Star Wars - Episode II, Attack of the Clones | Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman

Star Wars - Episode II, Attack of the Clones | Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman | I'm a big Star Wars fan - loved it!

vhs video:

Star Wars - Episod...

	Star Wars - Episode II, Attack of the Clones Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman 20th Century Fox, 2002 average customer review:based on 2162 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

The Real Bad Turns that Genetics and Cloning Can Take

The Star Wars Saga continues with Attack of the Clones, a title that spells the forbiding doom that the Phantom Menace prepared to unleash in Episode I. Ten years after the first episode, things are only getting worse for the galaxy that popped out of the mind of writer/director George Lucas. The characters from the first film have developed tremendously, and like I said before, the decisions that they make take dark, and saddening turns. However, the excitement from the first episode is still intact, if not better, than it was before, and the anticipation of the third episode is really the best part of the viewing. A superior sequel if I ever saw one.

for more information click here

I'm a big Star Wars fan - loved it!

This is an essential movie to help Star Wars fans see the history of Darth Vader. This movie has a "love story" intertwined in it, as Anakin and Senator Amidala become close and eventually end up getting married.

Compared with other prequels, this is worth another look

ATTACK OF THE CLONES, the second STAR WARS "prequel," has been unjustly dismissed by many critics and viewers; yet of the three, it appears to me the only one that captures some of the original trilogy's spirit. While the well-deserved iconic status of the original trilogy cannot be seriously ascribed to any of the later films (hence my four-star rating rather than five), repeated viewings reveal ATTACK OF THE CLONES to be far more thoughtfully written than either its dismally weak predecessor THE PHANTOM MENACE or its pompous, chaotic successor REVENGE OF THE SITH.

PHANTOM MENACE seems largely to have been intended as a children's film; even the child actor selected to play Anakin was far too young to make the chronology believable, but the apparently intended audience could easily relate to him. With its flaccid, pointless characters and cheap-looking CGI effects done for their own sake, it plays like Saturday morning kids' TV. I note that many of the Amazon reviews read: "My 5-year-old loved it." So if a kids' movie was George Lucas' intent, he was almost successful, although I can't imagine how a kid would react to the traumatic image of the slave-child Anakin being torn from his slave-mother Shmi, the one heart-rending dramatic element in the film--never resolved properly. Except for that image, adults have a very difficult time with this bloated 137-minute unfunny cartoon, its main character clearly the grating Jar Jar Binks--who is given a rather racist characterization.

Episode III--REVENGE OF THE SITH, for all its hype, simply doesn't work because Anakin's reactions are unbelievable. Lured by Palpatine's mendacious promise that Siths can "prevent the ones they care about from dying"--playing to Anakin's obsession, he joins Palpatine/Sidious' violent galactic takeover, even *after* that pivotal promise is revealed as a bald lie by Palpatine: "only one Sith lord has ever been able to [prevent death], but together we *may* be able to save Padme." Anakin's capitulation *despite that revelation* destroys the viewer's belief in the drama. Anakin's seduction is a core theme of Lucas' 28-year project, and to see its key scene written so very unconvincingly is shocking.

In Episode II--ATTACK OF THE CLONES, I feel that we are given the only honestly realized glimpse of a chapter in Anakin's life. One would place his age at perhaps seventeen and Padme's at a youthful twenty-two. Neither have had experience in love, so their pain, confusion, and difficult, awkward verbal exchanges are entirely credible and even endearing. Critics seem to have missed it altogether: Hayden Christensen is accused of being "wooden," but he is tapping into typical teenage experiences of first love--which were perhaps only a few years away in his own 20-year-old life. There is a rare authenticity--which the critics naturally missed. It is only in this film where we believe that Anakin is torn between the Jedi--who show him no respect, treating him both patronizingly and suspiciously, refusing to empathize with the realities of his tender age and hard past life (though "empathy" is supposedly critical in the Jedi credo)--and the possibility of another way, dangled before him through Palpatine's blandishments. The fact that the liberation of Anakin's enslaved mother is not even an issue for the Jedi paints them as abominably callous--and possibly sexist; her cruel death, achingly difficult to watch, and which Anakin is in no position to prevent, would embitter anyone toward the Jedi. It is only by *remembering* these points that one is able to believe in Anakin's final, tragic seduction by Palpatine in the third film, even though REVENGE itself actually sabotages this eloquent groundwork with horrendous writing that logically would have Anakin grudgingly decide to remain in the Jedi fold as the lesser evil, about 70 minutes into the film. With some humorous touches reminiscent at times of STAR WARS (1977), and the unusually careful set-up I described, ATTACK OF THE CLONES must be deemed the only successful film of the three prequels.

Filmed digitally, theatrical presentations, transferred to standard film, were said to be disappointing. Ironically, the DVD is the natural medium for ATTACK OF THE CLONES, and it looks splendid in anamorphic widescreen. Like all the later STAR WARS films, it is loaded with extras, all interesting once, and delivered with an annoying self-congratulatory tone by Lucas and company.

for more information click here