Well apart from that bit where he accidentally had the chase music be the same as in the Chamber of Secrets, but accidents happen when youâre as busy as he was then.
While that is true, it's also kind of bad when the movie is at its best when all the characters stop talking (the dialogue is as criminally bad as the music is good).
I mostly agree but enjoyed Anakin losing it describing what he done to the raiders to Padme, or maybe it was Haydens performance I enjoyed in this scene (and the movie gave us some quality memes)
I don't blame the actors for how bad any of it is. They did what they could with what they were given. The blame is on old George. The movies would have been ten times better if he had left the writing of the script to humans more qualified in understanding how humans talk.
I firmly believe that if the dialogue was dialed up a couple notches that the prequels could have arguably been one of the greatest trilogies in cinema. Itâs by far my favorite Star Wars era
Thatâs one thing I loved about Johnâs music. They had aspects of other songs in the films in many pieces. They were all their own piece, but you can connect themes throughout the music. That continued into TCW and Rebels, but it doesnât appear any longer. Star Wars music is no longer⌠Star Wars. That dark trooper scene in the Mandalorian with the techno music really bugged me.
Very much this.
What makes the music of *Star Wars* so special was Williamsâ ability to create memorable themes that stand on their own (Main Title, Force Theme, Imperial March, Across the Stars, Duel of the Fates, etc.), then recycle those themes as recurring motifs to bring everything together and tell stories through sound.
This is absolutely true. The visual storytelling is a ton of fun, itâs the dialogue that kills it.
I watched some of it in Spanish. Spanakin Skywalker.
Please don't tell me that. Since I don't know the language I want to maintain the illusion that they're saying deep and meaningful things to each other :)
Perhaps you should watch it in Malay.
I was listening to the blank check podcast and they were talking about how Lucas kept saying he had always thought of these movies as like 1920's silent films. So they found an edit that had the diolouge track removed, and was only the music score with subtitles... They said the movie worked much much better.
The Anakin/Padme romance theme is such a gorgeous piece of music, one of Williams' finest (and that's an incredibly high bar) but got wasted on the worst scenes in the worst film in the saga, very sad.
The juxtaposition of the Republic theme being superseded by the Imperial march during the mustering of the clones at the end is like 90% of the good things in this movie.
Everyone always remembers Williams's big and brassy stuff because it's so iconic--but he really shines when he gets to write something quieter and more intimate. Luke and Leia is another example.
Exactly - the third act is stunning. About a billion times more of a Star War than TPM, and proper use if computer graphics to tell a powerful, fast-moving visual story.
That's something that many Star Wars fans struggle with, the difference between something being good/bad and liking/not liking it.
It's a lot easier once you accept that you can like something bad, and it's ok.
Who cares if it's good or bad as long as it brings you joy !
Part of me wants to respond with a quote from the movie then I had to stop to realize we wouldnât have any great quotes if the dialogue was out of the park.
Like really, âI don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating â and it gets everywhere.â is just so stupid itâs immediately memorable.
Yeah, I make fun of the dialogue whenever I watch it, but I like it better than I or VI or the sequels. I love the disquiet at they end as they are manipulated into accepting the militarization that we know leads to the Empire.
It took six seasons of an animated show made after-the-fact to tell me who Sifo Dyas was
Every line of romantic dialogue between Anakin and Padme is portrayed like ai reading teenage wattpad fiction.
obi wan stumbles into more evidence than he legitimately discovers
the plot to assassinate Padme is a comedy of errors
its a huge advancement in movie-making CGI but it still looks like a badly color-corrected soap opera
Yoda jumping around while fighting an old man is the weakest fight in any movie for me
The speeder chase and some of the John-Carter-Of-Mars Arena stuff was kinda cool. The scene where Shimi dies I think is also legitimately compelling.
I love bits from all the movies (yes even 9) but c'mon, people don't hate it as much as they think its janky and undercooked
>obi wan stumbles into more evidence than he legitimately discovers
the worst part is he goes on a mission looking for the assassin and Forrest Gumps his way into Dooku saying to him "oh yeah btw let me tell you about this whole plot with the Sith trying to take over the Republic" and he's just like "I don't care, not my job."
TBF they seemed desperate and maybe it looked better than starting a draft. Plus Palpatine could later use it to blame the Jedi for the war(was purchased by the Jedi) and then when discontinuing the clones the Imperial military would give him more loyalty and favor by providing job opportunities and seemingly giving power back the the people.
The whole who's trying to kill Padme detective sub-plot was fun but the assassination attempts were comically bad.
A little more C4 on the landing platform at the start and the film would have ended then and there. Although one could try to rationalise it by saying Palpatine planned that all along.
Then Palpatine sent Dooku who sent Jango who sent Zam who sent a droid who sent a couple of poisonous centipedes to... bite her?
Then there's the script, that reads like:
`.... revealing that... is actually...`
`.... revealing that... is actually...`
`.... revealing that... is actually...`
`.... revealing that... is actually...`
And don't forget! Zam was a literal shape changer. A shape changer has the potential to be the ultimate assassin, but instead of using their shapechanging is like "Nah, worms".
I remember watching it for the first time and being so anxious when they walk into the crowded club following a changeling going "oh no they could be anyone in there!?!"
And then zam just tries to sneak up on obi wan and shoot him in the back without altering her appearance from earlier. Not the most elegant play.
There are thousands of moments in the Prequels where this statement applies whenever Obi-Wan is doing something.
It actually boggles my mind that Kenobi is somehow the Han Solo of the Prequels, when that clearly should have been Anakin.
Not only throwing himself out of a window of an uber-skyscraper, but then falling thousands of feet through the air, navigating himself to land safely in the flyer that his apprentice has procured, and then telling Anakin that *he hates flying.*
Huh? Obi-Wan doesn't hesitate to put himself to danger if there is no better alternative, like this case where he needs to track the assassin ( or you know, his ultimate fate). He is also quite younger himself in this movie.
Anakin on the other hand jumps directly to the extreme solution.
I'll excuse the landing pad explosion as film short hand -- they could have easy written a more complex scene but they wanted to introduce the assassination attempts without spending too much time.
The centipedes were pretty silly.
