Journey To The Force Awakens - Attack of the Clones

IMDb

Title: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
Distributor: Lucasfilm (20th Century Fox)
Director: George Lucas
Writer(s): George Lucas  
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Christopher Lee, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz, Samuel L. Jackson, and Temuera Morrison   
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for sustained sequences of sci-fi action/violence
Running Time: 142 min
Synopsis: Ten years after initially meeting, Anakin Skywalker shares a forbidden romance with Padmé, while Obi-Wan investigates an assassination attempt on the Senator and discovers a secret clone army crafted for the Jedi.

What Others Are Saying? 

Rotten Tomatoes: 65% "Fresh", Top Critics: 40% "Fresh", Audience: 59% "Liked It"
Metacritic: Critics: 54 out of 100, Users: 6.0 out of 10
MRQE: 67 out of 100

My Review

Preface: Collider Video just posted their commentary video of this film yesterday. To catch everyone up. I'm following along with Collider Video and creating my own, "Journey to the Force Awakens." They plan on watch all the live action Star Wars film leading up to the Force Awakens. I'm responding by writing a movie review for each film. If you want to read my review of The Phantom Menace click here.    

Source Material: Original story by George Lucas 

Entertaining Value:

• Action Elements: The Phantom Menace had two big action set pieces: the pod race, and the Invasion on Naboo, which included the battle between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul. Naturally, Lucas probably want to up the action game, especially since this movie depicts the beginnings of a major war in the Star Wars universe. He delivered us more action sequences but not necessarily any of quality. Quantity doesn't always equal quality.There was a hand full of action sequences that were added in just to have action, case, and point, the assembly line scene on Geonosis. It didn't really add much to the story and it wasn't 100% exciting start to finish. I felt like some of the bigger action set pieces like the Geonosis gladiator scene didn't feel as epic as it should have. Come on a whole army of Jedi taking on an army of droids, should haven been epic but it fell short of that mark. Don't get me wrong there were some amazing action sequences in this film, like Jango Fett vs Obi-Wan or Yoda vs Dooku.

• Comedy Elements: This film focuses more on the "developing love story" between Anakin and Padmé. I'm glad there was quite a bit less Jar Jar scenes, meaning there is less dumb childish humor that doesn't fit in the Star War universe.

• Dramatic Elements: There could have been really good impactful dramatic scenes in this film but the dialog and acting ruined any chance for that.

• Sci-Fi / Fantasy Elements: Like in The Phantom Menace this film strays ways from the adventurous aspect of a fantasy. The Star Wars fiction wasn't really expanded upon. We did get a small glance into Jedi culture, which I enjoyed.

Cinematic Value:

• Acting and Dialogue: 5: I have to highlight Ewan McGregor, right off the bat. He starts to grow into the character of Obi-Wan. I personally think he was one of the better actors in this film. Granted, nothing can compare to Christopher Lee as an actor. I think McGregor found a happy medium on delivering such bad dialog. Sadly, Hayden Christensen suffered the most punishment on bad dialog, mainly because he had to act like a spoiled teenager who whines when he doesn't get his way. But then again, Hayden Christensen hasn't been known for his acting chops before or after Star Wars. From my understanding, better actors were up for the part of Anakin, like Ryan Phillippe and Collin Hanks but Hayden won the part because he looked good together with Natalie Portman. I can't really say Portman's acting improved from The Phantom Menace, but her sex appeal did. For me, the major downfall of this film is the bad dialog.

• Cinematography: 7: The camera work and lighting was satisfactory. It didn't detract from the film, which is always a positive.

• Direction: 5: I have the same feeling about George's direction on this film that I have on The Phantom Menace. He doesn't get the best performance out of his actor that he could. Maybe that's due to the fact that the script wasn't polished. Just listening to the dialog clued me into how unpolished the script was. We have seen good storytelling via directing from Lucas in the past.

• Editing: 6: One big negative pertaining to editing I would like to point out is the action sequences. I think the action sequence would have been better if they were shorter in length, especially, if you are going to add action for action sake. 

• Screenplay: 4: Exposition, exposition, exposition. This film was just as bad, if not worst than The Phantom Menace, at people standing around, boring us to death, with exposition. If you can bear those scenes, the next battle is the bad chemistry between Anakin and Padmé. I know a lot of that is due to their bad acting and dialog, but at the same time there wasn't much story to work with either. The entire film Padmé treats Anakin as a close friend, then right before they are sent into the Geonosis arena Padmé confess her deep love for Anakin. All the setup to this "confession of love" scene feels out of place, from a story aspect.           

• Sound and Music: 8: In general the score was great as usual but there was a few place were the theme being played didn't quite fit the scene, in my opinion. Note: great sound design from Ben Burtt, again. 

• VFX: 8: I think it's funny that a subplot was cloning, and that's precisely how the VFX were treated. Fun fact: all the clones were 100% digital made. No man in a physical suite this time around. For the most part, the VFX looked good. There are some background shots were you can tell it was an art piece. I personally loved the character design through the prequels.  

Overall: 6: I think I can agree that this is the weakest film overall in the Star wars saga. Again I think I can only recommend this film to Star Wars fans, but even then barely. May The Force Be With You!     

Journey To The Force Awakens - The Phantom Menace Review

IMDb 

Title: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
Distributor: Lucasfilm (20th Century Fox)
Director: George Lucas
Writer(s): George Lucas  
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz, Samuel L. Jackson, Ray Park  
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for sci-fi action/violence.
Running Time: 136 min
Synopsis: Two Jedi Knights escape a hostile blockade to find allies and come across a young boy who may bring balance to the Force, but the long dormant Sith resurface to reclaim their old glory.

