Star Wars: Attack of Indifference

©2002 by Dale Franks

The newest installment of the Star Wars series is open for business, and business is thriving. Releases of Star wars movies are major cultural events now and for that reason alone, "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" will undoubtedly make piles of money for everyone involved.

Yet, I walked out of the theater asking myself, "Did I care about any of these people?" The answer, unfortunately, was, "No." It's not that I really wanted to see anything particularly bad happen to film's characters. I just didn't care what happened to them.

The storyline of the movie had some potential, and some entertaining bits (which I won't go into deeply, to avoid spoiling it for everyone). Naturally, the special effects were fantastic, and it was difficult to tell the computer-generated characters from the real actors.

At least, it would have been difficult if it weren't for the fact that it's the real actors and their characters that are the central weakness of the film.

Much of the film is centered on Annakin, played by Hayden Christianson, and Senator (formerly Queen) Amidala, played by Natalie Portman. These two crazy kids are thrown together and, as everyone knows, fall in love. The problem is that there isn't any believable reason for Amidala to fall in love with young Annakin, or indeed, to regard him with anything other than vague discomfort.

Hayden Christianson's Annakin just isn't very likeable. Annakin fell madly in love with Amidala ten years previously, as an 11 year-old child. And why shouldn't he have? He was a recently freed young slave boy, and she was an attractive, rich, and powerful young woman. But the intervening 10 years haven't faded the depth of his passion, which is decidedly odd. I'm sure that when I was 11 years old, I fell madly in love with somebody or other, but by the time I'd reached 21, I couldn't even remember her name.

Soon after meeting Amidala again, Annakin declares to her that she has been in his dreams every day since he was a little child. In the real world, Amidala, who has served two terms as queen of Naboo and who is now a Senator, would most likely reply, "Thanks, Annakin. That's…creepy."

For Annakin is, in nearly every way, a pretty creepy guy. Every time he refers to Obi-Wan, he makes the obligatory statement that Obi-Wan is just like a father to him, after which Annakin proceeds to deride him as a less powerful Jedi, who tries to control his life out of jealousy.

Hayden Christianson's Annakin is a self-absorbed, self-pitying child, who wants everything his way. His shortcomings are obvious to everyone but himself, and he dismisses their criticisms as mere jealousy, rather than constructive criticisms aimed at helping him to become a better person. And like every narcissist, he feels helpless tears of rage because everyone else can't recognize what a prince of a guy he is.

Annakin also has an anger management problem. When his mother dies, Annakin is so upset that he commits an atrocity that would have him tried and executed in most states, and thrown in jail for life in the rest.

In the end, the love story between Annakin and Amidala is simply unbelievable. Powerful, successful, accomplished, and attractive women tend not to be attracted to immature twenty-something young men who still display the angst that they should have grown out of by the time they graduated high school. This is especially true when those same angry and narcissistic young men demonstrate a propensity to murderously lash out when sufficiently upset.

Natalie Portman, for her part, improves upon her performance from the last episode. This time, instead of displaying the acting ability and charisma of a fine block of old mahogany, she put enough effort into her performance to move her firmly into the category of white pine, or perhaps walnut. Indeed, during the scenes where Amidala is hiding out with Annakin and they are exploring their inexplicably deep--and disturbing--feelings for each other, she appears to be almost an actual person at times.

As the central theme of the movie, the developing relationship between Annakin and Amidala simply doesn't work.

One does notice however, that unlike the previous movie, Natalie Portman gets stuffed into skin-tight, bare midriff costumes at every available opportunity. And if the costume doesn't initially bare her midriff, George Lucas contrives to get her into a situation where it can be bared for her anyway. Unfortunately, while Ms. Portman does have an admirably flat tummy, that same description applies to the rest of her torso as well, which detracts somewhat from the Britney Spears effect that Mr. Lucas obviously intended to aim at the 18-35 year old male demographic that forms the core of Star Wars fandom.

Interestingly, the explicit midriff baring also takes place during a scene in which Ms. Portman's character is intended to suffer a horrific execution. This intentional combination of sex and death into a neat little package could provide a nearly unending stream of Freudian analysis. Oh, and speaking of Freudian symbolism, this scene also features Amidala being chained to a large execution pole, and subsequently climbing on top of it. I'm fairly sure that having Ms. Portman bound to a large phallic symbol, followed by having her mount it, has some deep psychological meaning.

But I'm afraid to ask what it is.

Samuel L. Jackson has a larger part in this episode, playing Mace Windu, the Number 2 man on the ineffectual Jedi Counsel. But this is not a character that is well suited to Mr. Jackson's persona. Jackson is, of course, a terrific actor, so he plays his part well. Unfortunately, he is also the victim of typecasting, so when watching him, one halfway expects him to come out with a line like, "You don't need to see our God*&%$ identification! There aren't the mother#$%^&*% droids you're looking for!"

He does, however, have a scene where he gets to glower menacingly.

There are some details of the action that don't set well, either. In the climactic battle scene, the two opposing armies line up like Napoleonic era soldiers, all in neat drill squares, then they blast away at each other in formation. No one has fought like that on this planet in over a hundred years, even with our comparatively primitive battlefield technology. The idea that incomparably more lethal fighting forces would do so simply boggles the mind. Such battles would be extremely brief, with casualty rates so high that it would be difficult to tell which side "won" at the end of them.

There are, it must be said, some positive points to the movie. The character of Jar-Jar Binks is mercifully brief, so we are, for the most part, spared the Steppin Fetchit indignities of his character.

Having said that, however, it still provokes an uncomfortable feeling to hear him refer to Obi-Wan Kenobi as "Massa Obi-Wan." Yes, I know that everyone calls Jedi Knights "Master", but, well, it sounds different when Jar-Jar does it. And, a bit nasty, frankly, when you consider that slavery is evidently still legal in the Republic.

In addition, we also get to see that Yoda, when the situation calls for it, can be every bit as dangerous as any Samuel L. Jackson character. Don't let that cane and slow limp fool you. He's the one who really has "Bad Mother#$%^&*" engraved on his lightsaber.

In the end, though, "Attack of the Clones" was superior to Episode I, although that's not really a high bar to reach. I didn't really actively dislike the movie, but on the other hand, the most positive emotion I can attach to the experience was one of indifference.

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