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Say hello to the Dark Side in "Star Wars: Episode II"
By Steve Lansingh | I often wonder just how smart George Lucas is. He has repeatedly billed "Star Wars: Episode II" as a love story ... but the romance is awfully frightening. Anakin's pursuit of Padme plays out like any high-school geek's obsession with the prom queen, expressed in song-lyric cliches and a stalker's persistence -- only Anakin actually gets around to opening his mouth, rather than building a shrine in the basement. One might be tempted to think that perhaps this _is_ Lucas' vision of love (grown-up geek that he is), or, to be more generous, one might just chalk it up to a screenwriting misfire. But, to me, their relationship seems perfect in light of Anakin's eventual fall. His idea of love is about possessing, not giving, and that's what's going to get him into trouble. It seems to me that Lucas knows exactly what he's doing: he's thumbing his nose at the thousands of doomed-if-I-can't-have-her Romeos that culture has idealized.
"Episode II" is full of these tweaks on convention: We find Watto, the scummy slaver and gambler from "Episode I", down on his luck in this film, but instead of feeling satisfaction we taste the bitterness of his comeuppance. Later we witness a giant battle between the Trade Federation's droid armies and the new army of the Republic, and even though we're trained to root for our team, the Stormtrooper-like outfits of the clone army make us uneasy. Lucas seems to be playing to our noblest dreams of love, justice, peace, and truth, and salting them with a tinge of the Dark Side. It's not the desires that are bad, but blind desire. The moment that the ends justify the means is the moment that evil enters.
This is the first "Star Wars" film where we get to get a clear picture of how seductive the Dark Side is. Not just to a wrinkly old guy, a cyborg, or a horned devil, but to the everyday sort of hero like Anakin. And, what's more (because we expect him to flirt with evil), Padme is also lured by darkness. Natalie Portman had described her character as "a fixer", who believed in "Episode I" that she could change the world for good by sheer force of will, and who now believes she can save the tormented Anakin. In both cases, her desire to fix the world contributes to its downfall. Even Yoda falls prey to ... well, perhaps not the Dark Side, but a lack of foresight that will have terrible repercussions in the original trilogy. Let's just say that when Yoda tells Luke not to go rescue his suffering friends if he believes in what they fight for, Yoda is speaking from his own experience of rushing off to save a friend.
All of this makes "Attack of the Clones" a morally complex tale that rivals "The Empire Strikes Back" for brain food. It gives the series richer, more resonsant tones. I can't wait to get back in line to soak it all in again, to grasp things that might have slipped by me, as the first viewing was so overwhelming. There's nearly an overload of new character, weapons, ships, and planets, not to mention a detective-story plotline that jets around the universe and gets quite complicated. Now, many reviewers have criticized the movie on this front, saying there's no real story here, just an assemblage of spare parts. While I can see their point, I think it's a whole lot easier to tell the story of one man's journey (as the original trilogy did) than the whole galaxy's journey (as this new series attempts). Not every character gets as solid an arc as in the originals, but the mechinations of the universe follow a fairly clear arc if you choose to look at it from that "certain point of view". For me, at least, the busyness of "Episode II" is not a turn-off but an invitation to explore further.
Part of what gives movies their power is their ability to bring people together. While many of us critics spend a lot of time alone with our thoughts about movies, the fact remains that the majority of people use movies as a social and communal activity. Star Wars, by the sheer size of its viewership, is one of the best specimens of that. Two great friendships of mine in college began with a discussion of Star Wars on a Geology field trip. My closest "family" in college -- the newspaper staff -- watched all the Special Edition releases together. Even as far back as kindergarten, when my best friend gave me Star Wars toys for my birthday, it was a bonding force. The tradition continues, as my brother came to visit me last week and we spent the most time together that we have since I was in high school. We re-watched the other four Star Wars films, played with a Jango Fett action figure, discussed interpretations of the series, and culminated the week with an opening-day screening of "Attack of the Clones". So much has changed over the years, and we have grown in quite different directions, but Star Wars still connects us. I'm glad that Greg got to experience "Episode II" in digital projection on opening day (as opposed to his seeing "Episode I" dubbed in Russian in the former Soviet Union), and I'm very glad that we got to share our first viewing of "Episode II" together. It's now as much a part of our history as the time he broke the head off his Luke Skywalker figure because he thought mine looked cool that way.
Jeff Mallinson
Jamee
"Attack of the Clone's" plot is a bit confusing and crammed full of too many details. It took me
awhile to realize that the clones were on the Jedi side. And it just doesn't have any characters
that the audience truly cares about until R-2 and C-3PO show up. Once they do, the audience
really perks up and the story starts to really work.
I don't know. I'll see the third one. But let's get back to the melodramatic formula that works
so well and let's find out what happens to Luke, Han and Leia.
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READER RESPONSES
Brilliant! I agree especially with your read of the Anakin and Padme romance. Even if it
was a mistake, it was a fortunate mistake that Anakin was unable to produce a romantic scene on
the level of "You've Got Mail". That would have missed the point entirely.
You have great insight into the film and especially into the Annakin and Padme
relationship. But the film is like the second act of a three act play. We are still in the exposition,
setting the conflict to come, and building toward the climax phase.
I have to say, I liked this film better than Episode I (that was a real dissapointment) but, the
audience still doesn't have any characters to root for in this trilogy.
Star Wars (77) is a good old fashioned melodrama. And it's a really great one at that. The
direction, the spectacle, the acting, and the comic relief are all extraordinarily well done. But at
the heart of the first trilogy is a great story, well told, with characters we love and want to
succeed.