convincingly portrays Anakin’s angst. It is liable to make viewers cringe, certainly, but this is also part of what makes it convincing — as teenagers, many if not all of us have had moments that, thinking on them later, make us cringe at how we acted and how melodramatic we were.
As for the age difference between Padme and Anakin, and whether their romance works — I am not entirely convinced, but at the same time, the difference is only five years, more than reasonable. However, the discomfort with the relationship is understandable given that they first met in the previous film, when Anakin was 9 years old and Padme 14 — this, of course, seems like a much larger age gap, and in terms of maturity, it is.
The Jedi Order’s advocacy for detachment from emotion does not actually work, instead leading Anakin to intense bursts of emotion that lead to immoral actions such as the killing of Tusken Raiders.
Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine is once again excellent in his two-faced role, though he is less prominent here than in the following film, sticking to the shadows as the villainous Darth Sidious; the late Christopher Lee as Sith apprentice Count Dooku is also in fine, typically villainous, form.
Genre Play in Attack of the Clones
What really makes this second installment in the trilogy so exciting and enjoyable, despite the dialogue and dated visuals, is the exploration of genres. Mike Thorn has written convincingly about this for Bright Lights Film Journal, but it will be useful to discuss here as well.
The most obvious genre flavour Lucas uses in this film is that of film noir, the American crime genre of the 1940s and 50s which reflected the paranoia, ennui and despair of the post-war age. Lucas uses some noir trappings for Obi-Wan’s investigation of the origins of the clone army, which takes him to Kamino and brings him into conflict with Jango Fett (father of fan-favourite character Boba Fett).
This also allows further exploration of the hubris of the Jedi Order, as the Temple librarian tells Obi-Wan that if something “is not in our records, it doesn’t exist”. Yet Obi-Wan goes anyway, discovering Kamino and the army of clones that was ordered by deceased Jedi Sifo-Dyas.
There are also references to other genres — the classic Western The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) is referenced in the scene where Anakin slaughters a tribe of Tusken Raiders for kidnapping and torturing his mother to death.
On a side note, this has been seen as racist — the scene from The Searchers that is referenced here concerns John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards murdering Native Americans. However, just because characters commit heinous acts, it does not mean that a film condones them. I cannot speak to whether Ford’s film is racist or not, as I have not seen it, but in my mind, Anakin’s actions here are a key part of his turn to the Dark Side — and not condoned by Lucas in any way.
It [Attack of the Clones] does an admirable job of setting up the emotional payoff of the final film in the trilogy, and therefore, greater emotional payoff once the viewer reaches the end of Return of the Jedi. It is impressive that that film, released 20 years prior to Clones, is more powerful now, elevated beyond an entertaining space fantasy adventure, by the prequel films.
It is an important scene from a thematic point of view. The Jedi Order’s advocacy for detachment from emotion does not actually work, instead leading Anakin to intense bursts of emotion that lead to immoral actions such as the killing of Tusken Raiders. Of course, the Raiders had kidnapped and tortured Anakin’s mother, but the point of view of this series, taken as a whole, is pacifist. So regardless of the Raiders’ actions, Anakin’s aggressive response was immoral, according to the film, especially as he killed “not just the men, but the women and the children too.” In other words, people who likely had nothing to do with the kidnapping of his mother.
I think that this line underscores that Lucas is not on Anakin’s side here: while he may empathise overall with his fear and his difficulty in controlling his emotions, and while he may show Anakin to be a tragic character over the course of the series, that does not mean that Lucas condones all of Anakin’s actions. There seems to be a tendency in certain circles — perhaps less media-literate ones — to assume that all actions on screen or on the page are condoned by the writer, when in fact this is part and parcel with writing a compelling character — they must be flawed, as all humans are. Such is the case here, whatever other problems there may be with the story and characters.
The usual action-adventure and space fantasy elements of Star Wars are of course present here, and I would also add melodrama, romantic drama, and political thriller (even more so than The Phantom Menace) to that list. These are not necessarily genres that inform the whole film, but are flavours blended in, hints and notes that do not dominate but instead enhance the experience.
Conclusion
I would say that at times, the experience of watching this film can be exhausting. It is almost two and a half hours long, the second-longest of all nine films, and the longest of Lucas’ six. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, there are some scenes and sequences which drag on too long for my liking and are perhaps too dense in the frame, such as the final battle with hundreds of clones, droids and Jedi, on Utapau. Some scenes could even be excised completely without too much of a knock to the overall experience.
For that reason, it is probably my least favourite of this trilogy, perhaps of the six-film saga overall, though at the time it was seen as an improvement over Phantom Menace, achieving a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, 65% — the previous film, meanwhile, is still rotten at 51%.
But I do enjoy it very much for all the reasons stated in this article. It does an admirable job of setting up the emotional payoff of the final film in the trilogy, and therefore, greater emotional payoff once the viewer reaches the end of Return of the Jedi. It is impressive that that film, released 20 years prior to Clones, is more powerful now, elevated beyond an entertaining space fantasy adventure, by the prequel films.
That is particularly true of the next film in the trilogy, the only one of the prequels to be certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 79% critic score. But that will be dealt with, in the following installment of this essay series.
Please let me know your thoughts on Attack of the Clones and my discussion of it, in the comments below, and if you would like to stay updated please subscribe to my blog — either here on Medium or at theartisticexperience.wordpress.com.