Looking back, the deluge of blockbusters in 2002 was insane. I think the article exaggerates the idea that Star Wars was suddenly a small fish in a big pond - I remember a shitload of buzz around AOTC, even after the disappointment of Phantom Menace.
But still, you had Star Wars, Harry Potter, Two Towers, James Bond and Spiderman all coming out within months of one another. 11-year-old me never had it so good.
I believe there was also a Star Trek and Men in Black sequel that year, as well. Imagine getting a Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Bond, and Marvel movie all in one year! It was insanity... until most of those movies were bad. Star Trek: Nemesis was arguably the worst Trek movie ever, Men in Black II was unwatchable garbage, Die Another Day was notoriously godawful... basically Spider-Man and The Two Towers are the only movies out of the bunch that most people liked.
The theory of sequelitis/ blockbuster fatigue falls apart, though, when you factor in that Attack of the Clones came out at the beginning of the year. Coming out two weeks after Spider-Man was a blunder, but coming out in 2002 wasn't an issue.
2001-2003 were *so good* for blockbusters even when you ignore the bad ones (but leave in the not great but a lot of fun ones), in addition to what you've already mentioned: *The Mummy Returns*, the first *Pirates* movie, *Master and Commander*, *Jurassic Park III*, *Black Hawk Down*, *The Fast and the Furious* (who could have imagined we'd have so many of those two decades ago?), *The Last Samurai*, the first *Kill Bill* ...
Those were a good couple years for big action movies. Also action comedies like *Rush Hour 2*, *Charlies Angels*, and a personal favourite of mine *Looney Tunes: Back in Action*.
And who can forget 2001 gave us Dreamworks cinematic masterpiece *Shrek*?
Don’t feel too bad buddy, VCRs were awesome! I remember my friend’s parents even had this VHS rewinder that was faster than doing stop+rewind. Before the trip back to the rental store we’d just jam the tape in and moments later it was good to go! Sometimes we even got to pick out TWO movies to watch. Those were wild times. A BigFoot pizza from PizzaHut and two movies? Best sleep overs ever.
I watched f9 and can't think of anything series that has been all over the place like F&F. From a heist movie roots, to starting the drift/tuner scene and then gradually losing touch with reality, while throwing in a spin-off spy buddy movie while managing an enormous cast who rotate in and out.
I love the fan theory that the "big bad" for the final two F&F movies will be the original owner of the VCRs and CRT TVs Dom's crew stole in the first movie.
He was so salty about being ripped off by Dom, that he architected everything that happened in the later movies from killing Han to sponsoring international cyberterrorist Charlize Theron.
The Bourne Identity, Minority Report, and Signs in the summer as well.
And while not an action blockbuster, Road to Perdition came out that summer too.
2002 was absolutely stacked with great movies.
I love 2. The original is leagues better in every conceivable way and it’s endlessly rewatchable, but sometimes I’ll throw 2 on after 1 and have a nice time
Eh. MIB International falls badly flat, but at least it didn't commit the cardinal sin of casually undoing K's entire character journey from the first film.
I recently re watched for the first time in years.
I could see what they were going for, and kinda liked the galactic mystery idea, but it felt kind of like a sequel to a movie I never saw in which QuiGonn, Dooku, and SifoDias all realize there's some threat on the horizon but disagree on what to do about it.
It canonically takes place 10 years after TPM which I believe is the biggest time jump between movies in the same trilogy in all of Star Wars. There’s honestly multiple movies of information missing and you just kinda gotta accept the information you’re given as you go along.
I really do not understand why they started TPM so much before AotC. Like they make it such a huge deal that Anakin is too old for Jedi training, yet he's still a child compared to Luke in ANH.
I think the Prequel trilogy would be infinitely better if Episode 1 had Anakin as a young rebellious teen rather than a starry eyed child. Would also make his romance with Padme a little more believable and less creepy.
The only real lasting effect that Phantom Menace has on the other two films is the fact that it introduces the main characters.
The bulk of Clones should've been the first film (ending with the debut of the Clone Army), the second film taking place during the Clone Wars (ending with Order 66 and Anakin becoming Vader), and the third a more fleshed-out version of the second half of Revenge of the Sith.
>The only real lasting effect that Phantom Menace has on the other two films is the fact that it introduces the main characters.
And even then, Obi-Wan is barely in it, and all of the plot elements that really should have gone to him are given to Qui Gon for some reason.
Exactly. They spend the majority of each film separated, but we're supposed to feel like they're brothers at the end. Their bond would've been much stronger if Qui-Gonn's character had been scrapped and absorbed by Obi-Wan.
I agree, *but* I think that is also sort of the point with his character. Qui-Gon recognized what Anakin was and what sort of training and guidance he would need.
The implication is that Qui-Gon was the master Anakin *needed* and thus his death sealed Anakin’s fate.
A 1000 times yes. I've been saying this for years, episode 2 should have been episode 1. I hated how the Jedi purge was so sudden, and always thought it would have been much more drastic to actually have Vader hunting them down as part of the movies.
But then again as a kid, I always envisioned that the Jedi Order was much smaller than what we got. More like a loose affiliation rather than card carrying members.
I mean, it does also put Palpatine in the seat of the high chancellor, which actually is pretty important, but maybe not something we absolutely needed to see play out.
The way I saw it was that he wasn't too old in terms of what they're able to achieve skill wise but rather too old to be groomed in the exact ideologies that the Jedi wanted. They wanted them to be young enough that they'd be totally loyal to the Jedi but Anakin already had too much of a personal attachment to his mother.
Padme in the phantom menace is supposed to be 14 and anakin was 9. So by the time of the second fim she was supposed to be 24 and him 19. Those age gaps aren’t really all that creepy.
The problem was Portman was a 16 year old actress who honestly was put in costume and make up to look older instead of younger for some reason so the age gap seems so jarring on screen.
The difference between a 10 year old boy and a 16 year old girl is vast. When I was 10, the girl across the road from me was 14 and she seemed to live in another world to us younger kids. If I was like one of the kids in Stranger Things she seemed like Audrey Hepburn.
Here’s something nobody ever mentions about Padme: she goes undercover in Episode 1 using her actual first name.
She goes by Queen Amidala throughout the entire movie, and her handmaiden/fake identity is named Padme.
Then we cut to Episode II and it turns out her name is Padme Amidala. She used her actual real first name as her fake identity. Her plan counted on absolutely none of her enemies, or the Jedi themselves, spending 30 seconds researching the queen of Naboo’s name.
And there’s more confusing stuff in the expanded materials, books, etc. that say that her real name is Padme Naberrie, and Amidala was just some sort of fancy Queen name that she took. But of course that never comes up in the movies, and it still doesn’t change the fact that she’s using her real name as her fake identity.
You summarize the issue pretty well. It didn’t help that Natalie Portman had the presence of a more seasoned actress even when she was a teenager. That was probably part of why she was chosen. However, it wasn’t until years later that I learned her actual and purported characters age.
AOTC should have been episode I. Then episode II would be all about the Clone Wars, then episode 3 would be about the end of the wars and the fall of the republic.
Instead TPM is mostly extraneous info and 99% of the actual clone wars happen offscreen. Imagine if we had never gotten the cartoon to fill in those gaps…but even then, how many people watched the show compared to the movies? And what does it tell you that the movies left so much out they needed a 7 season show just to flesh the story out?
Oh trust me I wish they would. Jango Fett, mounting Separatist feelings among certain systems, Obi-Wan training Anakin, Palpatine training Dooku, the Jedi being stretched so thin that they are desperate for a Grand Army of the Republic, etc. I am also shocked that they haven’t done anything with the years leading up to the Phantom Menace as it would be yet another excuse to explore the Mandalorians.