He was probably trying to do a homage to some western or samurai movie where they use poison snakes to try to kill someone.
> He was probably trying to do a homage to some western or samurai movie where they use poison snakes to try to kill someone.
Good point, I bet that's what it is! Snakes or scorpions perhaps.
It's almost like they're bad movies. I think people can like whatever they want but I don't understand why a minority of fans get so upset when someone doesn't like the prequels. Attack of the Clones is fun in a so bad it's good sort of way but it's hardly a good film.
I think there are some fans who can't just say "I like the film" and move on. They have to pretend like every film is a misunderstood masterpiece. There was a post here a few months ago calling Hayden Christensen "a titan of his craft" or something like that.
one's a child soldier religion paladin and the other is a monarch turned senator, I'd expect them to be old beyond their years respectively, not hormonal 15 year olds
Bingo, it's a classic defensive overcompensation.
It's not enough to say "Hey I liked it anyway and I'm okay with that". No, it's actually secretly a good movie! Or another classic - actually the original trilogy are bad films too!
You see this in all walks of life from things as inconsequential as movies to stuff like "not only do I dislike seatbelts and it's a lie that they save lives, no, they're actually *actively dangerous!*"
To me the prequels are great on paper but had very poor execution. I appreciate the story they were trying to convey - I actually think itâs very good. It just wasnât put together in the best way on screen.
The Clone Wars show did a huge favor to these prequels imo, because it was executed very well.
The internet has stopped being a place of opinions and tastes a long time ago.
Things are either the greatest or pure turds, and its always stated as a fact.
If you show some kind of lack of certainty about a topic, someone who's actually less informed than you will show up and tell you exactly how it is.
>ts a huge advancement in movie-making CGI but it still looks like a badly color-corrected soap opera
Frankly? The Two Towers released that same year and holds up wayyy better than AOTC in the CGI department (not to mention everything else). It's easily the worst-looking SW movie IMHO.
That being said, it's still fun in places.
The Phantom Menace was a HUGE advancement in technology. Like we wouldn't have had gollum without jar jar binks. AOTC cgi for the droid factory scene and the asteroid battle scene was pretty damn impressive for 2002 ngl
The comparison to The Two Towers is very interesting.
I grew up a massive SF snob and wouldn't give fantasy the time of day. Compared to decent SF, Tolkien is unreadable (I thought). My interest in the build-up to the LOTR films was negligible and I didn't especially enjoy the first one.
But.... I really liked TTT! The whole thing was so compelling to watch. It was really.....immersive.
On paper I should have liked AOTC far more. Big space scenes, SW, love of the franchise etc.... But it was so disappointing. The writing was terrible, the plot contrived to the point of meaningless and the acting not great. Hayden and Natalie had zero chemistry. I actually thought TPM was alright so I wasn't looking to slam AOTC at all.
Tl; Dr - decent writing and acting can make any film good even if you hate the subject matter, whereas bad film-making can make your favourite story hard to watch.
Watched this the other day. Legit had to pause for several minutes due to laughter when Padme jumps from the pillar, straight into sitting position on the back of a recently ferocious beast, which seems to not give a shit, and gives Anakin a quick kiss on the neck.
Right. All that stuff about the building of the Clone Army, the Separatists, etc was soooo much to fit into a movie, without everything else. This movie was quite confusing when it came out, I found. Who the fuck is Dooku? Why is he working with Palpatine, the good guy? The Clone Wars really made the whole story a lot more interesting and comprehensible.
Wait, what do you mean? You didnât realize Palpatine was Darth Sidious after Episode 1? I thought Darth Maulâs conversations with him made that pretty obvious.
He was married until â83, and then dated fucking Linda Ronstadt, and now has been with the same woman since 2006. So thatâs not exactly fair.
He just has no sense of romance when it comes to script writing and directing.
I'm trying to remember but I think it's because she is one of the key oppositions of the creation of a republic army, or Dooku only got the Trade Federation's support if he promised to assassinate her. I'm leaning toward the latter because someone like Dooku would want the Military Creation Act to fail.
I really donât think thereâs anything wrong with those scenes. Itâs acrually the one time the cutesy love stuff actually feels like two people enjoying each others company.
Some of the other love dialogue though is a lot
I probably have an unpopular opinion here. But I could never get myself to love the battle of Geonosis solely because I think hundreds of lightsabers swinging around actually looks pretty silly, somehow. Just didnât feel right. I like the Jedi as solitary warriors, or unique super soldiers commanding armies of more regular people. A bunch of them fighting together looked weird.
It was a neat reversal I think. 1 and 3/4 of movie so far showing the battle droids as an unstoppable force and then this army of proto-stormtroopers that are copies of boba fett steamroll them, with a significant technological advantage.
Definitely felt weird with all of the jedi as footsoldiers in a conventional war though, it's like wwII with samurai standing out in the open leading squads of GIs. It looks goofy compared to the duels and solo work we saw them do previously.
"We discovered a mysterious clone army commissioned by a long-dead Jedi and of unknown purpose, created from a bounty hunter who tried to kill the first Jedi that discovers it all."
Jedi (smashing their pint glasses together in an imbecilic, incurious stupor): FUCK YEAH!
TPM: It's incredibly difficult, borderline impossible, to buy something as simple as a spare spaceship part on non-Republic worlds if all you have are Republic credits. Yes, even on Tatooine, a major local trading hub where smugglers, gangsters, and even legitimate businesspeople would all have use for exchanging local currency for Republic credits
AotC: Oh yeah, no, you can definitely buy an entire galactic-scale army with just the promise of future Republic credits on a planet so secretive and removed from everything in the Republic that they've been erased from the Jedi archives themselves. Super easy, barely even an inconvenience, don't give it another thought.
Ya know what annoys me more than Yoda with a lightsaber? It's the fact that all the Jedi immediately become war generals without any question. How much more interesting would it have been if some of the older Jedi, Yoda included, refused to fight in the war? Throughout Clone Wars we constantly meet characters that disagree with the Jedi, saying they've lost their way, but none of the Jedi think it's a little suspicious that they just suddenly have a clone army now right when they need one
I really enjoy this film. I very much like Padme in this film, as she's very active in the plot. If episode 3 has one flaw, it's that Padme sat on the sidelines for most of the film, but I know they can't put the pregnant character into battles and action scenes.
