What did you think of Attack Of The Clones?

[stillakid]

Originally posted by Caesar


I disagree.
There's a scene where Anakin tells Obi-Wan that he thinks Palpatine is a good man, despite Kenobi's warnings. Later when speaking with Palps, the future Emperor is undermining his training by telling him he needs no guidance and that he should follow his feelings. And when he does follow his feelings in a moment of pain, he goes too far.

Exactly. It's one scene. Just one. The entire rest of the movie is Anakin going through mood shifts bigger than a woman in menopause. He's not being turned to the darkside by extraneous forces (ie, Palpatine) rather by his whiny teenage like behavior (ie, "It's not fair). I expect that in Ep III we'll see Palpatine recognize Anakin's state of mind and move to exploit it, but aside from a mention in AOTC, we don't witness any true influence that Palpatine has over Anakin and the path he chooses. Just like in TPM, it's all heresay and that's poor storytelling. In other words, "show me," don't tell me.

[Tycho]

I think it's supposed to go this way. I also think I saw indications that Mace could be an inside-bad guy. If so the Sith have two options with regards to Anakin and "balance in the Force."

Kill him

or

turn him.


In escorting Amidala, surely if they'd stayed on Naboo, at one point or another, they'd be a target for whoever Palpatine wanted to make the next assasination attempt. He'd know exactly where Anakin was and get rid of him. I don't think it was a priority in the Sith plans at this time though: the key thing was getting Padme away from the Military Creation Act. The point was they were deadlocked 50-50, or 500,000 to 500,000. Naboo was a key LEADER in the opposition to the Military Creation Act. Padme said she worked for a year to DEFEAT it. If she's out of the way, in less than a week, JARJAR has completely reversed Naboo's position. That's what Palpatine wanted! JarJar plays the fool, but he's the only one ELECTED to represent Naboo that's still there on Coruscant. Dorme (posing as Padme) could act like her, but she was not elected like Padme, and it would be illegal for her to take the vote. I'd wondered why she wasn't in Naboo's senate box when JarJar reversed their position. If she was, and people thought she was the senior senator, then JarJar would not be allowed to speak. But again, it was illegal for Dorme to take the vote. Palpatine's a genius (and all the while pretending he doesn't want to create a military until he has it set up so the Jedi will take the blame for using the Clones!)

See the E3 spoiler section for continuation of where this situation might lead us. It's 'safe' now, as there is no E3 script, but the speculation will go down there because as soon as we can get a script, we'll love to prove it!

Meanwhile, Anakin will be protecting Padme on Naboo, where he can be assasinated with her, maybe. If that's a goal for the Sith at the moment. BUT, how can they when Anakin unpredictably takes them to Tatooine? Then he gets mixed up in the whole Geonosis thing!

So, they kill Anakin in the arena and remove the threat of a Chosen One, or he survives, and by design Mace Windu does, and Anakin still must obey Mace's orders, since he's a Jedi Master.

Watching Mace though, he seems too quick to please Palpatine, and he also would inform the senate that the Jedi weakened, making it possible for pirates, gangs, other enemies to weed off more Jedi. Remember, if there are 10,000 Jedi, probably Master and Apprentice teams on thousands of separatist worlds (linked by military / trade treaties like Italy was linked to Nazi Germany in WWII, or England had to defend France in the same war), these separated Jedi on 5,000 worlds could be more easily killed by bounty hunters, assasins, traps laid by people like Tarkin (who must be around somewhere), but to the Sith, anything's better than facing a temple of 10,000 of them all at once!

The book "Before the Storm" covers some of that as they try to get rid of Luminara and Bariss, but Obi-Wan and Anakin intervene (though it's a terribly BORING book!)

But anyway, right now Anakin might be assasinated OR he will at least be under Mace Windu's control. It is by sheer convenience that Palpatine recognizes the Dark Side in Anakin and in E3 he will exploit it.

Anakin is already resentful of the Jedi because they separated him from his mom (he couldn't have gone back - but to do what? Uproot all the Lars or get Shmi a divorce? Were Owen and Beru going to live in the Jedi temple too? Shmi had a life. In life, bad stuff happens...) and Anakin takes his frustration out on Obi-Wan because he's his master and 'parent' Anakin rebels against. This comes to a head when Padme falls out of the gunship. Brilliant scene! Anakin gets in Obi-Wan's face, and then he won't listen to his Master and charges Dooku and gets what he deserved (the lightning and maybe the arm, too. He IS a slow learner )

But everything is proceeding as I have forseen. Ha-hah-heh-heh-haa!

[darthvyn]

i feel that, although he is obviously getting some pushes from palpatine, anakin's fall is mainly due to things beyond his control... it's his fate to be the chosen one, and part of this fate is that all this crap happens to him. he falls in love (even though he's not supposed to,) and his mother dies, and he can't do anything about this. this all leads to him turning. how this is his fate, or more to the point the prophecy of the chosen one, has to do with the balance of the force... i believe that all the jedi think the prophecy is a good thing, but in actuality it is not. yoda says in menace "only two there are, no more no less" about the sith. and how many fully trained jedi are there in a new hope and empire?

two.

that's the balance. two jedi, two sith. so, he is the chosen one to bring balance to the force, but this prophecy is good for the sith, not the jedi...