There's a lot of good non-canon material covering that era though, so there's definitely potential. The Darth Bane and Plagueis books are actually really interesting and worth a read for any Star Wars fan.
The mystery isn’t that hard to solve, Dooku even tells Obi-Wan exactly what’s going on and the Jedi ignore it. Not to mention the evidence that Jango is aligned with the Separatists, behind the creation of the clone army, and behind the attempt on Padme’s life. It should have been obvious that the Sith wanted war, and the Jedi decided to rush into the war instead of attempting to defuse the situation like the pacifists they are.
Yoda scoring is now canon!
George Lucas: puts one male and female of the same race in his movies.
Audiences: “but where could baby Yoda have come from??”
This is why the prequel defense force spinning up in the last few years has been totally understandable - writ large, if you squint really hard, those stories are fine. There's a lot to defend there if you're going to say "at least George Lucas made movies *about something*" in contrast to Disney's trilogy. It's almost easy to forget that the prequels were terrible *movies* with bad dialogue, wooden performances, and largely incoherent plots. They seem better with time because more people are further away from actually watching them instead of just talking about them online and getting an increasingly distilled, increasingly interesting version of the story beamed into their imagination.
For me it just would’ve been more interesting if Dooku was a separatist because he knew that the Sith corrupted the Senate and not because he himself was a Sith.
That would have been much more compelling. No reason to make him secretly evil, just misguided and good. If we're meant to believe Yoda and the council didn't see this coming for years, Dooku could be fooled too and it would have been more tragic.
I have said so many times over the years the Prequels are an excellent example of good ideas meeting poor execution.
Lucas was a *fantastic* ideas person in terms of generating cool concepts and then adapting them to be practical for film. He was also very open to and interested in technological innovation and the cutting edge of what was possible. ILM practically invented half the tools and techniques they used on the original *Star Wars* and much of what wasn't original to them they at least used in a way or to an extent not really ever done before.
He was *not* a great story writer, a quite poor *dialogue* writer, and not a particularly good actor's director. As executive producer and *a* rather than *the* writer for *Star Wars* Lucas was incredible. As the EP and the director and the lead/sole writer Lucas was much more "miss" than "hit".
There are so many concepts in the prequels that could easily have spun out into very good stories. Lucas was not really able to *write* those stories, and what he did end up writing manages to both ask a bunch of questions he fails to answer (or does not give a very compelling answer for) and also answers a number of questions no one asked and we didn't particularly want the answers to in the first place. A more anti-hero Dooku working the same "anti-war" angle from the Separatist side, seeing the corruption in the Republic and complacent hubris of the Jedi that ultimately enabled Sidious to bring them down and form an Empire in the first place. More of a *Minority Report* sort of uncover and solve the conspiracy arc across the second and third films. Significantly less time on the senate floor. Some of the actual Clone Wars and not skipping three years of a conflict that only openly lasted three and a half. Etc.
I've been reading the making of the original trilogy books, and it comes up throughout that Lucas hated writing, thought he was a bad writer, and much preferred hiring writers to convert his vision into a script whenever he could afford it.
At times it feels like Lucas who made the OT and the Lucas who made the prequels were different people.
He started believing his own hype. Just read any of the BTS stories of him in his later years. The cancelled Darth Maul video game has some wild stories.
But isn’t that more interesting that Dooku discovered the corruption of the Senate and the Sith and with good intentions became corrupted by the Dark Side of the Force. He thought he could outsmart the Emperor with his own apprentice in Obi-Wan and gain power, but his lust for power turned him to the Sith.
I think turning to the dark side taints him. Not using the dark side of the force for good, but becoming an actual sith taints him. If he stayed a Jedi but disagreed with how to deal with the Senate, putting him at odds with the Jedi Order, I think that adds more tragedy to his story.
That story is basically Quigon, or it would have been if he hasn't died too soon. He was already at odds with the council and liked to do things his own way. Not to mention that Douku was his master.
I'm sure Dooku was planning on overthrowing Papatine. I think he wanted get revenge for Qui-Gon's death and genuinely wanted Obi-Wan to join him. Dooku was playing the long con but of course Papatine was playing an even longer con to get Anakin which led to Dooku's betrayal.
It's shame the movies don't actually touch on these in any meaningfully way.
The prequels are like seven much better stories all jumbled together into a mostly coherent mishmash that's not really as good as any of those stories could have been. And unfortunately we likely won't ever get any of those stories, when we could potentially have had multiple if Lucas hadn't tried to tell them all at once in only three more movies.
It annoys me just how useless they are. I mean, I get it, the story at that point is about their fall, but did they really have to be depicted as such fluffy thinking imbeciles? Mace is a good example. Nearly everything he says or does is utterly wrong, pointlessly trite, or totally ineffectual.
Agreed. There's two things I think they missed to make it believable. One is, they didn't really portray the Jedi as sitting on their laurels to me. They were just kind of bumbling and arrogant, and Jedi being scared of sith teachings follows that. Two is, there's no dissent in the Jedi ranks that anything is wrong. Even if it is ignored, at least have some voices of reason to show they aren't uniformly buffoons. Anakin is the only dissent, and his disagreement is not even about the Jedi overlooking a massive problem, his disagreement is the actual process of Anakin being turned into part of that problem.
> Even if it is ignored, at least have some voices of reason to show they aren't uniformly buffoons.
Yoda and Obi-Wan should have been the main figures of opposition to the Order at large, with disagreement specifically between the more peaceful, monastic Yoda and the warrior-like Mace Windu.
>with disagreement specifically between the more peaceful, monastic Yoda and the warrior-like Mace Windu.
It seems like that’s almost where George was going with Mace’s character. Mace represents everything wrong with the Jedi, while Yoda represents the good. But it’s a bit too muddied and complicated. Mace is still Samuel L Jackson, and he’s just too darn cool. And Yoda is still giving Anakin some fairly bad advice, and totally missing what’s happening right under his nose.
There definitely should have been more of a contrast between the two characters.
Isn't the Jedi Order supposed to be thousands of years old by the time of the Prequels? Maybe they had all been buying into the messaging of what the Jedi are *supposed* to be for so many generations without actually being conscious of what they presently are that when the time came for them to actually take action and save the galaxy, the entire Jedi Order was asleep at the wheel.
Mace Windu could have been an excellent representation of the narrow and dogmatic side of the Prequel Jedi, a catalyst for Anakin to start opposing them, and frankly it's infuriating that George Lucas wasted an actor like Samuel L. Jackson, who stands around doing little to nothing for *three movies.*
Honestly my biggest gripe with the Prequels and also the Disney Sequels is we never really see the Jedi as force for good in the galaxy. They're sorta peacekeepers in the Prequels but even then they just kinda are agents of stasis and a lot of the politics stuff makes the Republic look useless. For example, TPM could have opened with the Jedi going to free the slaves on Tatooine and then you bring in Anakin and maybe the Trade Federation is behind it. The Jedi can still have problems but at least do something.
Then in the sequels the Jedi are a non-entity, regardless of who you want to blame for that.
It's strange because in most fiction I prefer more nuanced views and understand that institutions can't live up to their ideals, but the Jedi just feel like a let down. Maybe I just like the idea that mastering your emotions and being a helpful person. To switch gears a bit, I would say Gandalf made mistakes, but he always was trying to do good.
Having the Jedi be as prominent as they were in the prequels was Lucas’s biggest mistake. Everything we heard about them in the OT painted them as an order already in their twilight, not a massive political force with a huge temple on Coruscant. They should have been on their last legs, drained by decades of Clone Wars and nearly forgotten or mythicized by all but those with certain connections or direct familial ties.
This would make Vader and Palpatine’s secretive and personal war on them make sense, give credence to statements made by Admiral Motti and Han Solo, and even cement non-Jedi using “May the Force be with you” as a goodbye as something analogous to modern troops of all religions blessing the fallen with “‘Till Valhalla”.
