If there’s one thing to admire about the Star Wars series as a whole—including the prequels—it’s that the story being told is always fascinating. The execution may not always be the most impressive, but it’d be wrong to dismiss just how convincing and well thought-out the entire journey is. I would argue there’s not a precipitous drop-off in storytelling between the original trilogy and the prequels, but that most of the flaws come from other factors. Specifically, the evil of computers. There are few things more dangerous than telling George Lucas he can do whatever he wants, and for much of Attack of the Clones that completely hampers the proceedings. His desire to turn his Star Wars universe into a world of weightless CGI was apparent in The Phantom Menace, but Attack of the Clones frequently falters because any real humanity is lost beneath the layers and layers of effects.
The Star Wars prequels are not the only culprits. Very few great films have come out of productions where the filmmaker can do whatever they want. I don’t necessarily mean it’s good to compromise a filmmaker’s creative vision, but instead that it can be dangerous to lay all the technology in the world at the feet of a man like George Lucas. Say what you want about the man, but there’s no denying he always knows what he’s looking for. When you watch any of the Star Wars films, there’s a feeling that these are visuals he’s had in his head for a long, long time. It’s a good thing that he finally got the chance to put them on the screen. It’s less of a good thing that he devoted himself so thoroughly to the technological aspect that everything else was put on the backburner. This results in some stunning action sequences, but it can never make a great overall film.
Before going any further, I’d like to direct your attention to the following video, which is more or less an Attack of the Clones blooper reel in between some random credits. The antics are silly enough, but I find this video to be quite enlightening when it comes to why the Star Wars prequels lack any substantial humanity. Observe:
To me, these two minutes explain a whole lot. While some of those bloopers are amusing mistakes and nothing else, there are a few that could have easily been fixed by a director who paid a bit more attention to the actors. For starters, there is that opening clip with Natalie Portman belatedly telling Hayden Christensen to let go of her. They just seem like actors who are going through the motions with not enough motivation, and it shouldn’t take Portman until the end of her line to realize that Christensen is, in fact, not grabbing her. They aren’t even slightly engaged with the material, and I don’t think it’s entirely their fault. Christensen has been reasonably good in other movies, and we’ve seen what Portman can do in a movie like Black Swan. The problem is that the director is focusing more on the blue screen in the background than he is the human beings in the foreground.
There are also a handful of scenes that provide an interesting glimpse at just how difficult it must have been to take this project seriously. Around 50 seconds into the video, Portman falls off a blue… thing in a completely blue environment. Ewan McGregor does that silly little dance behind the wheel of the speeder after apparently watching Anakin jump off. Then, most tellingly, there’s footage of Lucas showing Portman what to do as she runs through a blue obstacle course that would seem more appropriate at a McDonald’s Playland than a professional movie set. Halfway through, she breaks out in laughter, and she jokes that there’s no way this could possibly be part of the movie. Lucas smirks and simply promises that “it will look good.”
There’s your problem.
You watch videos like this, and you see how the actors have nothing to really feed off of besides each other. Lucas is more worried with the CGI landscapes and environments he’s going to create than he is in writing good dialogue or giving the actors anything to work with. The acting isn’t great in any of the Star Wars movies, but at least it’s convincing enough in the first trilogy because they have the luxury of normally shooting on actual sets. That way, Lucas—or whoever was directing that movie—never had to worry about what was going to come later. All that mattered was getting what they could in the moment. Outside of a few effects shots to be added later, what they got on the camera that day was mostly going to be in the finished product. Star Wars movies always had to be wacky to work on, but if you were an actor in the prequels you must have felt as if you’d been cast out into the cold to fend for yourself.
It’s been clear since he set foot onto the set of his friend Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park that no one is a bigger fan of CGI than George Lucas. The Star Wars prequels would have been held in much higher regard had he been locked in a box for 20 years and released without knowledge of computers and what they can do. I should stress that I do not inherently hate CGI, but I do hate the way it’s used by certain filmmakers. Too often, a director like Lucas will compulsively use it because it’s there and it can do anything. In an ideal world, it should be used to stitch a movie together in post-production and throw in effects that just can’t be done convincingly otherwise. It shouldn’t be the answer to everything, because then it throws the film’s human element out of whack. If nothing feels like it’s been touched my actual hands, it only pushes the audience away further, even if the effect is entirely in the subconscious. Much like Jaws became a great film because Spielberg was told he couldn’t use the shark, the Star Wars prequels would have been downright terrific had Lucas suddenly been told that all the computers had broken. Often limitations lead to great art, and there just weren’t many in the creation of the prequels. Making the original Star Wars was Chinese water torture for all involved, and we know how that turned out. Watching movies like Attack of the Clones, you get the feeling that Lucas didn’t face a whole lot of challenges. He could just do whatever he wanted, and that rarely leads to great art.