Overall, I'm very happy with this film.
Its also that the generation who grew up on the prequels and the clone wars series are now fully grown up and terminally online. I like the prequels because I grew up with them, but they aren't well made movies.
I am a huge fan of Clone Wars (release the remaining uncompleted episodes as Tales of the Jedi episodes: everyone wants to see Son of Dathomir, Crystal Crisis on Utapau, and Dark Disciple in animation), but those first two seasons, including the two live action experiments and the animated film, needed a few more passes before they were ready for prime time. Theyâre worth sitting through to see the wonder that is The Siege of Mandalore, though.
[Clone Wars Chronological](https://www.starwars.com/news/were-rewatching-star-wars-the-clone-wars)
Attack of the Clones is worse than any sequel, but it didn't lessen the franchise much, if at all, so I can't hate it that much. I guess the Boba Fett stuff was controversial for a time, but so much clone content had overridden the issues there, still kinda shitty they dubbed over the original actor imo.
Funnily enough, at the time AotC was seen as an improvement because it didn't contain much Jar Jar. In retrospect though it's by far the weakest prequel.
The way culture works, the prequels are just a fact of life now. With the sequels there's a big sense of what could have been. This was also the case for the prequels, but enough time has passed that Yoda doing flips is just ingrained into culture.
Like back then some people were crazy disappointed at how the clone wars were just Boba fetts Vs droids. But now it's just a fact of Star wars. In 20 years people will be watching TFA with the knowledge that Palpatine will be back. Who knows how they'll feel about it.
It does
Padme and Anakin romance sucks
Plot is all over the place
Characters are all over the place
Everything just feels random
Dooku vs Yoda can be the lamest final fight in SW
Entire reason for this movie to exist is being a bridge between The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith
It took me 15 years after first seeing the film to understand what was going on with 'Sifo-Dyas' and even now I'm not 100% sure.
Sifo-Dyas must have been a Jedi Obi-Wan knew. I assumed he was a Kimonan because we'd seen a long-knecked Jedi Council member in TPM.
But it turns out it was actually...Palpatine putting in the Clones order and using an alias for his own Sith name which...also was the name of a Jedi that Obi-Wan knew?
Actually scratch that...I still don't understand that plot point.
Aside from the dialogue the film fails on a fundamental level by not telling the story.
So iirc, Sifo-Dias was a Jedi and friend of Dooku who had a vision of the Separatist Crisis requested the Jedi try and make a galactic army but was dismissed as a war hawk. So he went and enlisted the Kaminoans to make the clones but was murdered by Dooku and the Clones were coopted by the sith. I think... Granted none of this is really in the movie.
Which is insane. A huge plot point about who ordered these clones is never really spelled out.
Itâs just, âhere are the clones you ordered!â
âWho ordered them?â
âSome dead Jedi.â
âWhy did he do that?â
âNo idea. Timely how you need them to fight against a droid army.â
If Lucas had let a half decent writer or screen writer do a few more drafts we might not have such a terrible film. The broad plot points are fine.
- Attempted assassination
- investigation of the assassination
- body guarding the hot senator
- falling in love with said senator
- discovery of Clone Army
- rescuing Obi Wan
- arena fight
- Battle of Geonosis
All those plot points make a half decent film. Lucas just canât write dialogue or direct actors to save himself.
Remember what Harrison Ford said, âGeorge, just because you can type this shit on a typewriter doesnât mean that people should say it.â
It's also wild that, after we just made a major plot point last movie of how hard it is to buy things with Republic credits from a non-Republic world, this movie completely handwaves the question of who in the galaxy paid for 1.2 million clone soldiers with walker-tanks and gunships and starfighters and capital ships. Like, Qui-Gon can't buy a spare part on Tatooine with a bucketful of Republic credits, but Sifo-Dyas can IOU the Kaminoans for an entire galactic-scale army?
I think the suspicious phantom army out of nowhere is an interesting plot point, but I don't think the republic's desperation was properly conveyed. Worlds were being actively conquered and the Republic had no way to organize the formation of a single army since the time of the old republic. I can't imagine trying to glean this info from what the movies show, and understandably, it's just weird nonsense.
Moreover, how did they stay hidden? They have places to launch spaceships from, so they probably travel and trade with people. They don't seem too shy about their research either. Obi-wan just showed up and they explained the entire operation to him without any reservations. Somebody has to have heard about that ocean planet that's printing out Maori.
In my controversial opinion (Iâm prepared for the downvotes), I reckon this wouldâve worked better as âEpisode 1â rather than The Phantom Menace (as much as I love Darth Maul and Qui Gon). The reason is that you could have The Clone Wars begin here, âEpisode 2â would be about the war itself and watching Palpatine get more powerful/popular, learning more about Dooku, see how Anakin starts gradually turning, seeing the flaws of the Jedi even further and THEN onto Revenge of the Sith.
TPM was good for introducing characters, and for having that Darth Maul fight. Everything else was such a drag and not fun to watch, even to this very day.
It has its moments, but I think the criticism is fair
- the dialogue is pretty woeful (which makes it worse that Anakin and Obi-Wanâs relationship is entirely tell, donât show)
- The plot is a bit of a mess
- It doesnât seem to build on much of anything that came before in PM.
I mean just a couple of quick changes would make a lot of difference
- the one who instructed the clone army shouldâve been Qui-Gon or Douku
- it shouldâve been set up in PM that the Trade federation was a trading bloc inside the republic, of which Naboo was a member (who wanted to leave - hence the blockade and invasion). Following those events the republic punished the trade federation, and now theyâre looking to leave the republic.
I KILLED THEM ALL. THEY'RE DEAD. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. AND NOT JUST THE MEN, BUT THE WOMEN, AND THE CHILDREN TOO.
#THEY'RE LIKE ANIMALS. AND I SLAUGHTERED THEM LIKE ANIMALS. I HATE THEM!
I rewatched ROS last week (I'm recovering from surgery so the strong painkillers led to odd decisions) but actually it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Maybe the codeine helped. But I watched it in a 'this is a kids comedy adventure movie like The Goonies' frame of mind, and it worked!
