Twisted Spinster

Well okay, counting yesterday’s viewing of Star Wars: Episode One the Phantom Menace and Your Little Dog Too (really, these titles are too long) — they showed that again today, and after it they showed “Episode 2” — Attack of the Clones, I guess you could count this as a “double feature.” If I watch tomorrow’s showing on Spike of the third segment, Darth Sith’s Sithy Darths, or whatever it is, it will be a triple feature. Details, details!

Anyway — technically, the actual attack of the clones didn’t come until near the end of the movie, so the title is somewhat misleading. The special effects were much better in this film — the landscapes were especially good-looking, though they didn’t all escape that standard matte effect. But they were beautiful mattes, anyway. The action scenes were better paced as well, though many of the effects in those were not entirely convincing. (For example, all those large air-to-space-ships skimming so close to the ground in the desert planet scenes should have kicked up way more sand and dust than they are shown doing.)

The film falters, as does the first one, whenever the characters open their mouths. It’s not entirely their fault — the script sucks whenever the action pauses for quieter talky scenes, of which there are two kinds: discussions of a sort of sub-grade-school concept of “democracy,” and the love scenes between Anakin and the former “queen” Padme. Concerning the latter, leaving aside the fact that Padme’s character, though being at least apparently about twenty years older than Anakin, has somehow not aged one bit, they would have been better leaving all of their scenes together wordless. The dialogue isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just that it would take better actors than Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman were then to bring off. Also, while Miss Portman is a lovely young person, Mr. Christensen, at least back in 2002, was not a particularly prepossessing fellow. (He looks better in the scenes from tomorrow night’s showing of the third installment where Anakin goes all Darkside.) Ewan McGregor wasn’t as stiff this time — having lots of action scenes help in movies with dialogue problems — but if I heard him (and everyone else – – Dooku, Mace Windu, frickin’ Yoda) address one more character as “my young” whatever I thought I was going to scream. (You know — “my young friend,” “my young apprentice,” “my young padawan” — gaaargghhh!)

As for the “politics” in the movie — let me just point out a Bad Fact of Science Fiction right now so future writers of novels and film scripts in that genre can be informed: when it comes to the subgenre of Space Opera, which the Star Wars films certainly are, certain “real life” concepts cannot be fitted comfortably into its larger-than-life, archetypal world. This means you can’t have the action stop dead for people to sit around talking about “democracy.” The script is schizoid about this anyway — apparently the “queen” that Padme used to be was simply an elected title, sort of like a president, and once one’s term is over one can become a “senator.” Oh well — eventually the film drops most of its political stuff for good old action, and after that we know that eventually an Evil Empire crops up and the “Republic” is put back in its proper Space Opera place as an ideal to be fought for and attained, not discussed.

Anyway, Episode 2 was quite a bit better than Episode 1, despite the stiff dialogue. I believe that 3 was supposed to be quite good. If I remember I’ll watch it tomorrow.

Update: one more thing I forgot — kudos to Lucasfilms for daring to have one of the villains, Jango Fett, played by a minority actor (Temuera Morrison, who I believe is a Maori from New Zealand). This breaks the tradition of the past several years of making sure all Real Villains who aren’t rubber monster suits (or CGI effects) in scifi movies are white. (For example, remember Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams? He turned out to be Not Really A Villain. Because it’s not allowed. All Real Villains are whites, though like Darth Vader they can be voiced by a black actor.) Anyway, I believe that Lucas came under criticism for this from the usual suspects, but there is no reason that minority actors should be deprived of good villain parts just because of the sort of racism that demands non-white ethnic groups be placed up on a pillar.