Episode II: Attack of the Hormones

Good tidings and many thanks if you're reading this after my revisiting of The Phantom Menace. If you haven't yet, click on Episode I to catch up on my first review of the Star Wars saga. I continue my journey today with Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, a film that, much like its predecessor, provides bountiful opportunities for fans to commit seppuku with a lightsaber to the chest. Also like Menace, Clones does have fleeting moments of clarity and poignance but in lieu of Jar Jar Binks, the scourge of this chapter is the abundant lack of chemistry between the hormonal Anakin Skywalker and the stoic Padme Amidala. Ignoring their initial age difference in Episode I, I had no issue with their courtship playing a role in Clones. They're Luke and Leia's parents so I expected to see how they fell in love, but the daytime soap opera concocted by George Lucas did nothing but strain credulity till the very end.

That moment when your butthole apprentice falls out of the speeder.

Attack of the Clones released in May of 2002. As a geek, I was on cloud nine. The Fellowship of the Ring had released six months prior and I couldn't believe I was seeing a new Star Wars movie in the same year. I was tripping on Death Sticks that summer as I ended up seeing Clones four times in theaters. It wasn't until that fourth viewing that I really started listening to the dreck coming out of Hayden Christensen's mouth. My Star Wars blinders had me laser focused on the cool new characters like Count Dooku and Jango Fett, not to mention the unexpected majesty of Yoda's first onscreen ligthsaber duel.

I have this distinct memory of seeing Jack Osbourne of all people at Skywalker Ranch during some kind of MTV premiere for Episode II. When asked what he thought, Osbourne exclaimed that Clones was his favorite Star Wars movie since Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. I know most people aren't concerned with former reality stars' opinions of Star Wars, but I don't doubt Osbourne's genuine love of the series and I think his opinion at the time is indicative of what many fans felt. Here was another Star Wars movie that still fell short of the Original Trilogy's magic, but it continued to expand the Star Wars galaxy while ushering in an iconic era: The Clone Wars. It's difficult to condemn something new (albeit flawed) when a world we love becomes larger.

Let's focus on the wins in Clones.

COUNT DOOKU aka DARTH TYRANUS. Wait, there's a new villain? He's a Sith but was formerly a Jedi? And he was Qui-Gon's master? Whoa! To top it all off, Dooku is played by the late, great Sir Christopher Lee, an acting titan who could do no wrong in my book. Having just returned to the big screen in a big way as Saruman the wizard in Fellowship of the Ring, Lee waltzed into Star Wars like he owned the place. Sure, his presence in Clones is very sudden and largely unexplained until the third act, but I have no qualms with his existence in the story. The Clone Wars TV show does an excellent job of fleshing out Dooku's background, especially his devotion to Darth Sidious. Fans like to giggle at Dooku's name for obvious reasons, but I always found his name and title of "Count" were clever misnomers given his use of "Tyranus" when he's doing his master's bidding.

I think some fans struggle with Dooku's sudden inclusion in Sidious's plot because A) Dooku is not in Episode I and B) How could Sidious replace Darth Maul so fast?

*Minor spoiler*

The fully canon Clone Wars show and non-canon Darth Plagueis novel reveal Palpatine's recruitment of Dooku while the former is still training Maul. If you think about it, it makes sense that someone as meticulous as Sidious would not only have a backup for Darth Maul, but a former Jedi and statesman to boot who can leverage his influence to escalate Sidious's manufactured war. I find Dooku's backstory very intriguing which is why it pains me that we didn't meet him in The Phantom Menace. I'm not saying the entire Sith conspiracy needed to be revealed out of the gate, but it would have been cool to see Senator Palpatine and still-Jedi Master Dooku just having a conversation or two to establish that they had some kind of relationship. Maybe Dooku could have chatted up Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan in the Jedi temple as well, twisting the knife even deeper when Dooku takes Obi-Wan prisoner halfway through Episode II.

Count Dooku was my father. Call me Tyranus, baby.

I view Dooku and Maul as two sides of a coin. Maul's the enforcer and assassin, Dooku's the influential diplomat who can throw down if you push him. When Maul returns in the Clone Wars show, there's no love loss between he and Dooku. Imagine if Darth Maul had truly survived Episode I and tracked down Kenobi to Geonosis on a revenge mission halfway through Episode II. The two of them engage in battle. Maul has the upper hand when Dooku shows up, disguising his identity by using his old green lightsaber and saving Kenobi's life. Whether Maul survives that second fight or not, Dooku's attempt on Maul's life would make sense given their rivalry to be Sidious's one true apprentice. Obi-Wan would at least momentarily trust Dooku and the final fight at the end when Yoda saves the day would have even more emotional resonance.