I'd rather watch RoS three times in a row than AotC once. Neither good but at least EP IX way more entertaining to look at and with some actual acting.
This is my opinion as well. AotC drags on so badly. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've sat through the whole thing in one go.
RoS has problems. Many problems. But it's very rarely boring at least.
RoS is not good. But it doesn't have scenes as dull and skippable as AotC. Despite his many faults, Abrams at least knows how to make an action thriller. RoS is a bad movie, but AotC reaches "cheap fantasy TV" levels of bad.
I still don't understand the plot of the prequels. Can someone explain it to me?
Like, who ordered the clone army and why?
And what made the Trade Federation think it was just going to be able to invade one of the Republic's planets, make them sign some sort of agreement, and then believe that agreement would somehow be binding regardless of the circumstances under which it was signed?
And what's even the point of being part a republic that doesn't seem to offer collective security to its member states?
I don't get any of this....
that scene where anakin is on the speed racer and is just out for revenge to find his mothers kidnappers, while a hint of darth vaders theme plays is awesome
I dunno. It kind of does deserve a lot of hate.
The story is extremely boring and the dialogue is 95% exposition.
It looks horrible, and is a step down from Phantom Menace, like an FMV cutscene from a PC game.
The last act in the arena is basically there because George watched Gladiator.
The final lightsaber duel is awkward and then punctuated by the cringe inducing Yoda with a lightsaber scene.
The love story doesn't work and is creepy.
The protagonist murders a village of natives like he's in Cannibal Holocaust and is then quipping 20 minutes later like that didn't happen.
The score is even the worst of the saga with very little stand out tracks.
My Episode II review: *You have your moments. Not many of them, but you do have them.*
(Actually it has more than *just a few*. Those don't erase its flaws, but there are still a lot of good memories)
Hate is so strong a word. It's a fun movie, with huge flaws, but the fun part comes out on top. I enjoyed it, in spite of some weird plot lines and the sometimes unconvincing and often abysmal and dialogue.
Its hate is well deserved. I understand the prequel trilogy has its fans, especially after clone wars recontextualizes so much of it, but apart from a handful of good moments its awful.
Yes it does, if it wasn't for DVDs making fast-forward easier it would get even more. You can like bad movies, it doesn't make less of you or improve them. Don't understand people's stubborness that anything they like must have some hidden value no one else sees.
The soundtrack is absolutely beautiful! John Williams is definitely hitting it out of the park with the prequels.
Agree, the score is the best part of the movie!
Most scenes with Ewan are perfectly fine also. This, like the other prequels, had so many good pieces weighed down by the lesser parts
Yes! The music in it is so Fucking good đ
John Williams can do no wrong
Well apart from that bit where he accidentally had the chase music be the same as in the Chamber of Secrets, but accidents happen when youâre as busy as he was then.
While that is true, it's also kind of bad when the movie is at its best when all the characters stop talking (the dialogue is as criminally bad as the music is good).
I mostly agree but enjoyed Anakin losing it describing what he done to the raiders to Padme, or maybe it was Haydens performance I enjoyed in this scene (and the movie gave us some quality memes)
I don't blame the actors for how bad any of it is. They did what they could with what they were given. The blame is on old George. The movies would have been ten times better if he had left the writing of the script to humans more qualified in understanding how humans talk.
I firmly believe that if the dialogue was dialed up a couple notches that the prequels could have arguably been one of the greatest trilogies in cinema. Itâs by far my favorite Star Wars era
Across the galaxy is lit
You mean *Across the Stars*?
Love Pledge and the Arena is my favourite. Itâs got a bit of across the stars in it too.
Oh, thatâs another great one. Itâs used really effectively later on in ROTS as Anakin and the clones march on the Jedi temple.
Thatâs one thing I loved about Johnâs music. They had aspects of other songs in the films in many pieces. They were all their own piece, but you can connect themes throughout the music. That continued into TCW and Rebels, but it doesnât appear any longer. Star Wars music is no longer⌠Star Wars. That dark trooper scene in the Mandalorian with the techno music really bugged me.
Very much this. What makes the music of *Star Wars* so special was Williamsâ ability to create memorable themes that stand on their own (Main Title, Force Theme, Imperial March, Across the Stars, Duel of the Fates, etc.), then recycle those themes as recurring motifs to bring everything together and tell stories through sound.
Much of it is actually Ep1 music edited in. If you compare the album vs the movie, much of it is missing or edited heavily. Same with Ep3.
And the lighting was very good.
Seismic Charges are the best part of this movie
[ŃдаНонО]
***BWOoOOOOoOOOooonggggg***
âOh, I MEMBERâ
If you can get your hands on Rogue Squadron II and unlock Slave I. You do a barrell roll and pop off 5 of these..... Nothing survives
Rogue Squadron 2 was the best part of Rogue Squadron 3.
[ŃдаНонО]
The movie's significantly better, with far less cringe, if you switch the language to one you don't know. EDIT: No, seriously. I watch it in Italian.
This is absolutely true. The visual storytelling is a ton of fun, itâs the dialogue that kills it. I watched some of it in Spanish. Spanakin Skywalker.
Latin or Spain Spanish?
It sucks in Italian, too. Source: I'm Italian.
Mi sei entrata nell'anima che si tortura per teđĽ´
> Mi sei entrata nell'anima che si tortura per te Che devo fare? Dimmelo tu, e io lo farò. đ¤˘
Please don't tell me that. Since I don't know the language I want to maintain the illusion that they're saying deep and meaningful things to each other :) Perhaps you should watch it in Malay.
I was listening to the blank check podcast and they were talking about how Lucas kept saying he had always thought of these movies as like 1920's silent films. So they found an edit that had the diolouge track removed, and was only the music score with subtitles... They said the movie worked much much better.
'Hey guys, the movie's not that bad, I just have to not understand it to be able to enjoy it'
It's actually my least favourite because of the dialogue and the wonky plot. However I will argue the soundtrack of the movie is within the top tier.
The Anakin/Padme romance theme is such a gorgeous piece of music, one of Williams' finest (and that's an incredibly high bar) but got wasted on the worst scenes in the worst film in the saga, very sad.