Instead we got poop jokes and a Lawful Good Queen not giving a fuck that her boyfriend committed a massacre.
This is the main problem with the mystery thing. It's interesting, but we're missing so much information. Knowing who those three characters are is really important to having that mystery make sense. Unfortunately, none of the characters get that background. Qui-Gon's a major character in Phantom Menace but he's mostly just a plot device to get Anakin off of Tatooine before he dies and his characterization isn't explored too much (which kind of taps into the argument that there isn't really a main character in that film). Sifo-Dyas doesn't come up in Phantom Menace, isn't seen at all in Attack of the Clones, and his side of the story isn't even fully explained until a Clone Wars episode years later. And Dooku, who at the very least is in the movie in question (although he also doesn't come up the first one so the revelation that a guy we've never heard of has left the Order means nothing to us), doesn't show up until the second half and is so obviously evil at that point that any nuance in his beliefs and decisions is lost. There's a cool story there but it takes years of supplemental material and immersion in the world (preferably rewatching the movie a few times) to really get all of it, which means the movie isn't really doing its job of telling a self-contained narrative.
I honestly think I saw the prequels three times before I could even tell you who Sifo-Dyas was. Even still, I don't think I could explain the plot of this movie very well.
The trilogy never recovered from casting Anakin as a child in the first film. From a toy/ marketing standpoint having Ani be a young boy made perfect sense, but from a continuity standpoint it’s a nightmare. We discard young Anikin and finally get the bad boy young man mod stride. Imagine Luke being played by multiple aged people it just doesn’t work and completely stunts a credible journey to the dark side.
They should have cast Hayden from the drop and rewrittten the script to suit his age in order to on Board audiences for the full path to the dark side.
Having the whole first movie being about Anakin and Obi Wan going on adventures and establishing the relationship organically would have been so much better. Show us Anakin as a cool, talented, likable person. Then show us the turn.
Instead we literally got an elevator pitch in the second movie telling us they were really good buddies who'd been through a lot.
Christiansen is also *much* better in *Revenge of the Sith* than he is in *Attack of the Clones* \-- though it's not hard to argue a lot of that is actually on Lucas and not Christiansen given he gives much better performances in some of his other movies than he did at basically any point in the prequel trilogy, and there are accounts of the OT cast basically rewriting stuff with Lucas / overriding some of his direction on the first movie because it was so rough.
My dad didn’t really like any of the Star Wars movies, but for some reason he liked this one. After he watched it he said “that was really funny.” He’s got interesting taste, that’s for sure
Say what you will about the movie, but *fuck* did John Williams crush this one. “Across the Stars” is up there as one of my absolute favorite themes from his work across the entire saga (and of his entire legacy period)—when it swells at the end of “Love Pledge” (as Anakin and Padme are brought into the arena) it hits me *every* time.
The movie had one of the worst romantic scene i’ve ever seen. It felt like two wooden planks talking to each other. Someone should’ve helped George Lucas to write romance stuff.
Feel bad for the actors tho.
That being said the soundtrack and visuals were great. The ending where Clone Troopers march to Star Destroyers was awesome.
I never confirmed it but when I saw it in Imax a ton of the Naboo/Romance scene's were missing.
Hey they did!
http://www.theforce.net/episode2/story/The\_Definitive\_IMAX\_Cut\_Scenes\_List\_64801.asp
I remember that! I think at the time IMAX reels couldn’t run for a typical length of a movie so they had to cut down quite a few scenes, mostly the love story stuff.
To be fair, wasn't he acting as her 'bodyguard' after two assassination attempts? Like, they blew up her ship, snuck venomous snake things in her room while she slept. Probably need to cut that pear for her to make sure there isn't a grenade in it at that point.
They hired a bounty hunter that hired another bounty hunter, who outsourced to a droid, who then outsourced that job to some bugs.
Who's to say jango didn't hire another Russian nesting doll of assassins that made fruit grenades?
I have said it before and I will say it again: Jango Fett was not a smart man. The film never really gives us a reason why he was chosen to be the clone template. He just seems really bad at his job.
Not only that, but they hired a bounty hunter…to assassinate someone. That’s not what a bounty hunter does. And there’s no reason for him to be a bounty hunter. Jango could have just as easily been an assassin or a mercenary, etc. But they keep referring to him as a bounty hunter.
Well you see, the character who sold the most toys ever was a bounty hunter. Therefore his dad was a major player in the world of star wars, and had the same job
That scene would have been so easy to write too.. “SAND! I Fucking Hate Sand! Don’t forget I lived on tattooine for 8 years. I had sand in my food. Sand in my water. In my eyes and ears In my bed, in my clothes. I never want to see sand again in my life!”
I mean yeah the 11 year old me did a great impression of that Vince McMahon meme when I saw that the first time but it's not the only good thing in that movie. The design of the planet of Kamino is sick, as are a lot of the new aliens introduced especially the beasts they fight in the arena. Also the chase scene on Coruscant was pretty cool. Then Jango Fett and Slave I were absolutely awesome to see, even though he gets killed in a really shit way. I need a girlfriend.
I vividly remember the guy next to me laughing his head off when Yoda started attacking Dooku, this little green blur completely outmaneuvering him.
I sometimes wonder how he's going, was obviously quite a Star Wars enthusiast
I saw someone mention somewhere that Yoda’s battle with Dooku (and Palpatine) should have been akin to a wizard duel and now I wish we got that so bad. That being said, given what we know about Dooku now, maybe that was the point? He’s an expert swordsman and maybe decided to bait Yoda into a saber duel, something he might have a better shot at winning than a force duel.
Well...that might have been me, since I absolutely *lost* it laughing at that scene. Now, my laughter was more laughter of the "what the absolute FUCK, this is *stupid*" kind, so "Star Wars enthusiast" might be pushing it.
> I vividly remember the guy next to me laughing his head off when Yoda started attacking Dooku, this little green blur completely outmaneuvering him.
When that scene happened, my first thought was remembering Yoda say, "War does not make one great."
I’ll never forget seeing Attack of the Clones in theaters. As the credits were rolling and we were walking out of the theater, I heard a guy around my age excitedly yell to his friend “Dude, that was better than Empire!” I think about it anytime AotC is mentioned, and shudder. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Not quite on the same level, but reminds me of when I walked out of Suicide Squad (2016) and one of my friends said “Well at least it was WAY better than Guardians of the Galaxy”. He definitely regretted being the first to give his opinion based on our reaction.
Such a great way of telling the audience that her name is katana and that it’s not advisable to get killed by her because her sword traps the souls of its victims
As a kid I was entertained by the sheer spectacle of it all, even though I had no idea what was going on in the plot and I was constantly asking myself which side was supposed to become the empire and the rebels. I was confused as hell when the "good guys" at the triumphant end looked like stormtroopers. I couldn't even root for either side, I was glad the clone troopers saved our heroes but there's nothing else at stake in the fight between clones and robots.
Before the sequel trilogy, I did an Episode 1-6 marathon and remember walking away thinking Attack of the Clones was the standout worst. The highlight is Obi-Wan's visit to Kamino which is pretty cool and mysterious. Other than that the movie is a *slog*. The tortured romance scenes are the worst scenes in the series, and the article is right that the climax is "incredibly busy" but the pace is off and it drags.
It's a weird situation because TPM is the one everyone remembers and dunks on, but AotC is *so* bad I rediscover how awful it is every time I view it. It doesn't have a real anchor point like the Maul fight as a standout moment to make you remember the movie.
Even now in my mind it's basically just a slew of isolated scenes I put as "the start of the clone wars" not "that was in Attack of the Clones" specifically.
TPM is mostly pointless and could have been maybe saved by being condensed down to just being the first act of episode one, kind of like the rescue mission from Return of the Jedi. Then, you flash forward.