THE CLONE ARMY CONSPIRACY. Ever since Old Ben Kenobi mentioned fighting alongside Luke's father during the Clone Wars in New Hope, we had to imagine what that war was and when it took place. Almost no reference is made to the war again during Episodes V and VI aside from Kenobi's Force ghost reminiscing with Luke about Anakin's downfall. Episode II's title, Attack of the Clones, made lots of waves when the first trailer released in late 2001. That was the first time since New Hope that the word "clone" was used in a Star Wars movie and it gave pause to most fans, even those still reeling from The Phantom Menace. The word "attack" also threw people off, conjuring images of our heroes suddenly being accosted by clones. What kind of clones, though?

Not those clones.

The answer was even more intricate than I anticipated. The clones, as it turns out, are a manufactured army for the Republic, all of whom are cloned from a bounty hunter named Jango Fett. Let's take it back a few steps and really examine how this comes to fruition.

Obi-Wan first catches on to Jango Fett after Fett and another bounty hunter attempt to assassinate Padme at the beginning of the film. Fett kills his own colleague with a poison dart to prevent the latter from blabbing to the Jedi, and this piece of evidence eventually leads Kenobi to a mysterious planet called Kamino. What makes Kamino even more intriguing is the fact that its existence has been erased from the Jedi archive (presumably by Dooku) to hide it from prying eyes. When Obi-Wan arrives on the planet, he's greeted by a couple of long-necked Kaminoans who accept his arrival without question since the order for the army was made by slain Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, a character we never meet in the movies. Knowing that Master Dyas has been dead for some time, Obi-Wan realizes something is amiss.

Further investigation brings Obi-Wan face to face with Jango Fett and his "son" Boba. Boba Fett, who we all love and know as everybody's favorite bounty hunter from the OT, turns out to be an unaltered clone that Jango decided to raise as a son. It was Jango's one requirement aside from his payout for being the clone donor. 

Okay. There's a lot happening here. It's all very interesting, but even after seeing Episode II countless times, this situation still begs a lot of questions. Who was Sifo-Dyas and why are we just now learning about him? What made Jango Fett the prime candidate to serve as the template for an entire army? Even assuming we can gather that Sidious and Dooku had some hand in this secret, when did they commission Fett for the task?

Jango does say he takes his orders from "someone named Tyranus" which is our biggest clue as the audience that the Sith are involved. Granted, the name Tyranus is only used one more time in Episode II towards the end when Sidious greets Dooku on Coruscant, but by then we've gathered that Sidious definitely used Dooku to start the Clone Army. Still, the details remain vague within the context of the film, so a lot of us had to use our imaginations to fill in the gaps. From what I can gather outside of some non-canon books, Sifo-Dyas was killed by Dooku sometime around the beginning of Episode I. This was done in secret so that Dooku, who was leaving the Jedi order, could use Master Dyas's credentials to erase Kamino from the archives and assume his fellow Jedi's role on Kamino to order the clones for the Republic.

Trust me, there is a more detailed explanation of this on Wookieepedia derived from a few older books that delve into the Clone Army backstory (including my beloved Darth Plagueis), but now that only the movies and shows are canon aside from new books and comics, we're again required to formulate theories based only on canonical events. In the short term, this clone inception plot point is still very intriguing but also frustratingly ambiguous. Plagueis gives fans a bevy of answers to some of the most prominent vagaries from the prequels, so I genuinely hope Disney draws upon it at some point in the future. James Luceno, the author of Plagueis, has written many great Star Wars books. His most recent is called Tarkin and is thankfully part of canon. I'm yet to read it, but Grand Moff Tarkin has become an even richer character in the TV shows, so I'm thrilled to see what Luceno does in his first new-canon story.

Charming to the last.

The biggest revelation when seeing the Clone Army in full swing is the fact that they bear a striking resemblance to Imperial Stormtroopers. It's obvious that this army is destined to evolve into something more sinister, but we can't know for sure at this point in the saga when the Clone troopers transition into the Stormtroopers we recognize from New Hope. This was one of the more thought provoking quandaries from Episode II. Knowing at the time that Episode III was three years away sent me into a frenzy of debates with my friends about whether this meant that all Stormtroopers in the OT were clones or not (they aren't, but I'll elaborate more on that in my reviews of Episodes III and IV). Additionally, the main drawback from the clones' Fett lineage was the feeling that the Star Wars universe had shrunk a bit. Much like the unneeded detail of Anakin building C-3PO, the dawn of the Imperial Army descending from Jango Fett's DNA seems to narrow the scope of the larger saga.