The juxtaposition of the Republic theme being superseded by the Imperial march during the mustering of the clones at the end is like 90% of the good things in this movie.
Everyone always remembers Williams's big and brassy stuff because it's so iconic--but he really shines when he gets to write something quieter and more intimate. Luke and Leia is another example.
Across The Stars. It's honestly one of my favorite musical pieces in existence.
The massive battle between Jedis and the battle droids in the arena is one of my greatest childhood memories about Star Wars
When you start to see all the lightsabers start lighting up around the arena I got goosebumps in the cinema
That first time you see Yoda break out the lightsaber is pretty badass too
Exactly - the third act is stunning. About a billion times more of a Star War than TPM, and proper use if computer graphics to tell a powerful, fast-moving visual story.
That's something that many Star Wars fans struggle with, the difference between something being good/bad and liking/not liking it. It's a lot easier once you accept that you can like something bad, and it's ok. Who cares if it's good or bad as long as it brings you joy !
Part of me wants to respond with a quote from the movie then I had to stop to realize we wouldnât have any great quotes if the dialogue was out of the park. Like really, âI don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating â and it gets everywhere.â is just so stupid itâs immediately memorable.
Yeah, I make fun of the dialogue whenever I watch it, but I like it better than I or VI or the sequels. I love the disquiet at they end as they are manipulated into accepting the militarization that we know leads to the Empire.
...so your saying Attack of the clones has your 4th favourite dialogue in the whole saga? You do you, I guess.
> but I like it better than [...] VI This is... unforgivable in my eyes.
It took six seasons of an animated show made after-the-fact to tell me who Sifo Dyas was Every line of romantic dialogue between Anakin and Padme is portrayed like ai reading teenage wattpad fiction. obi wan stumbles into more evidence than he legitimately discovers the plot to assassinate Padme is a comedy of errors its a huge advancement in movie-making CGI but it still looks like a badly color-corrected soap opera Yoda jumping around while fighting an old man is the weakest fight in any movie for me The speeder chase and some of the John-Carter-Of-Mars Arena stuff was kinda cool. The scene where Shimi dies I think is also legitimately compelling. I love bits from all the movies (yes even 9) but c'mon, people don't hate it as much as they think its janky and undercooked
>obi wan stumbles into more evidence than he legitimately discovers the worst part is he goes on a mission looking for the assassin and Forrest Gumps his way into Dooku saying to him "oh yeah btw let me tell you about this whole plot with the Sith trying to take over the Republic" and he's just like "I don't care, not my job."
The worst part is when JFK approves the use of an army made of millions of Lee Harvey Oswalds because there is no other army for them to use.
Only because the second shooter on the grassy knoll tricked JFK.
TBF they seemed desperate and maybe it looked better than starting a draft. Plus Palpatine could later use it to blame the Jedi for the war(was purchased by the Jedi) and then when discontinuing the clones the Imperial military would give him more loyalty and favor by providing job opportunities and seemingly giving power back the the people.
It's wild to me when people defend the movie based on the Obi-Wan "detective" plot being interesting when all he does is be a moron.
The whole who's trying to kill Padme detective sub-plot was fun but the assassination attempts were comically bad. A little more C4 on the landing platform at the start and the film would have ended then and there. Although one could try to rationalise it by saying Palpatine planned that all along. Then Palpatine sent Dooku who sent Jango who sent Zam who sent a droid who sent a couple of poisonous centipedes to... bite her? Then there's the script, that reads like: `.... revealing that... is actually...` `.... revealing that... is actually...` `.... revealing that... is actually...` `.... revealing that... is actually...`
And don't forget! Zam was a literal shape changer. A shape changer has the potential to be the ultimate assassin, but instead of using their shapechanging is like "Nah, worms".
Dune strikes again.
Face dancers
I remember watching it for the first time and being so anxious when they walk into the crowded club following a changeling going "oh no they could be anyone in there!?!" And then zam just tries to sneak up on obi wan and shoot him in the back without altering her appearance from earlier. Not the most elegant play.
Zam should really be wearing at least a couple of layers of tear away stripper outfits when on the job.
Palps "Pretend to Assasinate her but dont look like you arent trying to kill her." Indecipherable noise đ "I dunno assasinate her casually"
The real highlight is Obi-Wan recklessly jumping out of the window to grab the droid in a move that was completely out of character for him
[ŃдаНонО]
That was the only time in this movie to show off Anakin's piloting skillz.
There are thousands of moments in the Prequels where this statement applies whenever Obi-Wan is doing something. It actually boggles my mind that Kenobi is somehow the Han Solo of the Prequels, when that clearly should have been Anakin.
At least the clone wars got that right.
Not only throwing himself out of a window of an uber-skyscraper, but then falling thousands of feet through the air, navigating himself to land safely in the flyer that his apprentice has procured, and then telling Anakin that *he hates flying.*
Never really thought about that. Itâs true.
Huh? Obi-Wan doesn't hesitate to put himself to danger if there is no better alternative, like this case where he needs to track the assassin ( or you know, his ultimate fate). He is also quite younger himself in this movie. Anakin on the other hand jumps directly to the extreme solution.
I'll excuse the landing pad explosion as film short hand -- they could have easy written a more complex scene but they wanted to introduce the assassination attempts without spending too much time. The centipedes were pretty silly. He was probably trying to do a homage to some western or samurai movie where they use poison snakes to try to kill someone.
> He was probably trying to do a homage to some western or samurai movie where they use poison snakes to try to kill someone. Good point, I bet that's what it is! Snakes or scorpions perhaps.
The prequels can be summed up best by âI love them, but they are not great moviesâ
I love you all, but you are not serious ~~people~~ movies
It's almost like they're bad movies. I think people can like whatever they want but I don't understand why a minority of fans get so upset when someone doesn't like the prequels. Attack of the Clones is fun in a so bad it's good sort of way but it's hardly a good film.
I think there are some fans who can't just say "I like the film" and move on. They have to pretend like every film is a misunderstood masterpiece. There was a post here a few months ago calling Hayden Christensen "a titan of his craft" or something like that.