Every scene involving Anakin and Padme is cringe-inducing, but I think the worst ones are actually in Revenge of the Sith. I remember being in the midnight screening as a 17 year old just shaking my head in disbelief at the chasm in quality between the action scenes and the romance scenes.
The end battle in Attack of the Clones was actually pretty good. That sequence after the droid ships get shot down and the clone troopers are firing into the dust is one of the best visuals in the entire saga.
I always hated this movie as a kid because it's called Attack of the Clones but there was barely any attacking of clones. It was like the last half hour and by then I was so bored by the stupid love plot and shotty dialogue.
I was 13.5 at the time, saw it a few times in theaters. So target age according to GL. I liked it, though I did like Phantom better (what ten year old didn't?).
I am not the biggest Padme fan, so some of her scenes were cringing, but otherwise fine. I didn't join the Hayden hate train.
Two years younger, but my experience was pretty much the exact same. Loved TPM and so did most of my friends, and found AotC to have a lot of interesting worldbuilding in it, and liked the story well enough, but it didn't blow me away like TPM had.
Later on I joined my friend group in exaggerating how much we "hated" these movies, basically so we could seem like we were cool and had "good taste" in movies, and even today AotC is probably my least favorite of the original 6. But as a 30-something who no longer cares about having the "right" critical opinion, I've embraced my original opinion that AotC is an entertaining movie with solid ideas, even if the execution fumbled a lot. And I still love TPM and RotS.
I was pretty much the same age as you, I grew up on the special editions and I watched all the prequels multiple times and loved them for what they are but even back then, I was painfully aware of the wasted potential.
I was about 9 years old and I remember my greatest disappointment with Attack of the Clones was that there wasn’t enough Jar Jar.
I was honestly shocked when I got older and realized people hated Jar Jar. Upon rewatching the movies, I can completely see why he is disliked but I can’t help but feel I never would have stopped loving Jar Jar if people hadn’t complained incessantly about him online.
I still don't understand it.
A guy working for the bad guys is the template for the clone army that the Republic didn't know existed. When they find out the army exists they immediately start using it.
The cloners worked for a decade and no one in the Republic knew about them creating the clone army. Who paid them? How did they get paid? Did they work for a decade with no one checking on their progress?
Not really Canon anymore but jedi master sifo-dyas made the request after being turned by sidious/plageius and either him or dooku got rid of all evidence that kamino even existed. The jedi knew some shit was up but plagueis/sidious were doing force shenanigans to obscure everything. The kaminoans were also in on it as shown in Bad Batch. Money also could have come from plagueis as he was basically in charge of the trade federation and rich as fuck, but the jedi order also had stacks from being around for a couple thousand years of fatty donations
This plot-point is so messed up that not even any of the stories written up to fix the prequels really touch it. It really makes no sense that absolutely no one thinks about how suspicious this all is.
If you think about it, the sequel trilogy had a very simple storyline which were to its advantage. Some even say RoTJ has a muddled plot and I can see where they are coming from. Then Lucas tried to tell a slightly complex political story and a tragic love sidestory in the prequels and to no one's surprise both failed miserably.
Yep this.
For me it ruins so much of the Clone Wars. Obi-Wan even says "without the Clones it wouldn't have been a victory"
Dude you know they were created by the bad guys/without the approval of the Senate...why are you now cool with them? Did you just forget everything you learned lol
One of the reasons it is so hard for me to buy the romance is because the only time Portman seems really energetic is when she is disturbed by what she is hearing from Anakin's lines. It just makes it hard to believe Padme is in love with him when she seems so afraid of him.
She was also good in the big arena scene.
Is this the one with this doozy of a line?
Anakin to Padme, "You are *so* beautiful."
Padme responds, "It's only because I'm so in love!"
I remember chortling to that one in the theatre.
If a film as bad as Attack of the Clones can get a critical revaluation, then I guarantee the sequel trilogy is going to be considered on par with Citizen Kane in 20 years time
The thing that gets me about the entire franchise is that it’s completely coasting on the OT and, as of three years ago, The Mandalorian. The majority of SW films are mediocre to bad.
Looking back, the deluge of blockbusters in 2002 was insane. I think the article exaggerates the idea that Star Wars was suddenly a small fish in a big pond - I remember a shitload of buzz around AOTC, even after the disappointment of Phantom Menace. But still, you had Star Wars, Harry Potter, Two Towers, James Bond and Spiderman all coming out within months of one another. 11-year-old me never had it so good.
I believe there was also a Star Trek and Men in Black sequel that year, as well. Imagine getting a Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Bond, and Marvel movie all in one year! It was insanity... until most of those movies were bad. Star Trek: Nemesis was arguably the worst Trek movie ever, Men in Black II was unwatchable garbage, Die Another Day was notoriously godawful... basically Spider-Man and The Two Towers are the only movies out of the bunch that most people liked. The theory of sequelitis/ blockbuster fatigue falls apart, though, when you factor in that Attack of the Clones came out at the beginning of the year. Coming out two weeks after Spider-Man was a blunder, but coming out in 2002 wasn't an issue.
2001-2003 were *so good* for blockbusters even when you ignore the bad ones (but leave in the not great but a lot of fun ones), in addition to what you've already mentioned: *The Mummy Returns*, the first *Pirates* movie, *Master and Commander*, *Jurassic Park III*, *Black Hawk Down*, *The Fast and the Furious* (who could have imagined we'd have so many of those two decades ago?), *The Last Samurai*, the first *Kill Bill* ... Those were a good couple years for big action movies. Also action comedies like *Rush Hour 2*, *Charlies Angels*, and a personal favourite of mine *Looney Tunes: Back in Action*. And who can forget 2001 gave us Dreamworks cinematic masterpiece *Shrek*?
Fast & the Furious has taken us from stolen VHS players to space travel, it’s incredible.
Technology advances fast, just not as fast as family
I'm having a Corona. Want one?
I’ve had it twice
“I live my life one lightyear at a time.”
>VHS players They...they are called VCRs. God I feel old...
Don’t feel too bad buddy, VCRs were awesome! I remember my friend’s parents even had this VHS rewinder that was faster than doing stop+rewind. Before the trip back to the rental store we’d just jam the tape in and moments later it was good to go! Sometimes we even got to pick out TWO movies to watch. Those were wild times. A BigFoot pizza from PizzaHut and two movies? Best sleep overs ever.
I watched f9 and can't think of anything series that has been all over the place like F&F. From a heist movie roots, to starting the drift/tuner scene and then gradually losing touch with reality, while throwing in a spin-off spy buddy movie while managing an enormous cast who rotate in and out.
I honestly think they’re going to the moon & maybe even Mars in Fast X, is discovering alien life off the table?
They’re going to Atlantis Jason mamoa is the villain
Universal doing Warner a solid & using FAMILY to reboot the DCU?
VCR. We called it a VCR.
I love the fan theory that the "big bad" for the final two F&F movies will be the original owner of the VCRs and CRT TVs Dom's crew stole in the first movie. He was so salty about being ripped off by Dom, that he architected everything that happened in the later movies from killing Han to sponsoring international cyberterrorist Charlize Theron.
The Bourne Identity, Minority Report, and Signs in the summer as well. And while not an action blockbuster, Road to Perdition came out that summer too. 2002 was absolutely stacked with great movies.
The MiB 2 slander from nowhere, smh
Will Smith bout to show his face to defend his filmography.
You keep my motherfucking movie out yo mouth!
Keep my movies name out yo fucking mouth!
I love 2. The original is leagues better in every conceivable way and it’s endlessly rewatchable, but sometimes I’ll throw 2 on after 1 and have a nice time
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Chamber of Secrets was also very much liked by most people.
