Bail tells him the Senate will never approve using a clone army, and this is where the infamous “Star Wars Brain Pains” strike me. While I'm well aware that if I didn't over think this damn movie so much I might actually enjoy it (false, there's still the acting and dialogue) but this vital plot point is incomprehensible to me. And since it's the crux of the entire movie, that's a problem. WHY does the Republic, which consists of well over 10,000 worlds, NEED to create an army through the military creation act? I get they don't want to go all militaristic because they're dedicated to peace, but no one wanted to step up and defend their home worlds? It is acceptable to take up arms to defend your home and your loved ones.
We saw freaking WOOKIES were a member
of the Senate in the last movie, a race that lives for violence to
the point they rip the arms off their opponent when they lose at
space chess! You're telling me the Wookies wouldn't want to throw
down with some stupid robots? Hell, even the Naboo had a fully
trained space armada and they were pacifists. I just find it really
hard to swallow that billions upon billions of people would be
perfectly content to just sit around and get killed in the face of a
war. Which leads me to another point of contention with this plot:
why exactly are the Separatists trying to break away from the
Republic? We're never told any details besides Dooku's political
ideals, whatever that's supposed to mean.
Palpatine's vice chancellor and stooge,
Mas Amedda, suggests if the Senate were to vote Palpatine emergency
powers then he could override everyone and approve the use of the
newly found clone army. There's another freeze frame easter egg in
this scene, if you hit the pause button just right you can see
Palpatine's arm up the stooge's ass. Palpatine furrows his brow and
asks what senator would have the COURAGE to bring up such a measure
before the voting floor? Amedda laments that if only Padme were
still on Coruscant, SHE'D have the stones to face the Senate. They
act this out while staring pointblank at Jar Jar, and just like the
last film it's UNFAIR to have Palpatine as the main villain.
While his plan is actually fairly
simple, he is WAY too smart for the gaggle of morons posing as our
heroes in these stories. Sure, at times he does get a little Jigsaw
from Saw since he can see the future to an explicit degree,
but he actually CAN see the future so I can let that go. But a lot
of the time he succeeds by just thinking things though, a foreign
concept to the Jedi. Take his plan here: after becoming chancellor
through the manipulation of the Senate in the last film, Palpatine
was ready for phase two of his plan. He secretly placed an order for
a clone army while he began stirring up trouble in the Republic,
helping to birth the Separatist movement.
He let this whole thing simmer for ten
years, just enough time for his clones to become ready. He figured
out the best way to unveil the clones was to have the dumbass Jedi
discover them, so to leave a trail of breadcrumbs he hired the bounty
hunter Jango Fett to kill her. It really didn't matter if he
succeeded or failed, as long as he was able to plant a dart that
would serve as a big flashing arrow pointing to Kamino. By the time
the army was uncovered, Palpatine would have the Separatists ready to
strike, which would in turn ensue he'd get voted more power to
continue his dreams of becoming Emperor.
Palpatine even works all this out so
the only people that could do anything to stop him, namely the
incompetent Jedi, are all busy chasing shiny objects and time wasting
plotlines. This level of planning is one of the rare highlights of
the prequels, it's frustrating that Lucas had all of the elements in
place for what could have been a really compelling story and one that
was three movies in the making. It kind of ruins how masterful your
plan for galactic domination when your opponents are dumber than
rocks. There's even a setup with how mistrustful Obi is of
politicians, but that's just thrown to the wind when the clones come
into play.
I really could talk about these movies
forever, so we better get back before this becomes more fanfiction.
On Geonosis, Dooku enters a room where Obi is being held prisoner by
beams of energy and begins a generic “join me because I'm in the
right” rant when things start getting weird. He flat out TELLS Obi
the Senate has fallen under the control of a Sith lord named Darth
Sidious, who was also behind the Trade Federation's actions against
the Naboo. Obi doesn't believe any of this, telling Dooku he'll
never join them. This scene always confused me because that's ONE
HELL of a gamble Dooku just took. What if Obi DID believe him? I'm
not saying he would have joined the rogue Jedi since he knows he's
evil, what what if he took a moment to look into this whole Sidious
thing? Lucky for Palpatine that Jedi are the laziest fuckers this
side of Michael Bay!