What Others Are Saying? 

Rotten Tomatoes: 57% "Fresh", Top Critics: 42% "Fresh", Audience: 60% "Liked It"
Metacritic: Critics: 51 out of 100, Users: 5.9 out of 10
MRQE: 67 out of 100

My Review

Preface: In the next few weeks I'm going to create my own "Journey To The Force Awakens." I'm going to do this by writing reviews to all the Star Wars films, leading up to Episode VII. I got the inspiration from Collider Video. This past week Collider Video put together their own commentary video on The Phantom Menace. They plan on doing the same for each of the Star Wars films, tackling one film per week.  I'm going to follow Collider Video's commentaries with my reviews. I plan on having the reviews up a few days after their video goes up on YouTube. It's now time to geek out on Star Wars. 

Source Material: Original story by George Lucas 

Entertaining Value:

• Action Elements: Action is a pivotal part of the Star Wars fantasy. For me, some of the most exciting parts of Star Wars is the lightsaber battles. One of the greatest positives of the prequels is lightsaber battles. Not only are they cool but they are poetic like in a dancing way.  

• Comedy Elements: Lucas thought the best type of humor of the prequel trilogy was kid joke like poop and fart jokes.

• Dramatic Elements: Anytime there was a dramatic moment, it was usually ruined with a poop or fart joke. 

• Sci-Fi / Fantasy Elements: Star Wars draws inspiration from both Sci-Fi and Fantasy. The prequels lost a lot of those elements. The prequels were lacking in the adventuring aspect of the original trilogy. Lucas focused more on war in the prequels, not the dramatic parts but the political and boring parts.  

Cinematic Value:

• Acting and Dialogue: 6: Liam Neeson was by far the best actor in this film. He seemed to put his all into the character of Qui-Gon Jinn. Talk about giving a great performance on a badly written script. After Liam, I would praise bothEwan McGregor and Natalie Portman. Both of them were relatively newcomers. Ewan McGregor was known for indie film, most notability Trainspotting. While Portman was a fairly young actress, with only four or five films prior to Star Wars. The only other actor with less experience on set was Jake Lloyd. From my understanding, there were better actors to fulfill the role of young Anakin, but Jake had the innocent child spirit that Lucas was looking for. In my opinion, Anakin would have function better as a character if he was slightly older like 12 or 13. The veterans showcased good performance, except for Samuel L. Jackson. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't up to par to what I was expecting out of Sam Jackson.             

• Cinematography: 7: The camera work and lighting were good in the film. To be honest its one of the stronger aspects of the film. I praised the action above and apart of that is well shoot action sequences.     

• Direction: 6: The frist job of a director should be getting the best performance out of your actors as possible. Second is tell a good story. George isn't the best at getting good performance out of his actors. This film shows that flaw more than his other films. Even the storytelling was weak in this film, which is where Lucas usually shines at. I guess you can't be 100% all the time.   

• Editing: 6: In general, there were quite a bit of long drawn out parts, case and point the pod racing sequence. That sequence takes up a good chunk of the film. I believe that sequence takes nearly 15 minutes. It was a cool 15 minutes, especially in my teenage mind, but the race felt repetitive. I felt the film could have been tighter on the editing front.      

• Screenplay: 3: George Lucas created this immersive space opera in the original trilogy. He had a universe with a great fiction and mythology. What does he do with this awesome mythology? He trashes it by over-explaining. For example, The Force. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Obi-Was defines, The Force, as an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together. In this film, Lucas changes the Force by making it "ruled" by midi-chlorians. Basically, the Force become a genetic trait rather than a cosmic force. The second major change Lucas made was lowering the target audience. The script became riddled with humor made for a much younger audience, as in poop and fart jokes. There were so many of these types of jokes that it sometimes ruined a scene that could have been very emotional. This mentally spawned the worst character ever written for Star Wars, Jar Jar Binks. In general, I'm fine with a clumsy comic relief character, but that type of humor doesn't fit the humor established in the original trilogy. Even Jar Jar's speech patterns were childish and annoying.  If you edit out Jar Jar like a fan has done, the film increase in quality because Jar Jar doesn't add anything to the story.   

• Sound and Music: 10:  Frist and foremost the score from John Williams is great as usual. For me, the piece of music that stands out the most, in my head, is the Duel of the Fates. You know, the music that plays during the Darth Maul, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan fight. I want to draw attention to Ben Burtt's sound design. If nothing else, rewatch the pod racing scene. Each and every pod racer has it own unique sound. Even the sounds of the race in of its self is awesome.

• VFX: 10: For 1999 the visual effect were revolutionary. George Lucas is more or less the father of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). He was pushing CGI technology of that time to the max. Oddly enough the CGI holds up today, granted CGI today is damn awesome. I have to note that I personally like the character design in this film. I may not like the characters themselves but how they looked on screen was good.  

Overall: 6: As a Star Wars film The Phantom Menace failed to deliver. As a film, in general, it wasn't any better, but there are quite a few redeeming qualities. I personally don't hate the prequel films. I have accepted them as Star Wars canon and can get some enjoyment out of them. At the same time, I can really recommend them. Out of all the Star Wars films, The Phantom Menace would be the one I suggest skipping.