[Tycho]

Exactly! - and Obi-Wan dies, as Luke rises under Yoda's apprenticeship.

Then Yoda dies, Anakin fulfills the prophesy all too well - killing Palpatine and dying himself, leaving only Luke.

So then which of the Sith survived?

Does Darth Tyranus or Mace Windu escape destruction at the end of the Prequel Trilogy? Or is there one more character to be introduced in Episode 3?

George once said that he could do 7,8,& 9 with a character that survived the prequel trilogy - one who would have to train an apprentice to confront Luke Skywalker as a Jedi Master. But he didn't think he'd do these because the whole 6 part story was about ANAKIN Skywalker.

But think how cool a movie series with Mark Hamill against Samuel L. Jackson could be?

And their apprentices: either Jedi Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker, versus someone else Mace Windu or Count Dooku has trained.

[NailBunny]

Exactly. It's one scene. Just one. The entire rest of the movie is Anakin going through mood shifts bigger than a woman in menopause. He's not being turned to the darkside by extraneous forces (ie, Palpatine) rather by his whiny teenage like behavior (ie, "It's not fair).


Lucas has stated that he doesn't want people to see a direct connection between Anakin and Palpatine at all.

How he plans to clue the audience in to this tidbit every fan already knows about I have no clue.

[Tycho]

Yes, but Anakin is a real person, and most of us went through mood swings as teenagers. I left my parents when I was 15. I had enough of their guidance.

I didn't have the discipline or training of the normal Jerry Springer family, and Anakin didn't have 9 years of Jedi Training to control his instinctive emotions we all have as children.

That's disciplined out of Jedi kids at a very early age. See how obedient the Jedi youth were?

Anakin had none of that, plus early ties and loyalties to his mother and Padme established in a movie a lot of you don't think was necessary. Here it was (The Phantom Menace) and a lot of you still don't get it.

The "It's not fair!" line was done deliberately to show that Anakin doesn't understand this either. He "wants to waste time with his friends before his chores are done."

Obi-Wan seems ill-equipped to guide him about his dreams about his mother and his feelings for Padme. Concerned, but still you see him going to Yoda and Mace for advice during the movie.

[Kernel]

Interesting about Mace Windu being a double agent...

[darthvyn]

Originally posted by JediTricks
You know what it feels like to me? Like Ep 1 left us starving for Star Wars for 3 years, and AOTC is a loaf of white bread. It's bread that, as starving people, we'll lap up and enjoy how the texture seems so much better than starving, but on its own, you wouldn't want to eat so much of because there's little food value or flavor to it - and eating this whole loaf makes you feel kinda ooky.

okay, so it is opinion, but you started out with what it feels like to you, then you said ep. 1 left US starving for more. so you are projecting your opinion onto others... just an observation as to why the next post was so dismisive...

[darthvyn]

i like the rumor i've heard about mace windu in ep III and his supposed dispatcher. i think that's a post for a spoilers section (i'm not too knowledgable on the whole spoiler/theory line), though. i don't know if i want him to survive or not... i mean, sam jackson is too cool, but at the same time, it would be cool to see him become one with the force or something.

[stillakid]

I just got back from my second viewing. No real changes in my initial opinions. It didn't seem quite so scattered this time around, but then again, I was already aware of the basic plot structure.

Anakin is even more uneven than I previously thought. His rantings erupt frequently without cause. Inexplicably, Padme taunts him by saying that he's not a Jedi yet, but in the previous scene to that, she says that he is.

I think the biggest thing bothering me at this point is Padme's attraction to Anakin. First off, she magically recognizes him as Anakin, even though this older version looks absolutely nothing like the little kid in TPM. (Schmi does it too!) So, after Padme pulls that rabbit out of the hat and leaves the room, Anakin whines and says to Jar Jar that "she didn't even recognize me" or something to that effect. What?! Bizarre. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But I digress. The kid is bipolar, moods bouncing from one extreme to the other. One moment he's putting the moves on her...the next, he's cursing out Obi Wan...then back again ("I know"). Shoot, maybe she's attracted to moody guys, what do I know, but if it were me, I'd keep clear of a guy like that. You'd never know when his fuse would get lit again. There is at no time any indication of any reason she should like him beyond that fact that they have some kind of distant history together. Even that was fleeting. So, her motivation for "falling in love" with Anakin is non-existent and she has more reason to not like him in the first place.

The frolicing the fields didn't bother me so much but that ridiculous dialogue by the fireplace makes me want to go out and burn all the Danielle Steele novels that exist. Acckkck Thhppt! What was it he said? "My soul is tormented" or something? Oh brother. Who talks like that?

The arena battle is silly as I've mentioned. The "James Bond" death scene is there to give the heroes a chance to escape. Gunray actually speaks the words I'm thinking: "Shoot them!" Yeah. Why not? Stupid. Somebody mentioned a cutscene of a trial that came before that. Trial? What in blazes for?