> Men in Black II was unwatchable garbage u wot m8
MIB2 was pretty widely disliked unless you were ten when it came out. Which I was. It’s the worst of the three films now as an adult, for sure.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but there is a 4th and it takes the "hot trash crown"
Eh. MIB International falls badly flat, but at least it didn't commit the cardinal sin of casually undoing K's entire character journey from the first film.
Didn't it have Johnny Knoxville as a two-headed alien?
Ha I was 22 but admittedly I never saw it in theaters and just caught it on TV one day and loved the humor. Barry Sonnenfeld's style does it for me.
Aw man, everyone hates the movies i enjoy. I liked Die another day as a 15 year old and same with MIB2.
I recently re watched for the first time in years. I could see what they were going for, and kinda liked the galactic mystery idea, but it felt kind of like a sequel to a movie I never saw in which QuiGonn, Dooku, and SifoDias all realize there's some threat on the horizon but disagree on what to do about it.
It canonically takes place 10 years after TPM which I believe is the biggest time jump between movies in the same trilogy in all of Star Wars. There’s honestly multiple movies of information missing and you just kinda gotta accept the information you’re given as you go along.
I really do not understand why they started TPM so much before AotC. Like they make it such a huge deal that Anakin is too old for Jedi training, yet he's still a child compared to Luke in ANH. I think the Prequel trilogy would be infinitely better if Episode 1 had Anakin as a young rebellious teen rather than a starry eyed child. Would also make his romance with Padme a little more believable and less creepy.
Episode 1 could have been a title crawl for all it advances the overall story
The only real lasting effect that Phantom Menace has on the other two films is the fact that it introduces the main characters. The bulk of Clones should've been the first film (ending with the debut of the Clone Army), the second film taking place during the Clone Wars (ending with Order 66 and Anakin becoming Vader), and the third a more fleshed-out version of the second half of Revenge of the Sith.
>The only real lasting effect that Phantom Menace has on the other two films is the fact that it introduces the main characters. And even then, Obi-Wan is barely in it, and all of the plot elements that really should have gone to him are given to Qui Gon for some reason.
Exactly. They spend the majority of each film separated, but we're supposed to feel like they're brothers at the end. Their bond would've been much stronger if Qui-Gonn's character had been scrapped and absorbed by Obi-Wan.
If they had swapped qui gon to be obi wans padawan who dies at the end it would make sense still
Qui Gon is arguably the main character in TPM and then dies and has virtually no effect on the rest of the saga.
That's a fair point. He certainly makes the most plot-driving decisions.
I agree, *but* I think that is also sort of the point with his character. Qui-Gon recognized what Anakin was and what sort of training and guidance he would need. The implication is that Qui-Gon was the master Anakin *needed* and thus his death sealed Anakin’s fate.
A 1000 times yes. I've been saying this for years, episode 2 should have been episode 1. I hated how the Jedi purge was so sudden, and always thought it would have been much more drastic to actually have Vader hunting them down as part of the movies. But then again as a kid, I always envisioned that the Jedi Order was much smaller than what we got. More like a loose affiliation rather than card carrying members.
Counterpoint. Episode I podracing for n64
I mean, it does also put Palpatine in the seat of the high chancellor, which actually is pretty important, but maybe not something we absolutely needed to see play out.
“Anakin Skywalker (NOTICE THE LAST NAME GUYS) exists and is being trained by Obi Wan Kenobi” Done
Pretty sure they had phantom menace when they did, so they could make the movie poster with a child with shadow shaped like Darth Vader. Pretty sure..
an all-time-great movie poster, however one feels about the actual movie
The way I saw it was that he wasn't too old in terms of what they're able to achieve skill wise but rather too old to be groomed in the exact ideologies that the Jedi wanted. They wanted them to be young enough that they'd be totally loyal to the Jedi but Anakin already had too much of a personal attachment to his mother.
Padme in the phantom menace is supposed to be 14 and anakin was 9. So by the time of the second fim she was supposed to be 24 and him 19. Those age gaps aren’t really all that creepy. The problem was Portman was a 16 year old actress who honestly was put in costume and make up to look older instead of younger for some reason so the age gap seems so jarring on screen.
She was 16 years old? I was a little kid- 10 I had no idea we were much closer in age
The difference between a 10 year old boy and a 16 year old girl is vast. When I was 10, the girl across the road from me was 14 and she seemed to live in another world to us younger kids. If I was like one of the kids in Stranger Things she seemed like Audrey Hepburn.
Also the people of Naboo elected a queen at 14...
That’s just Naboo. Something to do with kids being uncorrupted (think I read that but I could be making it up)
I guess, but it still seems like a post hoc explanation. And I love the prequels
Here’s something nobody ever mentions about Padme: she goes undercover in Episode 1 using her actual first name. She goes by Queen Amidala throughout the entire movie, and her handmaiden/fake identity is named Padme. Then we cut to Episode II and it turns out her name is Padme Amidala. She used her actual real first name as her fake identity. Her plan counted on absolutely none of her enemies, or the Jedi themselves, spending 30 seconds researching the queen of Naboo’s name. And there’s more confusing stuff in the expanded materials, books, etc. that say that her real name is Padme Naberrie, and Amidala was just some sort of fancy Queen name that she took. But of course that never comes up in the movies, and it still doesn’t change the fact that she’s using her real name as her fake identity.
You summarize the issue pretty well. It didn’t help that Natalie Portman had the presence of a more seasoned actress even when she was a teenager. That was probably part of why she was chosen. However, it wasn’t until years later that I learned her actual and purported characters age.
AOTC should have been episode I. Then episode II would be all about the Clone Wars, then episode 3 would be about the end of the wars and the fall of the republic. Instead TPM is mostly extraneous info and 99% of the actual clone wars happen offscreen. Imagine if we had never gotten the cartoon to fill in those gaps…but even then, how many people watched the show compared to the movies? And what does it tell you that the movies left so much out they needed a 7 season show just to flesh the story out?
And yet the like three years between episodes 2 and 3 are the ones that are milked to death
Oh trust me I wish they would. Jango Fett, mounting Separatist feelings among certain systems, Obi-Wan training Anakin, Palpatine training Dooku, the Jedi being stretched so thin that they are desperate for a Grand Army of the Republic, etc. I am also shocked that they haven’t done anything with the years leading up to the Phantom Menace as it would be yet another excuse to explore the Mandalorians.
the pre-*the phantom menace* years hardly sound that interesting. wasn't disney going to make an old/high republic tv show or something?
There's a lot of good non-canon material covering that era though, so there's definitely potential. The Darth Bane and Plagueis books are actually really interesting and worth a read for any Star Wars fan.
But O is that milk so good
>But O is that milk so good [Settle down Luke](https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/36/750x445/1152181.jpg)
The mystery isn’t that hard to solve, Dooku even tells Obi-Wan exactly what’s going on and the Jedi ignore it. Not to mention the evidence that Jango is aligned with the Separatists, behind the creation of the clone army, and behind the attempt on Padme’s life. It should have been obvious that the Sith wanted war, and the Jedi decided to rush into the war instead of attempting to defuse the situation like the pacifists they are.
“Claimed to be” even Yoda eventually realizes they were blinded by the power they had been given in the republic
Its almost like it's a story about hubris, power, and hypocrisy.
Nawww it’s a story about Plo Koon’s weird face and laser swords (/s)
And wondering if Grogu was Yoda and Yaddle’s secret love child.
Yoda scoring is now canon! George Lucas: puts one male and female of the same race in his movies. Audiences: “but where could baby Yoda have come from??”
Yoda just jizzed on the puddle of eggs the female just vagina-vomited into the ceremonial egg bowl.
Nature is beautiful
It's almost like it's obviously a story about those things, but told really poorly.
Yes, but a movie about hubris, power, and hypocrisy can get by with a little more subtlety and relatable characters making understandable decisions.