At the Senate meeting, Jar Jar makes
his case why Palpatine should be given more powers and the motion
passes. Congratulations Senate, you just took advice from JAR JAR
BINKS. Honestly, you deserve to have your home worlds razed and your
families killed. Palpatine graciously accepts, saying he'll lay down
his extra power once the Separatist crisis is over. Uh huh, no doubt
in my mind that will happen. Yoda and Mace, who I thought would have
rushed off to save Obi ages ago, watch this with a “eh, whatever”
attitude. Mace then says he's taking his crew to Geonosis while Yoda
plans to go to Kamino to visit the cloners and the army. Mace better
hustle though, Anakin and Padme have just landed there. They sneak
into one of the building while we catch up with C-3PO and R2 arguing
back on the ship. Ah, THAT'S why Anakin brought C-3PO: so we can
have comic relief since Jar Jar is too busy dooming the Republic to
several decades of fascist rule.
R2 wants to go help the humans, so
takes off after them. C-3PO yells at him to stop, but then follows
also because the laughs must go on! The lovebirds find the building
is filled with giant killer bugs so they run through a door and find
themselves in a HUGE droid assembly factory. This also marks the
beginning of the film “homaging” many of the classic shots from
the real movies, first is Anakin and Padme standing on a tiny
platform ala Luke and Leia in A New Hope. They fall off the
platform and into level 7 of the Attack of the Clones video
game, although I'm sure the game looked MUCH better than this.
I know I've been like a broken record
pointing out how fake everything in this movie looks, but this
scene... HOLY SHIT. It's embarrassing watching the actors have to
run around trying to avoid endless CGI obstacles, the worst offender
being a giant crushing mechanism on a conveyer belt. It gets worse
when C-3PO and R2 get involved, Anakin's stolen droid ending up on a
WILD AND ZANY adventure while cracking some of the worst one liners
this side of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The long and short of this is he gets
his head knocked off and fused onto the body of a battle droid while
his body gets a battle droid head. You laughing yet?
After five minutes of this insult to
our intelligence, Jango and the bugs finally capture our two
lovebirds. I'm not sure why they don't just kill them, since there's
absolutely no reason to keep them alive after they've seen what the
Separatists are up to though. We know part of Palpatine's plan is to
manipulate Anakin into joining him, but did he really think ahead to
tell the bugs this? I know he's the smartest man in the universe at
all, but I dunno, this all seems suspect. I instantly get my answer
why though in the next scene, it seems the bugs are going to place
the two into an arena where they'll have to fight for their lives
against the next batch of CGI bullshit. I'm not even going to rant
about how fucking stupid this is, because the next lines of dialogue
make this seem downright GENIUS.
Anakin: Don't be afraid.
Padme: I'm not afraid to die. I've been
dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life.Anakin: What are you talking about?
Padme: I love you.
Anakin: You love me? I thought that we had decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie, and that it would destroy our lives...
Padme: I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. I truly, deeply love you. Before we die I want you to know.
When I first watched this back in 2002,
this is the EXACT moment I knew I was watching the worst movie ever
made. EVER. And now watching this again twelve years later, I still
feel the same way. I brought up Twilight earlier in regards to this “epic
love story”, and I think it's high time we start calling that story
a Star Wars ripoff. It's eerie how similar they are, Bella and Padme
spend the whole movie taking verbal abuse from a handsome asshole but
dismiss all of it because “OMG look at his body!”. After both of
their lives are endangered, they profess their love to this handsome
stranger that they know for a fact to be a violent murderer because
“those dreamy eyes tho!”. I don't think you can even classify
this stuff as “love” as much as you would “Stockholm Syndrome”.
Hell, Anakin was more loving and caring
towards Padme when he was NINE YEARS OLD! I guess that's the key to
getting the woman of your dreams guys, hit on her when you're still
in the single digits and she'll forgive all your sins when you're a
whiny adult. Fucking Sleeping Beauty had a more believable and actualized
love story than this! That movie at least established the lovebirds
there had been dreaming of each other their entire lives. Prince
Phillip didn't cut the heads off of any innocent children around
Aurora, and if he did, he at least had the decency not to tell her
about it. I also like how Natalie Portman whispered her lines here,
like she was ashamed to be caught on camera saying them out loud.
Let's just try to get through this in
one piece, shall we? The two kiss before the bugs wheel them out on
a chariot into the arena, where Commodus is waiting for them to give
the thumbs down. They see Obi is tied to a stake out in the center,
Anakin and his master taking the time to exchange some witty quips as
he and Padme are also shackled up. Return of the Jedi Luke
and Han back and forth this DEFINITELY ain't. The bugs unleash a
bunch of mini bosses into the arena, Anakin saying he has a “bad
feeling” about this. Hahah, it's officially a Star Wars
movie now. While these two dumb asses stand around trying to look
cool, Padme the Master of Lock Picking, spits a lockpick out of her
mouth and gets to DOING SOMETHING. Sure is a good thing she had the
foresight to bring that with her!
Click here for the final part of my review!
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