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Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

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Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

May. 16,2002
|
6.6
|
PG
| Adventure Action Science Fiction
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Following an assassination attempt on Senator Padmé Amidala, Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi investigate a mysterious plot that could change the galaxy forever.

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Reviews

Vashirdfel
2002/05/16

Simply A Masterpiece

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Matialth
2002/05/17

Good concept, poorly executed.

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Stellead
2002/05/18

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

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Taraparain
2002/05/19

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

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yaxleycratler
2002/05/20

The movie wasn't as bad as the Phantom Menace but it wasn't perfect either. It was nice to see Anakin and Padme's love blossom but it was also kind of boring at points. Right away they started with action and made it interesting. The ending was the best though, Jango Fett was a cool bounty hunter and I wish they had kept him around longer. All the jedi and Clones versus the Geonosians and Battle Droids equals awesome.

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Nominahorn
2002/05/21

I just finished re-watching all six Lucas-era Star Wars films in episode order (I-VI) with the commentary and want to give my reviews of each film. Let me preface by saying that I am a lifelong Star Wars fan who grew up with the original trilogy and literally have no memory of a time in my life before SW. As such, I am not going to be totally unbiased in my reviews, but I will try to be somewhat objective.Attack of the Clones begins 10 years after The Phantom Menace. After an assassination attempt on (now) Senator Amidala's life, Obi-Wan and Anakin are called in to protect her--Anakin as her bodyguard and Obi-Wan as a detective following an intergalactic trail of evidence to discover who is trying to kill her and why. The investigation leads him to discover many dark secrets about the Jedi, the Republic, and who has been pulling the strings this whole time. As a result, a war erupts between the Republic and the Separatists under the control of the mysterious sith lord, Darth Sidious. Begun, the Clone Wars have.Let me start by saying that this is definitely my least favorite of the 6 Lucas films. The love story is tedious, there's no exceptional actors to make up for the absence of Liam Neeson, the cgi is too much, and Anakin is so unlikable that you almost stop caring that he will eventually turn evil. George Lucas loves to describe Anakin's story as a tragedy in the vein of a classic Greek play, but a tragedy where the tragic figure is not sympathetic is not a very good tragedy at all.All that said, I still enjoy this film a bit. The politics are probably the saving grace of this one.THE GOOD-Christopher Lee is the one great actor but unfortunately he doesn't even appear until halfway through the movie. Still, every scene he is in is a treat.-The way Palpatine has manipulated everything is absolutely masterful to see. It can be lost in the mess of cgi and Anakin's temper tantrums, but in this movie it's established that Palpatine (possibly through Dooku) created a clone army with the intention of starting a civil war eventually and giving that clone army to the Republic as massive Trojan Horse. He then orchestrated the assassination attempts on Padme, in order to lead the Jedi to Kamino where they would discover the clone army created for them (and also made sure Padme and Anakin were placed together so he would develop a forbidden attachment to her--the fatal weakness he would eventually exploit to turn Anakin to the Dark Side). Meanwhile, he continued to play the Separatists from both sides to artificially create this conflict to keep him in office and allow him to accumulate more executive power. Finally, the whole time he was grooming Anakin and pushing him to explore his dark side so that he could eventually make him his new apprentice. All around it's a brilliant work of art to see in action, and really he deserved to become emperor because he was way smarter and more competent than the Jedi or anyone else in these movies.-Love seeing the Slave I. It might be my favorite ship in the SW universe.THE BAD-Anakin is a petulant, unlikable, self-centered brat. I almost couldn't wait for him to fall into the lava in the next movie because then I wouldn't have to look at his stupid whiny face anymore. However, if you think about it, Vader was occasionally petulant in the original trilogy too, so I guess it's in character (strangling people for disagreeing with him, for example).-The cgi is just...way too much. The alien that Obi-Wan meets in the diner in particular just looks so fake. And it really makes me angry (probably irrationally so) when they tell us repeatedly in the commentary that not a single clone trooper suit was built and they were all 100% cgi. The whole movie feels inconsequential and fake because of how overboard they went on the cgi.-The love story is hard to watch. It's not believable that a brilliant, mature, and successful woman with a good head on her shoulders would fall in love with a petulant, emotionally unstable child. And Anakin is straight up creepy towards her in the scenes on Coruscant and Naboo. The scenes on Tatooine where he finally quits creeping on her and they talk like friends are actually very good and with more interactions like that, the love story might have been more believable. -The dialogue, as always.THE UGLY-The fact that the Jedi don't seem concerned about the origins of the clone army and just decide to use it without asking any questions is pretty massive incompetence on their part. In fact, throughout these prequels their complacency and incompetence makes me think they deserved to get wiped out. Yoda is the worst offender here, as he is supposed to be extremely wise and powerful and yet throughout the movies he repeatedly makes critical mistakes that lead to the fall of the Jedi (allowing Anakin to be trained, using and trusting the clone army, not figuring out who was pulling the strings, etc.).-I know the Expanded Universe is not canon and now isn't even part of SW anymore thanks to Disney, but the EU background for Boba Fett was that he was from a race of elite warriors called the Mandalorians and he has fought against the Jedi in the Clone Wars. This movie establishing him as a stormtrooper clone and a kid instead is just...infinitely less interesting.

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alcantaraj-16594
2002/05/22

I thought "The Phantom Menace" was bad. This was worse.

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jamesgandrew
2002/05/23

Star Wars: Episode II- Attack of the Clones is a film that never left an impact on me. I couldn't get passed the heavy political exposition nor the prolonged romantic scenes with Anakin and Padme. Well I gave it another look for the first time in a long time and honestly it wasn't as bad as I remember. There's elements I still despise about the movie, the most noteworthy being the terribly written romantic dialogue straight out of Twilight. George Lucas never displayed much strength in writing dialogue but this is a new low. Another thing that bores me is the heavy exposition, which was also an issue with its precursor. I know it's a story about political schemes and trade negotiations so it's hard to depict it excitingly, but maybe this wasn't the best story to go with? George Lucas also got a bit lazy with directing this film due to his reliance on green screen effects and oh boy have they not aged well... You can tell the lighting isn't right in areas since the light seems to be constantly lit above the actors. The CG also hasn't aged well and there are times where it looks like actors are walking in front of screen savers. I addressed this in my Phantom Menace review but I'll say it again, it wasn't the acting that bothered me about the prequels, it was the dialogue. Ewan is fantastic as Obi-Wan, he is witty and captures that Alec Guinness persona. Natalie Portman is perfectly fine, so is all of the supporting cast. And I can hear you all saying 'what about Hayden Christenson?' The fact is Anakin is meant to be a naive and confused adolescent who has difficulty controlling his emotions. Does Hayden portray that? Yes. It's easy to confuse this with bad acting especially with the cringy dialogue. I'm just defending these actors because they aren't the problem with the movie... it's the script.The Jedi arena climax is quite epic and you get the sense these are the Jedi's in their prime before the majority of them were wiped out by Order 66. However the same can't be said about the concluding lightsaber duel which compared to the last movie is excruciatingly terrible. Yoda flipping around makes no sense considering his age. I know it's a Jedi requirement to have a lightsaber, however, he's a 900 year old creature and there's no evidence of his ability to wield a lightsaber in the original trilogy.It's not the god awful film I made it out to be all those years ago. It definitely has strong moments like the Clone army origins, the Jango fight fight scene and the emotional turmoil of Anakin as he slaughters Sand People. Although this remains to be the worst of the prequel trilogy but in all honesty... it's still better than Rogue One and The Last Jedi.

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