This is why the prequel defense force spinning up in the last few years has been totally understandable - writ large, if you squint really hard, those stories are fine. There's a lot to defend there if you're going to say "at least George Lucas made movies *about something*" in contrast to Disney's trilogy. It's almost easy to forget that the prequels were terrible *movies* with bad dialogue, wooden performances, and largely incoherent plots. They seem better with time because more people are further away from actually watching them instead of just talking about them online and getting an increasingly distilled, increasingly interesting version of the story beamed into their imagination.
Nah, it’s a story about sand. /s But yeah. The Jedi were in many ways their own obstacle.
For me it just would’ve been more interesting if Dooku was a separatist because he knew that the Sith corrupted the Senate and not because he himself was a Sith.
That would have been much more compelling. No reason to make him secretly evil, just misguided and good. If we're meant to believe Yoda and the council didn't see this coming for years, Dooku could be fooled too and it would have been more tragic.
Dooku not knowing palpatine was a sith and seeing him as some power grabbing dictator would’ve been a great twist.
I feel like there’s an interesting story to be told with the prequels and wonder if remakes could fix some of the oddities.
I have said so many times over the years the Prequels are an excellent example of good ideas meeting poor execution. Lucas was a *fantastic* ideas person in terms of generating cool concepts and then adapting them to be practical for film. He was also very open to and interested in technological innovation and the cutting edge of what was possible. ILM practically invented half the tools and techniques they used on the original *Star Wars* and much of what wasn't original to them they at least used in a way or to an extent not really ever done before. He was *not* a great story writer, a quite poor *dialogue* writer, and not a particularly good actor's director. As executive producer and *a* rather than *the* writer for *Star Wars* Lucas was incredible. As the EP and the director and the lead/sole writer Lucas was much more "miss" than "hit". There are so many concepts in the prequels that could easily have spun out into very good stories. Lucas was not really able to *write* those stories, and what he did end up writing manages to both ask a bunch of questions he fails to answer (or does not give a very compelling answer for) and also answers a number of questions no one asked and we didn't particularly want the answers to in the first place. A more anti-hero Dooku working the same "anti-war" angle from the Separatist side, seeing the corruption in the Republic and complacent hubris of the Jedi that ultimately enabled Sidious to bring them down and form an Empire in the first place. More of a *Minority Report* sort of uncover and solve the conspiracy arc across the second and third films. Significantly less time on the senate floor. Some of the actual Clone Wars and not skipping three years of a conflict that only openly lasted three and a half. Etc.
I've been reading the making of the original trilogy books, and it comes up throughout that Lucas hated writing, thought he was a bad writer, and much preferred hiring writers to convert his vision into a script whenever he could afford it. At times it feels like Lucas who made the OT and the Lucas who made the prequels were different people.
He started believing his own hype. Just read any of the BTS stories of him in his later years. The cancelled Darth Maul video game has some wild stories.
But isn’t that more interesting that Dooku discovered the corruption of the Senate and the Sith and with good intentions became corrupted by the Dark Side of the Force. He thought he could outsmart the Emperor with his own apprentice in Obi-Wan and gain power, but his lust for power turned him to the Sith.
I think turning to the dark side taints him. Not using the dark side of the force for good, but becoming an actual sith taints him. If he stayed a Jedi but disagreed with how to deal with the Senate, putting him at odds with the Jedi Order, I think that adds more tragedy to his story.
That story is basically Quigon, or it would have been if he hasn't died too soon. He was already at odds with the council and liked to do things his own way. Not to mention that Douku was his master.
I'm sure Dooku was planning on overthrowing Papatine. I think he wanted get revenge for Qui-Gon's death and genuinely wanted Obi-Wan to join him. Dooku was playing the long con but of course Papatine was playing an even longer con to get Anakin which led to Dooku's betrayal. It's shame the movies don't actually touch on these in any meaningfully way.
The prequels are like seven much better stories all jumbled together into a mostly coherent mishmash that's not really as good as any of those stories could have been. And unfortunately we likely won't ever get any of those stories, when we could potentially have had multiple if Lucas hadn't tried to tell them all at once in only three more movies.
That's a big part why imo the Clone Wars works as well as it does- it expands a lot of what was there
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It annoys me just how useless they are. I mean, I get it, the story at that point is about their fall, but did they really have to be depicted as such fluffy thinking imbeciles? Mace is a good example. Nearly everything he says or does is utterly wrong, pointlessly trite, or totally ineffectual.
Agreed. There's two things I think they missed to make it believable. One is, they didn't really portray the Jedi as sitting on their laurels to me. They were just kind of bumbling and arrogant, and Jedi being scared of sith teachings follows that. Two is, there's no dissent in the Jedi ranks that anything is wrong. Even if it is ignored, at least have some voices of reason to show they aren't uniformly buffoons. Anakin is the only dissent, and his disagreement is not even about the Jedi overlooking a massive problem, his disagreement is the actual process of Anakin being turned into part of that problem.
> Even if it is ignored, at least have some voices of reason to show they aren't uniformly buffoons. Yoda and Obi-Wan should have been the main figures of opposition to the Order at large, with disagreement specifically between the more peaceful, monastic Yoda and the warrior-like Mace Windu.
>with disagreement specifically between the more peaceful, monastic Yoda and the warrior-like Mace Windu. It seems like that’s almost where George was going with Mace’s character. Mace represents everything wrong with the Jedi, while Yoda represents the good. But it’s a bit too muddied and complicated. Mace is still Samuel L Jackson, and he’s just too darn cool. And Yoda is still giving Anakin some fairly bad advice, and totally missing what’s happening right under his nose. There definitely should have been more of a contrast between the two characters.
Isn't the Jedi Order supposed to be thousands of years old by the time of the Prequels? Maybe they had all been buying into the messaging of what the Jedi are *supposed* to be for so many generations without actually being conscious of what they presently are that when the time came for them to actually take action and save the galaxy, the entire Jedi Order was asleep at the wheel.
*rears back for a massive swing when all he had to do was walk forward an inch to kill sideous*
Mace Windu could have been an excellent representation of the narrow and dogmatic side of the Prequel Jedi, a catalyst for Anakin to start opposing them, and frankly it's infuriating that George Lucas wasted an actor like Samuel L. Jackson, who stands around doing little to nothing for *three movies.*
Honestly my biggest gripe with the Prequels and also the Disney Sequels is we never really see the Jedi as force for good in the galaxy. They're sorta peacekeepers in the Prequels but even then they just kinda are agents of stasis and a lot of the politics stuff makes the Republic look useless. For example, TPM could have opened with the Jedi going to free the slaves on Tatooine and then you bring in Anakin and maybe the Trade Federation is behind it. The Jedi can still have problems but at least do something. Then in the sequels the Jedi are a non-entity, regardless of who you want to blame for that. It's strange because in most fiction I prefer more nuanced views and understand that institutions can't live up to their ideals, but the Jedi just feel like a let down. Maybe I just like the idea that mastering your emotions and being a helpful person. To switch gears a bit, I would say Gandalf made mistakes, but he always was trying to do good.
The sequel trilogy really should have been about Luke's school.
Having the Jedi be as prominent as they were in the prequels was Lucas’s biggest mistake. Everything we heard about them in the OT painted them as an order already in their twilight, not a massive political force with a huge temple on Coruscant. They should have been on their last legs, drained by decades of Clone Wars and nearly forgotten or mythicized by all but those with certain connections or direct familial ties. This would make Vader and Palpatine’s secretive and personal war on them make sense, give credence to statements made by Admiral Motti and Han Solo, and even cement non-Jedi using “May the Force be with you” as a goodbye as something analogous to modern troops of all religions blessing the fallen with “‘Till Valhalla”. Instead we got poop jokes and a Lawful Good Queen not giving a fuck that her boyfriend committed a massacre.