As such, if I had to pick a least favorite planet in all the Star Wars films, it would be Coruscant. It is just a massive CGI nightmare with no sense of weight, and it seems like the result of Lucas just wanting to make a massive city with a lot of speeders flying around. It is also a prime example of one of the prequels’ most glaring logical flaws: despite the fact they take place quite some time before the original trilogy, somehow technology is far more advanced and everything is much larger and more grandiose. Now, you could argue that the formation of the Empire after Revenge of the Sith actually deteriorated the whole of the universe and that’s why technology is so much worse in A New Hope and beyond, but just by thinking that I want to stick my own head in a toilet and/or give myself a wedgie. In reality, the technology in the ’90s and early ’00s gave Lucas the opportunity to make everything bigger and better. So he did. Simple as that. The planet of Coruscant wouldn’t exist in the original Star Wars trilogy, nor would a character ever walk into a bar where one of the screens is showing droid football. That’s up there with the punk band in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the distracting decision hall of fame.
I realize I stated last week that I would try to show people the good in the prequels as much as possible, and I also realize that thus far in this post I have done a real lousy job of it. It’s mostly because too much of Attack of the Clones is just a lot of dead air, and the only person trying to give the proceedings any heft is the soundtrack from John Williams. During the dramatic and dialogue-driven scenes, you can practically feel Williams sweating as he tries to inject some life into this thing. To say he does a lot of the emotional heavy lifting in Attack of the Clones is an understatement. He is the emotion; the good news is he’s pretty darn good at it.
That said, I will maintain my previous claim that Attack of the Clones is still a better film than The Phantom Menace. Mostly, this is because there are a lot less of the actively bad tonal decisions we saw in that last film. That derails slightly with the injection of some unfortunate C-3PO antics toward the end of the film, but mostly Lucas does a good job of avoiding any excessive Jar Jar-esque touches that made Phantom Menace frequently irritating. Perhaps the downside is that this film can be occasionally boring, but I’ll take “boring” over “turn the sound off, please!” any day of the week.
Much of the aforementioned dead air in Attack of the Clones is made up for in a select few truly stellar action scenes, which are admittedly CGI-heavy but at least the technology is in the service of something genuinely exciting. One key sequence in Attack is an asteroid field chase between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jango Fett, which reminds me (in a good way) of some of the space chases we see in the original trilogy. One sign it’s a solidly-directed sequence: there’s no John Williams soundtrack to carry the load. It’s just an exciting scene, and it stands alongside the podrace in The Phantom Menace as a fine example of what Lucas can do when he uses his powers for good. There’s not enough of that in these first two movies, but I’ll take what I can get.
I will also stand behind the final battle sequence of Attack of the Clones until the day I die. The war between the clones and the Federation is a great old-fashioned ground battle scene that just happens to feature lasers instead of actual guns. Lucas and his editor Ben Burtt cut the action in a frantic fashion, but never frustratingly so. It’s certainly a break from the more traditional style we’re used to seeing from Lucas, but I think it well suits what he’s going for. He would take this to the next level in Revenge of the Sith, which—among a whole lot of other good—has some shots of action that almost justify the incessant use of CGI. He doesn’t quite get there yet in Attack of the Clones, but the final act has several moments (particularly the collapse of a Federation ship) that go a long way toward redeeming the whole film.
Lucas’ greatest error in the final act is the Dooku v. Yoda lightsaber battle, which plays like an inappropriate punchline rather than a satisfying climax to all that came before. I understand the desire to show us Yoda’s much-vaunted dueling skills, but I remember back in 2002 that my entire theater was cracking up throughout the entire tussle. I laughed too, because I honestly thought it was a joke. Also, I was young. Watching it now, alone in my room, I’m not so sure. Either way, it’s a bad call on Lucas’ part to put that in there. If it’s a joke, it’s inappropriate. If it’s serious, good lord.
I’ve spent much of this post discussing Lucas’ love of CGI, and as a result I’ve neglected to give my two cents on what’s actually happening within his overblown universe. Attack of the Clones is most notable for being the beginning of the Anakin/Padmé love story, and indeed it is played out in a less-than-convincing fashion by all involved. It’s disappointing, but as I’ve said before, the story is still so compelling that I was able to push many of the obvious flaws to the back of my brain. My favorite part of this plot is the road trip to Tatooine, where we meet Anakin’s step-family (including Joel Edgerton!) and he runs off to slay some Tuskan Raiders. The other major event in Attack is the beginning of the Clone War, which is all part of the Sith’s plans to take over the Republic and all. Admittedly, these two plot points are all that’s really important when it comes to the film’s story, yet it is played out over the course of a bloated 140-minute running time. There’s no reason Attack of the Clones couldn’t have come in at just under two hours.
The most tedious aspect of Attack of the Clones is indeed the dialogue, and while it’s a problem in all the Star Wars films—the prequels in general—there are moments in this film when it reaches its nadir. It’s never a good sign when one of the first lines in a film is “There was no danger at all!” and it is immediately followed by an explosion. (However, I can’t be completely negative about a script that includes the line “Around the survivors a perimeter create!”) The only actor that really makes much of it is McGregor, whose wisecracking take on Obi-Wan is quite a bit of fun despite the fact that even he seems completely disengaged with the material. He’s able to inject some life into a film that is too dull too often, and it’s frustrating because at every point you can see just how easily this film (much like Phantom Menace) could have been a great installment in the franchise. George Lucas definitely made a heck of an outline, but far too much was lost in translation.
Next week: Anakin succumbs to the Dark Side with the “Nooooo!!!” heard ‘round the world.
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