On the other hand, it does make sense that we never see Boba Fett remove his helmet in the OT since his face is one of the most recognized in the galaxy. This will be an incredibly important detail when and if Lucasfilm incorporates Boba Fett into an anthology movie. The fact that Boba is identical to the clones would put him at a disadvantage for the rest of his life, so his Mandalorian armor not only makes him look cool, it gives him some level of anonymity.

Call me a clone one more time.

Even though having Boba Fett and the Stormtroopers' origins intertwine seemed a little forced at the time, the fact that it poses interesting questions about how Boba develops an identity in the years between Episodes II and IV is a testament to the risks taken by George Lucas in this movie. Not all of the risks pay off, but the Clone Wars show rapidly expands our perspective of what it means to be a Clone trooper and demonstrates that not every clone is homogeneous. Given that the army clones have an accelerated growth rate and Boba Fett doesn't, I wonder how an elderly, New Hope-era clone would react to seeing an unmasked, mid-twenties Boba.

Fans of the TV shows may know of Rex, a clone and former leader during the Clone Wars who does not comply with Order 66, the Emperor's decree to murder the entire Jedi Order. The Rebels show is already delving into Rex's adjustment to living as a fugitive from the Empire and how he functions as one of the newest assets of the Galactic Rebellion. What I love about this particular story arc is that it shows how literal clones of the same person (in this case Jango Fett, a notorious bounty hunter and criminal) can evolve into people on completely different ends of the moral spectrum.

Moving on for now...

To...MACE WINDU. Overall, I really do like Windu and with someone as esteemed as Samuel L. Jackson playing the role, you'd expect this Jedi Master would be one of the most engaging peripheral characters. This is true to some extent, but Lucas's direction of Sam Jackson is such a missed opportunity. Mace Windu's scenes in Episode I are borderline forgettable, so there was a huge appetite going into Episode II to see Yoda's most revered colleague in action. Lucas even honored Jackson's wish to wield the first purple lightsaber in the series.

 

Actually, it's just getting started.

Windu's Jedi assault on Dooku's stronghold on Geonosis is one of the more exciting points in the film. It's the first and only time in the saga that we see a small army of Jedi all igniting their lightsabers at once, but it's a mixed bag of a sequence. Windu kicks things off in the clip above to save Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme from execution. What proceeds is a fairly engaging battle that's entertaining and yet, it throws in some questionable gags with C-3PO and the abrupt death of Jango Fett. 

While Jedi are being slaughtered by battle droids all around him, C-3PO (who in this scene has the body of a battle droid due to distinctly unfunny hijinks on a factory assembly line) keeps yelling out comedic gems like this:

Goddamnit.

Let me say that I adore C-3PO. 3PO from the OT, that is. So to see him Jar-Jarred up in this scene profoundly saddened me. If Lucas had just left 3PO out of this scene, the underlying gravity of Jedi dying en masse would remain intact at the very least. Ignoring this issue as much as possible, it's still cool to see so many Jedi running around fighting, especially Mace Windu.

After a harrowing leap from Dooku's perch into the arena below, Windu wipes out dozens of battle droids. Noticing Windu's impact on the fight, Jango Fett joins the proceedings until he and Windu come face to face. You might recall that Jango really held his own in a hand to hand fight with Obi-Wan on Kamino. The difference in this scenario is that Windu is readily armed and more powerful than Obi-Wan Kenobi. Jango is quickly outclassed and casually beheaded by the superior Jedi warrior. I don't have a problem with the logic of Windu wasting Jango Fett. What upsets me is that Jango's death felt like George Lucas just needed the character to go away. True, it sets up Boba to pursue his father's line of work, but there's no true payoff after Jango dies. We simply don't see Boba again until Episode V (or Episode IV if you count that abysmal special edition scene with CGI Jabba where Boba walks onscreen for two seconds). Many fans were hoping to see a vengeful Boba Fett gunning for Mace Windu in Episode III. This led to speculation that a young Boba might make a name for himself by assassinating one of the galaxy's most famous Jedi.