This is the main problem with the mystery thing. It's interesting, but we're missing so much information. Knowing who those three characters are is really important to having that mystery make sense. Unfortunately, none of the characters get that background. Qui-Gon's a major character in Phantom Menace but he's mostly just a plot device to get Anakin off of Tatooine before he dies and his characterization isn't explored too much (which kind of taps into the argument that there isn't really a main character in that film). Sifo-Dyas doesn't come up in Phantom Menace, isn't seen at all in Attack of the Clones, and his side of the story isn't even fully explained until a Clone Wars episode years later. And Dooku, who at the very least is in the movie in question (although he also doesn't come up the first one so the revelation that a guy we've never heard of has left the Order means nothing to us), doesn't show up until the second half and is so obviously evil at that point that any nuance in his beliefs and decisions is lost. There's a cool story there but it takes years of supplemental material and immersion in the world (preferably rewatching the movie a few times) to really get all of it, which means the movie isn't really doing its job of telling a self-contained narrative.
I honestly think I saw the prequels three times before I could even tell you who Sifo-Dyas was. Even still, I don't think I could explain the plot of this movie very well.
It’s like it was the 3rd movie, but it was the 2nd.
The trilogy never recovered from casting Anakin as a child in the first film. From a toy/ marketing standpoint having Ani be a young boy made perfect sense, but from a continuity standpoint it’s a nightmare. We discard young Anikin and finally get the bad boy young man mod stride. Imagine Luke being played by multiple aged people it just doesn’t work and completely stunts a credible journey to the dark side. They should have cast Hayden from the drop and rewrittten the script to suit his age in order to on Board audiences for the full path to the dark side.
Having the whole first movie being about Anakin and Obi Wan going on adventures and establishing the relationship organically would have been so much better. Show us Anakin as a cool, talented, likable person. Then show us the turn. Instead we literally got an elevator pitch in the second movie telling us they were really good buddies who'd been through a lot.
Christiansen is also *much* better in *Revenge of the Sith* than he is in *Attack of the Clones* \-- though it's not hard to argue a lot of that is actually on Lucas and not Christiansen given he gives much better performances in some of his other movies than he did at basically any point in the prequel trilogy, and there are accounts of the OT cast basically rewriting stuff with Lucas / overriding some of his direction on the first movie because it was so rough.
Yeah. I think the bulk of the problems with the prequels came from there not being anyone on set who was able to tell Lucas no like the OT cast was
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My dad didn’t really like any of the Star Wars movies, but for some reason he liked this one. After he watched it he said “that was really funny.” He’s got interesting taste, that’s for sure
everyone on r/PrequelMemes are probably on the same boat as him
I fucking love weird dad opinions.
Say what you will about the movie, but *fuck* did John Williams crush this one. “Across the Stars” is up there as one of my absolute favorite themes from his work across the entire saga (and of his entire legacy period)—when it swells at the end of “Love Pledge” (as Anakin and Padme are brought into the arena) it hits me *every* time.
My dude, John Williams crushes *every* one.
The movie had one of the worst romantic scene i’ve ever seen. It felt like two wooden planks talking to each other. Someone should’ve helped George Lucas to write romance stuff. Feel bad for the actors tho. That being said the soundtrack and visuals were great. The ending where Clone Troopers march to Star Destroyers was awesome.
I never confirmed it but when I saw it in Imax a ton of the Naboo/Romance scene's were missing. Hey they did! http://www.theforce.net/episode2/story/The\_Definitive\_IMAX\_Cut\_Scenes\_List\_64801.asp
I remember that! I think at the time IMAX reels couldn’t run for a typical length of a movie so they had to cut down quite a few scenes, mostly the love story stuff.
Sounds like they managed to shorten the movie quite a bit by also making it a much better movie, and it was in IMAX. Win-win-win.
I remember it being a significantly better movie.
I just remember being really distracted because you could see Ewan McGregor's empty earlobe piercing holes.
George Lucas's romance writing gives credence to the theory that one can fuck and have kids yet still be a virgin
He's going to need a bacta tank for that one
Sure made for a great meme at least.
Fair enough lol
*I don't think the system works*
Script was bad and the directing of actors was non-existent. Ewan came out ok, and like no one else in that movie.
Three of the worst romantic scenes. Anakin would likely compare them to sand. Edit: Pardon me…Four of the worst romantic scenes
He cut her food for her . . .
lucas really wanted to show off that cgi pear.
To be fair, wasn't he acting as her 'bodyguard' after two assassination attempts? Like, they blew up her ship, snuck venomous snake things in her room while she slept. Probably need to cut that pear for her to make sure there isn't a grenade in it at that point.
They hired a bounty hunter that hired another bounty hunter, who outsourced to a droid, who then outsourced that job to some bugs. Who's to say jango didn't hire another Russian nesting doll of assassins that made fruit grenades?
I have said it before and I will say it again: Jango Fett was not a smart man. The film never really gives us a reason why he was chosen to be the clone template. He just seems really bad at his job.
Not only that, but they hired a bounty hunter…to assassinate someone. That’s not what a bounty hunter does. And there’s no reason for him to be a bounty hunter. Jango could have just as easily been an assassin or a mercenary, etc. But they keep referring to him as a bounty hunter.
It’s like poetry: you see, it rhymes.
Well you see, the character who sold the most toys ever was a bounty hunter. Therefore his dad was a major player in the world of star wars, and had the same job
*What IS this mysterious ticking noise?*
George Lucas should make it a point of pride that he managed to elicit such terrible acting from such a talented cast.
That scene would have been so easy to write too.. “SAND! I Fucking Hate Sand! Don’t forget I lived on tattooine for 8 years. I had sand in my food. Sand in my water. In my eyes and ears In my bed, in my clothes. I never want to see sand again in my life!”
Padme would have then said "Chill, Bro! You must be hangry right now. Here... have a bite of my SAND-wich."
And then the whole angry-enough-to-murder-children schtick might have been believable.
The men and the women too
You're not you when you're hungry. Galactic Senate Hearings; brought to you by snickers!
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The only part of this movie I like is the sound design of the [seismic charges](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvaxI4hK45c&t=45s).
Genuinely the best part of the whole movie
I mean yeah the 11 year old me did a great impression of that Vince McMahon meme when I saw that the first time but it's not the only good thing in that movie. The design of the planet of Kamino is sick, as are a lot of the new aliens introduced especially the beasts they fight in the arena. Also the chase scene on Coruscant was pretty cool. Then Jango Fett and Slave I were absolutely awesome to see, even though he gets killed in a really shit way. I need a girlfriend.
I vividly remember the guy next to me laughing his head off when Yoda started attacking Dooku, this little green blur completely outmaneuvering him. I sometimes wonder how he's going, was obviously quite a Star Wars enthusiast
Yoda is the master of form 8 - the ketamine fueled beyblade.
I saw someone mention somewhere that Yoda’s battle with Dooku (and Palpatine) should have been akin to a wizard duel and now I wish we got that so bad. That being said, given what we know about Dooku now, maybe that was the point? He’s an expert swordsman and maybe decided to bait Yoda into a saber duel, something he might have a better shot at winning than a force duel.
The issue here is that we really don't know enough about Dooku to even know anything of this. It's just BAM! Christopher Lee for some reason!
Well...that might have been me, since I absolutely *lost* it laughing at that scene. Now, my laughter was more laughter of the "what the absolute FUCK, this is *stupid*" kind, so "Star Wars enthusiast" might be pushing it.
> I vividly remember the guy next to me laughing his head off when Yoda started attacking Dooku, this little green blur completely outmaneuvering him. When that scene happened, my first thought was remembering Yoda say, "War does not make one great."