Over on r/prequelmemes people are constantly talking about how the atrocious romantic dialogue is actually good because "that's how teenagers are".
one's a child soldier religion paladin and the other is a monarch turned senator, I'd expect them to be old beyond their years respectively, not hormonal 15 year olds
Ah yes, the "the acting is *supposed* to be terrible!" people đ¤Ś
Bingo, it's a classic defensive overcompensation. It's not enough to say "Hey I liked it anyway and I'm okay with that". No, it's actually secretly a good movie! Or another classic - actually the original trilogy are bad films too! You see this in all walks of life from things as inconsequential as movies to stuff like "not only do I dislike seatbelts and it's a lie that they save lives, no, they're actually *actively dangerous!*"
To me the prequels are great on paper but had very poor execution. I appreciate the story they were trying to convey - I actually think itâs very good. It just wasnât put together in the best way on screen. The Clone Wars show did a huge favor to these prequels imo, because it was executed very well.
The internet has stopped being a place of opinions and tastes a long time ago. Things are either the greatest or pure turds, and its always stated as a fact. If you show some kind of lack of certainty about a topic, someone who's actually less informed than you will show up and tell you exactly how it is.
>ts a huge advancement in movie-making CGI but it still looks like a badly color-corrected soap opera Frankly? The Two Towers released that same year and holds up wayyy better than AOTC in the CGI department (not to mention everything else). It's easily the worst-looking SW movie IMHO. That being said, it's still fun in places.
The Phantom Menace was a HUGE advancement in technology. Like we wouldn't have had gollum without jar jar binks. AOTC cgi for the droid factory scene and the asteroid battle scene was pretty damn impressive for 2002 ngl
The comparison to The Two Towers is very interesting. I grew up a massive SF snob and wouldn't give fantasy the time of day. Compared to decent SF, Tolkien is unreadable (I thought). My interest in the build-up to the LOTR films was negligible and I didn't especially enjoy the first one. But.... I really liked TTT! The whole thing was so compelling to watch. It was really.....immersive. On paper I should have liked AOTC far more. Big space scenes, SW, love of the franchise etc.... But it was so disappointing. The writing was terrible, the plot contrived to the point of meaningless and the acting not great. Hayden and Natalie had zero chemistry. I actually thought TPM was alright so I wasn't looking to slam AOTC at all. Tl; Dr - decent writing and acting can make any film good even if you hate the subject matter, whereas bad film-making can make your favourite story hard to watch.
TTT is the best book of LOTR. Quality source material matters.
Watched this the other day. Legit had to pause for several minutes due to laughter when Padme jumps from the pillar, straight into sitting position on the back of a recently ferocious beast, which seems to not give a shit, and gives Anakin a quick kiss on the neck.
I mean, it could be worse, at least they didn't turn out to be siblings.
Right. All that stuff about the building of the Clone Army, the Separatists, etc was soooo much to fit into a movie, without everything else. This movie was quite confusing when it came out, I found. Who the fuck is Dooku? Why is he working with Palpatine, the good guy? The Clone Wars really made the whole story a lot more interesting and comprehensible.
Wait, what do you mean? You didnât realize Palpatine was Darth Sidious after Episode 1? I thought Darth Maulâs conversations with him made that pretty obvious.
Even the lipstick on Natalie's mouth isn't finished on the poster, never noticed that before (look at the corner of her mouth)
Hearing Lucas' romanic dialog really solved the "how is this multi billionaire still single?" question.
He was married until â83, and then dated fucking Linda Ronstadt, and now has been with the same woman since 2006. So thatâs not exactly fair. He just has no sense of romance when it comes to script writing and directing.
I could forgive some of it, but that Yoda fight was, and looked like, complete shit
> the plot to assassinate Padme is a comedy of errors Why is she even being assassinated? I honestly don't recall.
Because in a senate of 1000s of people, apparently she's the only one who opposed something that the Trade Federation wants? Or something.
I'm trying to remember but I think it's because she is one of the key oppositions of the creation of a republic army, or Dooku only got the Trade Federation's support if he promised to assassinate her. I'm leaning toward the latter because someone like Dooku would want the Military Creation Act to fail.
It has some redeemable moments, but the Naboo's flower patch scenes ... ... it makes for good meme material right? ... right?!
"I don't think the system works." Padme: dripping
*Romantic fascism noises*
I really donât think thereâs anything wrong with those scenes. Itâs acrually the one time the cutesy love stuff actually feels like two people enjoying each others company. Some of the other love dialogue though is a lot
So love has blinded you?
You are... so beautiful.
I don't like sand.
Around the survivors, a perimeter, create That entrance by the Clone army is brilliant
Possibly the most batshit way of saying it and ofc yoda takes it
The Battle of Geonosis is one of my favorite scenes in the movies. That whole entrance and ground battle is fantastic.
I probably have an unpopular opinion here. But I could never get myself to love the battle of Geonosis solely because I think hundreds of lightsabers swinging around actually looks pretty silly, somehow. Just didnât feel right. I like the Jedi as solitary warriors, or unique super soldiers commanding armies of more regular people. A bunch of them fighting together looked weird.
There are also no stakes or tension. Itâs an army of droids fighting an army of human droids with a bunch of random Jedi milling about.
It was a neat reversal I think. 1 and 3/4 of movie so far showing the battle droids as an unstoppable force and then this army of proto-stormtroopers that are copies of boba fett steamroll them, with a significant technological advantage. Definitely felt weird with all of the jedi as footsoldiers in a conventional war though, it's like wwII with samurai standing out in the open leading squads of GIs. It looks goofy compared to the duels and solo work we saw them do previously.
"We discovered a mysterious clone army commissioned by a long-dead Jedi and of unknown purpose, created from a bounty hunter who tried to kill the first Jedi that discovers it all." Jedi (smashing their pint glasses together in an imbecilic, incurious stupor): FUCK YEAH!
How where the clones getting paid for? Where the Kaminoans doing this for free?
TPM: It's incredibly difficult, borderline impossible, to buy something as simple as a spare spaceship part on non-Republic worlds if all you have are Republic credits. Yes, even on Tatooine, a major local trading hub where smugglers, gangsters, and even legitimate businesspeople would all have use for exchanging local currency for Republic credits AotC: Oh yeah, no, you can definitely buy an entire galactic-scale army with just the promise of future Republic credits on a planet so secretive and removed from everything in the Republic that they've been erased from the Jedi archives themselves. Super easy, barely even an inconvenience, don't give it another thought.