***Side Note*** Young Boba Fett does pursue vengeance against Windu in the Clone Wars series. I won't say much about it other than it was very satisfying to see the writers of that show acknowledge the need to address the impact of Boba Fett witnessing his father's death. Trust me, just watch it.

I'll save my analysis of Windu's eventual fate for my review of Episode III, but Boba Fett played no role in it, nor did he even make a walk-on appearance in the third prequel. So that's it. Just like Darth Maul, George Lucas giveth, and George Lucas taketh away. Oh, what could have been.

Jango, we hardly knew ye.

What didn't work? I won't dish on every little nitpick I have with Attack of the Clones because overall I found it far more interesting and plot-driven than The Phantom Menace. I'd be remiss, however, if I didn't tackle the largest issue facing this film, and that would be Hayden Christensen. Talk about bantha fodder. After a tough round of witnessing Anakin as a vacuous child, fans needed a palate cleanser in Episode II. Surely as an older Jedi Padawan, Anakin would be a badass now, flying around the galaxy and suffering no fools.

The first time I read news of Christensen's casting, I was optimistic. I hadn't seen him in any other films at the time, but I could see him as a Skywalker. With the exception of Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn and Ian McDiarmid's Palpatine, almost no actor in the prequels could avoid at least some wooden acting scenes. Natalie Portman, Sam Jackson, and Ewan McGregor all struggled with Lucas's scripts, but they didn't make me question the fourth wall like Hayden Christensen. If you take lines such as "I'm haunted by the kiss you shouldn't have given me," and "You're in my very soul, tormenting me," then toss in some shit acting with little to no direction from the perpetually aloof Lucas, you're left with an abundance of truly egregious attempts at romantic scenes.

I don't seem to recall Han Solo and Princess Leia galavanting through the Naboo meadows or laughing over political differences. Theirs was a gradual romance that manifested itself organically over the course of three films. They also had the right amount of friction to make their flirtatious scenes engaging, whereas Anakin just homicidally yells about something while Padme rightfully looks on with palpable unease.

George Lucas is gifted at conceiving a central story, but fleshing one out with rewrites and character development was not a course he was willing to take with the prequels. Anakin and Padme's romance in this film is purely by the numbers, and the plot suffers as a result. It all really comes back to Christensen's inability to sell anything he's doing outside of holding a lightsaber.

The Clone Wars show came to the rescue again regarding Anakin and his relationship with Padme. Padme actually saves Anakin's ass once or twice, proving where Leia gets her fighting tenacity. The two of them are always eager to see each after months of separation, but their reunions are typically soft spoken and surprisingly moving.

Movie wise, Anakin and Padme become marginally more believable by Episode III. The closing shot in Episode II of them marrying, however, feels totally unearned by the end. Besides, I don't see the practical benefit of them marrying so soon. They barely know each other and both stand to lose a lot if they're exposed. By all means keep exploring your relationship guys, just give it a year or two to marinate first.

The agony of passionate romance.

Just so I can give Anakin some props in this film, I'll point out that his brief return to Tatooine had poignancy. Revisiting the Lars moisture farm from New Hope and seeing the younger Owen and Beru brought on some serious nostalgia. I also appreciated the scene when Anakin's mother dies in the Tusken Raider camp. Anakin's desire to kill the Raiders is effective, but I wish the scene had lasted longer. Seeing Anakin go apeshit on a village of Tusken Raiders would have been truly unsettling. Let's say Anakin gets disarmed over the course of that fight by half a dozen or so Raiders pounding the tar out of him with their gaffi sticks. He then has to resort to breaking necks and cracking skulls with the Force which would have been a real sendup of Darth Vader. In that vein, Anakin should have also kept his killing spree a secret. Lying to himself about his darker nature makes sense if he didn't want to frighten Padme and it would have intensified the uncertainty of their relationship.

Anakin does take part in my favorite scene of the film, the final showdown with Count Dooku. The setup for the duel is a little clunky, but once Anakin and Obi-Wan catch up to Dooku, it's hard to be upset. Anakin rushes at Dooku only for the Sith lord to pound him with FORCE LIGHTNING! Holy hell, that was the first time since Return of the Jedi that we'd seen that crazy business. With Dooku wielding Force lightning, it was clear Sidious's new apprentice had transcended his predecessor, Darth Maul. Obi-Wan gives Dooku his best shot, is defeated and nearly killed when Anakin gets a second wind and saves Kenobi's life. Dooku makes quick work of Anakin as well, punctuating the domination by amputating Anakin's right arm Empire Strikes Back style.

