Looking back on Star Wars, part 7: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Despite being one of the most pioneering films in history, Attack of the Clones still goes down as one of the worst Star Wars movie ever made.

"Anakin Skywalker: “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.”"

When The Phantom Menace (1999) first came out, Star Wars fans were mostly forgiving towards George Lucas. After all, he hadn’t officially directed a movie since A New Hope. Even if several aspects of the movie were bad (most of them having to do with Jar Jar Binks), there was still action, adventure, space dogfights, weird aliens, a thrilling pod race, and one really excellent lightsaber duel to keep folks entertained–everything a Star Wars film was supposed to have.

But when it came to Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), that’s when the Star Wars fandom truly began turning on its creator. Even those who liked the movie–and even thought it was better than The Phantom Menace–felt that Lucas should just hang it up and hand the reins over to someone else. And when even famed film critic Roger Ebert stated during his review that Clones didn’t have “one line of quotable, memorable dialogue” except for Anakin Skywalker’s infamous, “I don’t like sand” speech, maybe those fans had a point.

…[George] Lucas took the criticism of The Phantom Menace so personally, it practically gave him writer’s block. Even while concept art, scouting locations, and even set design was being approved [for Attack of the Clones], Lucas barely had a working draft.

But it’s not as if the movie is completely devoid of anything good. The planet Coursant–particularly during Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s pursuit of Padmé’s (Natalie Portman) would-be assassin–looks like a less grimy version of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) with a dash of Lucas’ own American Graffiti (1973). Ewan McGreggor’s reprisal as Obi-Wan Kenobi, along with his expanded role in the story, is light-years improved from The Phantom Menace. Almost everything about the water planet Kamino looks inspired, and the chase through Geonosis’ asteroid ring is particularly stunning.

So then what exactly makes Attack of the Clones arguably the worst thing Star Wars has had to offer since The Holiday Special?  Plenty. And once again, it starts with the script.

According to Michael Kaminski’s The Secret History of Star Wars, Lucas took the criticism of The Phantom Menace so personally, it practically gave him writer’s block. Even while concept art, scouting locations, and even set design was being approved, Lucas barely had a working draft. After managing to get through two of them, he ended up bringing in Jonathan Hales, one of the writers on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles TV series, to finish a third. And finish it he did– three days before shooting was scheduled to start. Even then, they didn’t still didn’t have a working title until after they completed filming.

Unfortunately, Hales’ experience consisted mainly of writing for television, not blockbuster Hollywood movies. And unlike movies, television, with its limited budget, must rely on dialogue–and lots of it–to create dramatic tension. This may account for why so much of why Attack of the Clones has characters over-explain what’s happening, over-explain what did happen, over-explain who they are, and especially over-explain what’s on their mind. And because there’s also a startling lack of action until the end, Attack of the Clones ends up being one of the slowest movies of the entire “Skywalker Saga.” That Droid Factory scene? That was added in by Lucas during post-production (and shot in four-and-a-half hours) to pick up the movie’s pace.

Throughout the entire movie, [Hayden Christensen] never changes the cadence, tempo, or inflection of his voice, even during violent outbursts, crippling sorrow over his mother’s death (Pernilla August), and professions of his “agonizing” love for Padmé.

Another big problem was the actor Lucas and company cast as Anakin Skywalker: Hayden Christensen. Although Leonardo DiCaprio was almost cast as the young Darth Vader, Lucas wanted a relative unknown, just like he did when casting Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford for the original Star Wars. But while Hamill, Fisher, and Ford have the gift of making even the most wooden of Lucas’ dialogue sound believable, Christensen does not. Throughout the entire movie, he never changes the cadence, tempo, or inflection of his voice, even during violent outbursts, crippling sorrow over his mother’s death (Pernilla August), and professions of his “agonizing” love for Padmé.

What’s weird is that you can still tell why Christensen plays Anakin the way he does. Given that “Annie,” in this movie, has spent the last ten years being trained to control and suppress his emotions, it makes sense why he would sound (ironically) like a robot, struggling to keep his frustrations, impulses, and hormones in check. Yet at the same time, you also wonder why someone like Padmé would ever fall head-over-heels for this guy, particularly during those moments where he exhibits really creepy behavior.

Thus between Lucas and Hales’ stiff, expository writing and Christensen and Portman’s lack of on-screen chemistry, Anakin and Padmé’s star-crossed, forbidden romance–the crux of Anakin’s fall from grace–sputters like the Millennium Falcon’s damaged hyperdrive. It’s also widely inconsistent. In one scene, Padmé tells Anakin to stop staring at her because “it makes me feel uncomfortable.” The next time we see them, they start flirting with each other. In another scene, Padmé rebuffs Anakin after their first kiss. Later, they end up rolling around together in a grassy field. Romance may be messy in real life, but it sure progresses more logically than this.