Attack of the Clones v. Return of the Jedi

After watching Attack of the Clones with my 11 year old daughter, she sent me this drawing of her lightsaber. I remember doing the same thing after seeing The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, rushing home to draw monsters and spaceships. This is all the proof I need that Lucas hasn’t failed, at least when it comes to inspiring a generation of kids.

After a while, all of the anti-prequel memes and videos start to sink in, and I sometimes think, “Hey, maybe these movies really do suck.” But whenever I actually sit down to watch them, I am pleasantly surprised. Despite a barrage of criticism, I have long maintained that Episodes I—III are great movies, and that much of the hate directed at them has to do with growing up and becoming jaded. Conversely, adoration for the originals has much to do with nostalgia. Older fans tend to dismiss the newer films, while younger viewers are typically more appreciative. This dichotomy between young and old has led to much debate. It’s difficult to accept that something you once loved can also be deeply flawed. “It can’t be me!” the haters think, “it must be George!” They insist Lucas has lost his way, that his success was a fluke, attributed to everything else but him. But the facts simply do not bear this out.

You won’t see people attacking Uwe Boll with the same vitriol, despite his highest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes scoring a 25%, with his lowest at 1%. Compare these figures to Lucas’ THX1138, at 88%, or his lowest rated film, The Phantom Menace, at 57% (3% shy of certified fresh). Box office receipts further attest to Lucas’ success as a filmmaker, with The Phantom Menace holding the #6 spot with 474 million, to the original Star Wars at #7 with 460 million. Still, critics insist Lucas is incompetent. It’s a character assassination that has driven the auteur into early retirement, even after saying that he wanted to make “smaller, more personal films.” But you’ll rarely see this kind of hatred for failed directors like Uwe Boll or the Wachowski Brothers/Siblings, or even for M. Night Shyamalan; and it has everything to do with nostalgia, growing up, and unmet expectations.

To test my theory further, and to prepare for The Force Awakens, I sat down with my kids for a week long movie marathon. This was the first they’ve been exposed to Star Wars, and the results were not surprising. Never did my older daughter say to me, “Daddy, why did the movies suddenly get better?” after Episode IV. Of the six films, Attack of the Clones happens to be her favorite, followed by VI, but “they are all pretty close.” My 5 year old, on the other hand, is running around the house knocking things over with her plastic lightsaber.

The prequels are rife with flaws, without question, but what Lucas does well—the action, the special effects, the mythological/philosophical/political motifs—more than make up for it. Besides, a lot of the same flaws get excused when it comes to the originals. And so, after carefully re-watching the saga, I thought it’d be interesting to compare, what I feel, is the worst of the prequels to the worst of the originals.

I should warn you, however, I am very new to podcasting, and would love to have the power to edit this thing. But I can’t, so please forgive the three-hundred or so times I utter the words, “you know.”

If you’d prefer not to listen to my voice (can’t really blame you) here is a list of the flaws I have found in both films:

ATTACK OF THE CLONES

1. When the Naboo cruiser is blown up after landing on Coruscant, Corde tells Padme, “I’ve failed you senator.” Well, not really. The purpose of a decoy is to die in place of the person being protected. Oddly, Captain Typho seems to understand this, when he says, “She did her job.”
2. Yoda tells Padme, “Seeing you alive brings warm feelings to my heart.” She doesn’t acknowledge him in any way.
3. Obi-Wan gets into an argument with Anakin on whether it is in their mandate to find Padme’s assassin. Kenobi insists that their duties do not extend beyond protection. Later, when Kenobi sees the assassin droid outside her bedroom, he jumps through the window to catch it. But it would have made a lot more sense for Anakin to do so, being the impetuous one, and the one determined to find her killer.
4. Zam Wessell shoots the droid carrying Kenobi instead of, you know, shooting him.
5. Jango Fett uses a “Kamino saber dart” to kill Zam, when he could have used a blaster, leaving a trail for Kenobi to follow (although, it could be argued that Palpatine intended that he find the cloning facility on Kamino).
6. A lot of the romantic dialogue is just painful to watch.
7. After Anakin admits to murdering children (albeit, children of an “evil” species) Padme seems not to care.
8. The most inexplicable mistake, and the one I simply cannot defend: the Jedi never make the connection between Jango Fett, the clones, and Count Dooku. Knowing Fett was hired by Dooku, and that he was also the template for the clones, they should have at least been suspicious of the Republic Army. This could have been fixed with a scene of the Jedi discussing their mistrust of the clones, which might have helped them escape Order 66.

RETURN OF THE JEDI

1. The plan to save Han is ridiculously convoluted. First, C3PO and R2D2 show up as gifts for Jabba (just to get them into the movie, I guess). Then Leia arrives in disguise with Chewbacca (again, to get him into the movie), only to get captured. Lando is somewhere in the background, pretending to be someone else. Finally, Luke makes an appearance, only he doesn’t have his lightsaber. What was the original plan exactly?
2. Jabba is a fat, naked alien slug with a penchant for “scantily clad human females,” apparently. This makes no sense. It would be like a horse getting turned on by a spider. Even if the point is to “degrade” her, how does Jabba know what is degrading to a human? And where does he even find a slave costume? Do they have racks of sexy outfits in the back somewhere? Slave Leia was, obviously, an attempt to appeal to adolescent boys.
3. Luke falls into the rancor pit, using a perfectly sized bone to escape the rancor’s mouth. If the bone had been an inch or two bigger or smaller, he would have been lunch. And why again doesn’t he have his lightsaber?
4. Finally, R2D2 shoots Luke’s lightsaber into the air, so he can catch it at the perfect moment, after he somersaults off a diving board. How could he have known any of that was going to happen? It all seems so contrived.
5. Boba Fett, the most popular bad guy aside from Darth Vader, the “best bounty hunter in the galaxy,” dies in the most idiotic way imaginable, as Han accidentally hits his jet-back, sending him flying against Jabba’s pleasure barge and into the sarlaac pit. This always seemed, to me, like a lazy way for Lucas to “wrap things up.”
6. Leia strangles Jabba to death with a chain. His neck is about three feet wide. It would be like trying to strangle an elephant.
7. The entire movie seems like two separate films spliced together. Part #1 is all about saving Han. Part #2 is about destroying the *new and improved* Death Star. But the two halves do not seem to relate to one another.
8. Yoda dies, telling Luke he has completed his training. What? I thought it took years to become a Jedi. Apparently, Luke just needed a few days of acrobatics classes on Dagobah.
9. The Ewoks manage to defeat “an entire legion of the Emperor’s best troops” using nothing but rocks, sticks, and bows that shoot sticks! Storm Troopers in battle helmets are knocked cold by teddy bears dropping things from hang gliders. Also, how lucky did the Ewoks have to be, to position those log traps for the AT-STs?
10. Luke asks Leia, “Do you remember your real mother?” She says she does, but how does Luke know to ask this? Couldn’t she have been raised on Alderaan by Padme? And what the heck happened to her real mother anyway? None of this is explained or alluded to in any of the original films, proving the Luke/Leia/Vader relationship was a late invention and poorly thought out.
11. The Emperor continuously goads and harasses Luke, stating that if Luke gives in to his anger and strikes him down, he will become like his father and turn to the Dark Side. Why? If I am in a room with Hitler, and I kill him, does that make me Hitler?
12. Yoda tells Luke the Emperor must not be underestimated. And Vader tells him, “Together we can destroy the Emperor.” Palpatine is built up to be this ultimate evil power. But by the end of the movie, he proves to be just a feeble old man, powerless to do anything as Vader picks him up and throws him down a shaft.