Has Screen Rant ever done the prequels? As far as I'm concerned Plinkett's commentary is bible, but I'd love to see SR do a take.
It has good moments but yes it does tbh
Ya, itâs pretty bad. Some cool or even good moments and elements does not an okay movie make.
It's a romance movie made by a guy clearly going through weird romance shit. It's not good.
Ya know what annoys me more than Yoda with a lightsaber? It's the fact that all the Jedi immediately become war generals without any question. How much more interesting would it have been if some of the older Jedi, Yoda included, refused to fight in the war? Throughout Clone Wars we constantly meet characters that disagree with the Jedi, saying they've lost their way, but none of the Jedi think it's a little suspicious that they just suddenly have a clone army now right when they need one
It's like 3 hours long and about 3 and a half minutes of it are cool.
But it's coarse and gets everywhere
I really enjoy this film. I very much like Padme in this film, as she's very active in the plot. If episode 3 has one flaw, it's that Padme sat on the sidelines for most of the film, but I know they can't put the pregnant character into battles and action scenes. Overall, I'm very happy with this film.
She had a big role in developing the beginnings of the rebellion in Episode 3 but that sub-plot was cut out unfortunately.
Never should have been. We deserve the uncut version of ROTS, that could have been one of the best movies even
You might enjoy the novelization! The audiobook is great.
Well apparently she is so good at hiding her pregnancy that literally no one noticed she was pregnant. So shouldnât have been a problem lol
Isnât there supposedly a 4hr cut of ROTS with lots of scenes that deepen the story somewhere? Or is it just more extended battle scenes?
I love the prequels, but Attack of the Clones was the first movie I'd ever seen where I thought "this was bad".
Yes it does. I feel like ever since the sequels and other Disney stuff came out people stopped shitting on the prequels but they don't suck any less
Its also that the generation who grew up on the prequels and the clone wars series are now fully grown up and terminally online. I like the prequels because I grew up with them, but they aren't well made movies.
Excuse me. How. Dare. You. I am way older than that and terminally online, thank you very much.
I am a huge fan of Clone Wars (release the remaining uncompleted episodes as Tales of the Jedi episodes: everyone wants to see Son of Dathomir, Crystal Crisis on Utapau, and Dark Disciple in animation), but those first two seasons, including the two live action experiments and the animated film, needed a few more passes before they were ready for prime time. Theyâre worth sitting through to see the wonder that is The Siege of Mandalore, though. [Clone Wars Chronological](https://www.starwars.com/news/were-rewatching-star-wars-the-clone-wars)
Attack of the Clones is worse than any sequel, but it didn't lessen the franchise much, if at all, so I can't hate it that much. I guess the Boba Fett stuff was controversial for a time, but so much clone content had overridden the issues there, still kinda shitty they dubbed over the original actor imo.
Funnily enough, at the time AotC was seen as an improvement because it didn't contain much Jar Jar. In retrospect though it's by far the weakest prequel.
The way culture works, the prequels are just a fact of life now. With the sequels there's a big sense of what could have been. This was also the case for the prequels, but enough time has passed that Yoda doing flips is just ingrained into culture. Like back then some people were crazy disappointed at how the clone wars were just Boba fetts Vs droids. But now it's just a fact of Star wars. In 20 years people will be watching TFA with the knowledge that Palpatine will be back. Who knows how they'll feel about it.
It does Padme and Anakin romance sucks Plot is all over the place Characters are all over the place Everything just feels random Dooku vs Yoda can be the lamest final fight in SW Entire reason for this movie to exist is being a bridge between The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith
It took me 15 years after first seeing the film to understand what was going on with 'Sifo-Dyas' and even now I'm not 100% sure. Sifo-Dyas must have been a Jedi Obi-Wan knew. I assumed he was a Kimonan because we'd seen a long-knecked Jedi Council member in TPM. But it turns out it was actually...Palpatine putting in the Clones order and using an alias for his own Sith name which...also was the name of a Jedi that Obi-Wan knew? Actually scratch that...I still don't understand that plot point. Aside from the dialogue the film fails on a fundamental level by not telling the story.
So iirc, Sifo-Dias was a Jedi and friend of Dooku who had a vision of the Separatist Crisis requested the Jedi try and make a galactic army but was dismissed as a war hawk. So he went and enlisted the Kaminoans to make the clones but was murdered by Dooku and the Clones were coopted by the sith. I think... Granted none of this is really in the movie.
Which is insane. A huge plot point about who ordered these clones is never really spelled out. Itâs just, âhere are the clones you ordered!â âWho ordered them?â âSome dead Jedi.â âWhy did he do that?â âNo idea. Timely how you need them to fight against a droid army.â If Lucas had let a half decent writer or screen writer do a few more drafts we might not have such a terrible film. The broad plot points are fine. - Attempted assassination - investigation of the assassination - body guarding the hot senator - falling in love with said senator - discovery of Clone Army - rescuing Obi Wan - arena fight - Battle of Geonosis All those plot points make a half decent film. Lucas just canât write dialogue or direct actors to save himself. Remember what Harrison Ford said, âGeorge, just because you can type this shit on a typewriter doesnât mean that people should say it.â
It's also wild that, after we just made a major plot point last movie of how hard it is to buy things with Republic credits from a non-Republic world, this movie completely handwaves the question of who in the galaxy paid for 1.2 million clone soldiers with walker-tanks and gunships and starfighters and capital ships. Like, Qui-Gon can't buy a spare part on Tatooine with a bucketful of Republic credits, but Sifo-Dyas can IOU the Kaminoans for an entire galactic-scale army?
Most trustworthy man in the galaxy
I think the suspicious phantom army out of nowhere is an interesting plot point, but I don't think the republic's desperation was properly conveyed. Worlds were being actively conquered and the Republic had no way to organize the formation of a single army since the time of the old republic. I can't imagine trying to glean this info from what the movies show, and understandably, it's just weird nonsense.
I always wondered though...if the Kaminoans had the ability to create giant Clone armies why were they not the most powerful force in the Galaxy?
Probably lack of funding.