We think it's over when Yoda arrives on the scene to have words with his former Padawan, Dooku. What happens next divides some fans, but I unabashedly LOVE Yoda fighting with a lightsaber. The two first engage in some Force sparring. Yoda neutralizes Dooku's lightning and the two of them hurl some debris around the room. There's no denying that the following shot elicited squeals of sweaty man glee across millions of theaters in May 2002:

F#%&ed, you are.

Yoda's frenzied dueling style was a bit of a gamble for Lucas, but it paid off big time with most fans. The primary complaint I've heard from some is that the Yoda we know from Episode V seemed beyond needing a lightsaber, much like the Emperor. I understand this sentiment, but Episode II is an era of Star Wars when Jedi were still actively fighting to protect the Republic, so they all carried lightsabers. Most of the time, it didn't seem like Yoda needed his weapon, saving it only for close quarters combat. Dooku flat out challenges Yoda to a duel and after getting his ass handed to him, Dooku puts Obi-Wan and Anakin in danger to distract Yoda. Dooku escapes to fight another day, but not without eating a big slice of humble pie from his former Master.

All of these events lead to an enticing denouement as the Jedi and Republic gather their forces to mount a campaign against the organized star systems now calling themselves the Separatists. This resistance is revealed to be led by Count Dooku who made his intentions clear by trying to execute several Jedi over the course of the movie. Confused? Sidious as Palpatine has ascended to Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and been granted emergency powers to mobilize the Clone Army. He's entrusted his apprentice to lead the other side in an escalating war that the Sith lords are manipulating into existence. At one point in the film, Dooku is discussing secret plans with other Separatist leaders when he produces a familiar image from his holocron:

Not yet fully operational.

This is another cool detail that provides ample opportunity for future projects to explore. Dooku is using the Separatist cause to fund the construction of the Death Star which is actually intended for Palpatine and his future Empire. The first Star Wars anthology film is releasing one year after The Force Awakens. It's entitled "Rogue One" and takes place shortly before the events in Episode IV. The film will revolve around a group of Rebels who go on a secret mission to obtain the plans for the Death Star that end up hidden in R2-D2 by Leia. There's speculation that everyone from Vader to Kenobi might appear in the movie, but its central story will be more akin to a war film like Saving Private Ryan. I'd really like to see Dooku's role in the Death Star's creation play into the plot somehow. How crazy would it be if Dooku's holocron is somehow discovered by the Rebels and those are the plans? And yet to recover them they have to retrace Dooku's final days in the Clone Wars. That would be pretty sweet.

Another one of my favorite scenes arrives at the end when Dooku is rendezvousing with Sidious on Coruscant. Sidious confirms Dooku's Sith moniker by addressing him as "Lord Tyranus."

By that Sidious means "Thanks for not getting cut in half."

The scene is brief, much like Sidious and Maul's from Episode I, but it clarifies the complicity of Dooku in the greater scheme of the oncoming war. Their conversation sets the stage for Sidious to crank it to 11 in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, by far my favorite of the prequels. Earlier in the movie, the ingenuity of Sidious's plans proves its value when Dooku essentially tells Obi-Wan the truth about a Sith Lord named Sidious who is in control of the Republic. Obi-Wan completely disregards Dooku's story as a lie since it seems so outlandish. We all see that Palpatine and Sidious are one and the same, but our heroes are blind to it.

The machinations of the Sith pose so many interesting questions and theories. By the end of Attack of the Clones, it's clear that the final pieces are moving into place for Sidious. As Palpatine, he's taken an interest in Anakin and begun mentoring him after recognizing the latter's abundant strength in the Force. Even though Epiosde VII is set some fifty-odd years after the prequels, the Sith have existed for millennia. J.J. Abrams has stopped short of saying the prominently featured Kylo Ren character is a Sith although it's clear he uses a red lightsaber and models his look after Vader. Not all Dark Side users in Star Wars are Sith and the Rule of Two is a loose one at best. While there's always a master and an apprentice, they both usually have a bench of one or two additional Dark Side users. Regardless of how Abrams incorporates the mythology of the Sith into TFA, it's safe to bet that fans expect consistency with canon.

Well there you have it, you Bothans and Nerf Herders. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is a flawed installment to be sure, but it serves up its fair share of enjoyable moments and kicks Darth Sidious's plans into high gear. Episode III is a jam packed chapter, so brace yourselves for a very spirited and indulgent retrospective on the bridging installment between the film trilogies.

Next time, on Limited Commercial Interruption...