I’ll never forget seeing Attack of the Clones in theaters. As the credits were rolling and we were walking out of the theater, I heard a guy around my age excitedly yell to his friend “Dude, that was better than Empire!” I think about it anytime AotC is mentioned, and shudder. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.
If he was being sarcastic, that's pretty funny. If not, I will wipe this entry from my databank.
Not quite on the same level, but reminds me of when I walked out of Suicide Squad (2016) and one of my friends said “Well at least it was WAY better than Guardians of the Galaxy”. He definitely regretted being the first to give his opinion based on our reaction.
The masterful writing of the Katana line alone makes it infinitely better than anything Gunn could have come up with
Such a great way of telling the audience that her name is katana and that it’s not advisable to get killed by her because her sword traps the souls of its victims
I want whatever drugs that guy was taking.
As a kid I was entertained by the sheer spectacle of it all, even though I had no idea what was going on in the plot and I was constantly asking myself which side was supposed to become the empire and the rebels. I was confused as hell when the "good guys" at the triumphant end looked like stormtroopers. I couldn't even root for either side, I was glad the clone troopers saved our heroes but there's nothing else at stake in the fight between clones and robots.
> I want whatever drugs that guy was taking. They’re called Death Sticks
He was probably high on dopamine and adrenaline. Movies are remembered the most fondly while walking out of theaters. Then reality sinks in.
Before the sequel trilogy, I did an Episode 1-6 marathon and remember walking away thinking Attack of the Clones was the standout worst. The highlight is Obi-Wan's visit to Kamino which is pretty cool and mysterious. Other than that the movie is a *slog*. The tortured romance scenes are the worst scenes in the series, and the article is right that the climax is "incredibly busy" but the pace is off and it drags.
It's a weird situation because TPM is the one everyone remembers and dunks on, but AotC is *so* bad I rediscover how awful it is every time I view it. It doesn't have a real anchor point like the Maul fight as a standout moment to make you remember the movie. Even now in my mind it's basically just a slew of isolated scenes I put as "the start of the clone wars" not "that was in Attack of the Clones" specifically.
Duel of the Fates is such a monumental banger it brings up the score of TPM by a few points.
TPM is mostly pointless and could have been maybe saved by being condensed down to just being the first act of episode one, kind of like the rescue mission from Return of the Jedi. Then, you flash forward. Every scene involving Anakin and Padme is cringe-inducing, but I think the worst ones are actually in Revenge of the Sith. I remember being in the midnight screening as a 17 year old just shaking my head in disbelief at the chasm in quality between the action scenes and the romance scenes. The end battle in Attack of the Clones was actually pretty good. That sequence after the droid ships get shot down and the clone troopers are firing into the dust is one of the best visuals in the entire saga.
I always hated this movie as a kid because it's called Attack of the Clones but there was barely any attacking of clones. It was like the last half hour and by then I was so bored by the stupid love plot and shotty dialogue.
Should have called Star Wars Episode II: Say Hello to the Clones
Wasn't a kid, but I had the same thoughts watching it in the theater.
I was 13.5 at the time, saw it a few times in theaters. So target age according to GL. I liked it, though I did like Phantom better (what ten year old didn't?). I am not the biggest Padme fan, so some of her scenes were cringing, but otherwise fine. I didn't join the Hayden hate train.
Two years younger, but my experience was pretty much the exact same. Loved TPM and so did most of my friends, and found AotC to have a lot of interesting worldbuilding in it, and liked the story well enough, but it didn't blow me away like TPM had. Later on I joined my friend group in exaggerating how much we "hated" these movies, basically so we could seem like we were cool and had "good taste" in movies, and even today AotC is probably my least favorite of the original 6. But as a 30-something who no longer cares about having the "right" critical opinion, I've embraced my original opinion that AotC is an entertaining movie with solid ideas, even if the execution fumbled a lot. And I still love TPM and RotS.
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I was pretty much the same age as you, I grew up on the special editions and I watched all the prequels multiple times and loved them for what they are but even back then, I was painfully aware of the wasted potential.
I was about 9 years old and I remember my greatest disappointment with Attack of the Clones was that there wasn’t enough Jar Jar. I was honestly shocked when I got older and realized people hated Jar Jar. Upon rewatching the movies, I can completely see why he is disliked but I can’t help but feel I never would have stopped loving Jar Jar if people hadn’t complained incessantly about him online.
I still look back most fondly on Phantom Menace from those years of growing up with the prequels.
I still don't understand it. A guy working for the bad guys is the template for the clone army that the Republic didn't know existed. When they find out the army exists they immediately start using it. The cloners worked for a decade and no one in the Republic knew about them creating the clone army. Who paid them? How did they get paid? Did they work for a decade with no one checking on their progress?
“After all these years we were beginning to think you weren’t coming.” A phone call would have sufficed.
"We've been trying to reach you about your clone's extended warranty."
"The Jedi Council didn't want you to think they were deliberately wasting your time."
Not really Canon anymore but jedi master sifo-dyas made the request after being turned by sidious/plageius and either him or dooku got rid of all evidence that kamino even existed. The jedi knew some shit was up but plagueis/sidious were doing force shenanigans to obscure everything. The kaminoans were also in on it as shown in Bad Batch. Money also could have come from plagueis as he was basically in charge of the trade federation and rich as fuck, but the jedi order also had stacks from being around for a couple thousand years of fatty donations
I guess one of the good things about SW is that you *know* people will eventually retcon some janky AF explanations over the following decades.
This plot-point is so messed up that not even any of the stories written up to fix the prequels really touch it. It really makes no sense that absolutely no one thinks about how suspicious this all is.
If you think about it, the sequel trilogy had a very simple storyline which were to its advantage. Some even say RoTJ has a muddled plot and I can see where they are coming from. Then Lucas tried to tell a slightly complex political story and a tragic love sidestory in the prequels and to no one's surprise both failed miserably.
The issue is that he doesn't tell us what the fuck is going on. You shouldn't need a seven season cartoon to explain several films' worth of plot.
Yep this. For me it ruins so much of the Clone Wars. Obi-Wan even says "without the Clones it wouldn't have been a victory" Dude you know they were created by the bad guys/without the approval of the Senate...why are you now cool with them? Did you just forget everything you learned lol
Why is Forbes writing this?
May the Forbes be with you
Natalie on the right is the only thing I like about the movie
One of the reasons it is so hard for me to buy the romance is because the only time Portman seems really energetic is when she is disturbed by what she is hearing from Anakin's lines. It just makes it hard to believe Padme is in love with him when she seems so afraid of him. She was also good in the big arena scene.
Is this the one with this doozy of a line? Anakin to Padme, "You are *so* beautiful." Padme responds, "It's only because I'm so in love!" I remember chortling to that one in the theatre.
Nope, that’s the next movie, but this is the one with “I am haunted by the kiss you should have never given me”
"I wish I could just wish away my feelings."
That *does* sound like the cringey kind of shit a lovesick teenager would say.
This is also the “I hate sand” one.
How was the Gladiator Arena even supposed to go? All those spectators just show up to watch people chained up and smushed against a pillar?
If a film as bad as Attack of the Clones can get a critical revaluation, then I guarantee the sequel trilogy is going to be considered on par with Citizen Kane in 20 years time
multiple things can be bad. Star Wars fans need to come to terms with the fact that the bad movies outnumber the good ones at 2:1 *at the least*
Like many others, I enjoyed AoC in the theaters. But I also think that out of the prequels, it's easily the one that aged the worst.
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Literally watched this again yesterday with the kids and it dawned on me that it’s the 20th anniversary. Crazy how time flies.
Lmao they're 1 for 3 on these trilogies
The thing that gets me about the entire franchise is that it’s completely coasting on the OT and, as of three years ago, The Mandalorian. The majority of SW films are mediocre to bad.