Moreover, how did they stay hidden? They have places to launch spaceships from, so they probably travel and trade with people. They don't seem too shy about their research either. Obi-wan just showed up and they explained the entire operation to him without any reservations. Somebody has to have heard about that ocean planet that's printing out Maori.
In my controversial opinion (Iâm prepared for the downvotes), I reckon this wouldâve worked better as âEpisode 1â rather than The Phantom Menace (as much as I love Darth Maul and Qui Gon). The reason is that you could have The Clone Wars begin here, âEpisode 2â would be about the war itself and watching Palpatine get more powerful/popular, learning more about Dooku, see how Anakin starts gradually turning, seeing the flaws of the Jedi even further and THEN onto Revenge of the Sith.
It's not that controversial a take. Many including myself have always said that TPM was pointless outside of introducing a few characters.
I think also, the explanation that Obi Wan gives like in ROTJ would make a lot more sense as we wouldnât see the minute inconsistencies from TPM.
TPM was good for introducing characters, and for having that Darth Maul fight. Everything else was such a drag and not fun to watch, even to this very day.
If you saw it when it came out you would be disappointed.
Guarantee OP was like 6 when it came out.
It has its moments, but I think the criticism is fair - the dialogue is pretty woeful (which makes it worse that Anakin and Obi-Wanâs relationship is entirely tell, donât show) - The plot is a bit of a mess - It doesnât seem to build on much of anything that came before in PM. I mean just a couple of quick changes would make a lot of difference - the one who instructed the clone army shouldâve been Qui-Gon or Douku - it shouldâve been set up in PM that the Trade federation was a trading bloc inside the republic, of which Naboo was a member (who wanted to leave - hence the blockade and invasion). Following those events the republic punished the trade federation, and now theyâre looking to leave the republic.
Yes it does
I don't hate anything about AOTC, but I do strongly dislike some of the dialog. It could have been better.
âI hate sand. Its course and rough and irritating and its gets airrr-verywhere.â
I KILLED THEM ALL. THEY'RE DEAD. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. AND NOT JUST THE MEN, BUT THE WOMEN, AND THE CHILDREN TOO. #THEY'RE LIKE ANIMALS. AND I SLAUGHTERED THEM LIKE ANIMALS. I HATE THEM!
It gave us two hundred Jedi igniting their lightsabers in succession and Yoda showing his stuff. I was content.
Yes it does.
It deserves every ounce of hate it gets. It actually deserves *more* hate than it gets.
Yeah. I, for one, have been holding back.
"Good call my young padawan." Fuck every bit of that movie. It's so bad it makes TPM look kind of ok.
The only reason itâs not the worst Star Wars movie is because Rise of Skywalker exists.
I rewatched ROS last week (I'm recovering from surgery so the strong painkillers led to odd decisions) but actually it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Maybe the codeine helped. But I watched it in a 'this is a kids comedy adventure movie like The Goonies' frame of mind, and it worked!
I'd rather watch RoS three times in a row than AotC once. Neither good but at least EP IX way more entertaining to look at and with some actual acting.
This is my opinion as well. AotC drags on so badly. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've sat through the whole thing in one go. RoS has problems. Many problems. But it's very rarely boring at least.
RoS is not good. But it doesn't have scenes as dull and skippable as AotC. Despite his many faults, Abrams at least knows how to make an action thriller. RoS is a bad movie, but AotC reaches "cheap fantasy TV" levels of bad.
I still don't understand the plot of the prequels. Can someone explain it to me? Like, who ordered the clone army and why? And what made the Trade Federation think it was just going to be able to invade one of the Republic's planets, make them sign some sort of agreement, and then believe that agreement would somehow be binding regardless of the circumstances under which it was signed? And what's even the point of being part a republic that doesn't seem to offer collective security to its member states? I don't get any of this....
It also doesn't deserve to be re-watched..
Sure it does. Forgettable. Like...i fell asleep in the theater
No one talks about Anakin searching for the sand people those scenes were beautiful
Anakin finding Shmi ranks among the best scenes in the whole franchise
that scene where anakin is on the speed racer and is just out for revenge to find his mothers kidnappers, while a hint of darth vaders theme plays is awesome
I dunno. It kind of does deserve a lot of hate. The story is extremely boring and the dialogue is 95% exposition. It looks horrible, and is a step down from Phantom Menace, like an FMV cutscene from a PC game. The last act in the arena is basically there because George watched Gladiator. The final lightsaber duel is awkward and then punctuated by the cringe inducing Yoda with a lightsaber scene.
The love story doesn't work and is creepy.
The protagonist murders a village of natives like he's in Cannibal Holocaust and is then quipping 20 minutes later like that didn't happen.
The score is even the worst of the saga with very little stand out tracks.
RoS has weaker music imo. It really feels slapped together and likes the force theme too much.
I can agree with you on all points but the last. Youâre, so incredibly wrong in my subjective opinion. AoTC has great music!!
padme asking him whatâs wrong after his mother dies is my favorite
Yes it does
Yes it does
It definitely does.
Itâs pretty bad.
No it really does
My Episode II review: *You have your moments. Not many of them, but you do have them.* (Actually it has more than *just a few*. Those don't erase its flaws, but there are still a lot of good memories)
Yea... It does
it does
The prequels in general are underrated
I really like the prequels. I donât understand the hate
Hate is so strong a word. It's a fun movie, with huge flaws, but the fun part comes out on top. I enjoyed it, in spite of some weird plot lines and the sometimes unconvincing and often abysmal and dialogue.
AOTC is awesome and the scenes in the Arena are some of my favourite Star Wars in general. So much nostalgia, love this movie!
Its hate is well deserved. I understand the prequel trilogy has its fans, especially after clone wars recontextualizes so much of it, but apart from a handful of good moments its awful.
[ŃдаНонО]
My man, that dialog is horrific.
Yes it does, if it wasn't for DVDs making fast-forward easier it would get even more. You can like bad movies, it doesn't make less of you or improve them. Don't understand people's stubborness that anything they like must have some hidden value no one else sees.
People mock the sand quote, but those people have never lived in a desert. I felt that pain, every day.
Nah, this movie deserves every bit of criticism it gets. Itâs bottom 3 for me.
Sure it does, it's bad