Hey Wisecrack, Jared again.
If memes are anything to go by, it seems like the Star Wars prequels have gone through a
resurgence in popularity since their initial critical pounding.
So, that leads us to wonder: were we all wrong?
Did we misjudge what are, in fact, cinema classics?
"I don't like sand."
Eh, probably not.
But it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
As we talked about in our What Went Wrong on The Phantom Menace, George Lucas had some
pretty grand ambitions.
Now, in Attack of the Clones, Lucas had epic ambitions.
Like, to create an actual epic romance in the style of classics like ‘Gone With The
Wind’ or ‘Cleopatra.’
He even used one particular romantic movie from the 1960s as a template.
But, did Lucas succeed in his ambitions?
Not quite, but if we dive into his original inspiration, we can discover how the story
of a spoiled brat – “It’s not fair!” – dating a patronizing princess — “Annie,
you’ll always be that little boy I met on Tatooine."
— went so horribly wrong.
Welcome to this Wisecrack Edition on Star Wars Episode II: What Went Wrong.
And, of course, spoilers ahead, if you really care about Star Wars prequel spoilers...
It might have been a while since you last saw this movie, so here’s a quick recap.
Set over a decade after The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones follows a now sort of
grown up Anakin Skywalker who is charged with protecting the once Queen, now Senator, Padme
Amidala from multiple assassination attempts.
After staying in a variety of romantic locations, wouldn’t you know it?
They fall in love.
Meanwhile, Obi Wan discovers that an army of clones has been created for the Republic.
From this, he uncovers a separatist plot to start a civil war led by former Jedi, Count
Dooku, but gets captured.
After finding his mother dead and performing a casual massacre, Anakin steals a droid and
goes with Padme to rescue Obi-Wan.
They get captured, too, and are sent to an arena to die with Obi-Wan.
"Good job!"
There’s some stuff about Jar-Jar causing the downfall of society — “Meesa propose
that the senate give immediately emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor."
— goddammit, Jar Jar.
Then, it’s your usual last 40 minute extravaganza of lightsabers and explosions as Jedis and
the Clone Army battle the badmen.
It turns out the war was all because of the dark side, as usual — "Everything is going
as planned."
— and Padme and Anakin get married despite them both knowing it’s a bad idea.
"It would destroy us."
Episode II continues Lucas’ attempt to answer the question: ‘How Does Democracy Slide
into Fascism?’And, to his credit, he does this in a really smart way, by taking inspiration
from history and contemporary politics.
The film opens with a bombing attempt to kill Padme which sets all the events of the film
in motion and by the end has lead to war.
"Begun the Clone War has."
Lucas seems to be invoking the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which is often
cited as the catalyst for World War I.
The film was released not even a year after the 9/11 attacks that would then lead to the
invasion of Iraq.
And here we have a blockbuster popcorn movie, written before all that happened, providing
some prescient commentary.
Count Dooku and Darth Sidious manufacture a conflict for their own ends: the threat
of Dooku’s droid army allows Palpatine to gain emergency powers and control the clone
army.
Kinda like how Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany in January of 1933: by manufacturing
conflict and a Bolshevik conspiracy against the state, he was granted dictatorial powers
by the Reichstag in March of the same year.
And, well, we know how that turned out…
"Winter for Poland and France!"
The movie is also interested in showing how choices made with even the best intentions
can be manipulated into benefiting the wrong people.
The Kaminoans were simply hired to create an army, they didn’t know that the guy who
placed the order was actually dead.
“Master Sifo-Dias was killed almost ten years ago.”
They also didn’t know that they were building the stormtroopers that would eventually oppress
an entire galaxy.
Even poor old Jar Jar thinks he’s doing what Padme would have wanted when he presents
the motion to grant Palpatine emergency powers.
“If only Senator Amidala were here…”
Again, Lucas is drawing from history.
You can trace this kind of manipulation back to events like the Munich Agreement.
At the time, this was considered a way of preventing war by appeasing Hitler’s demand
for more territory.
Of course, it didn’t work.
It was a deal struck with good intentions, but turned out to be a major step towards
war.
Jar Jar Binks and Neville Chamberlain?
Ya played yourself.
Now while this analysis of Socio-Political history is going on, Lucas had the smart idea
of using a character drama at the centre of the movie to highlight the personal side of
the larger conflict.
How does he do that?
He makes it a love story, of course!
"A love story against the backdrop of a war."
Whether it’s Romeo and Juliet, Robin Hood and Maid Marian, or Neo and Trinity, 'love
in a time of conflict’ is a story that’s as old as drama itself.
But Lucas seems to have settled on one specific movie influence for his doomed lovers: the
1965 romantic epic, Doctor Zhivago.
An adaptation of the Boris Pasternak novel, Dr Zhivago is the story of doctor and poet
Yuri Zhivago whose life and love for a married woman is dramatically changed by the conflicts
of the first world war, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil war.
It explores, in detail, the historical context and puts him and his beloved Lara Antipova,
right at the centre of that conflict.
Sound familiar?
From the themes to the posters which Lucas specifically asked artist Drew Struzan to
imitate, the two movies have a lot in common.
Both Zhivago and Anakin are taken from their families at a young age and both bury their
mothers on screen.
Both stories are set at a time of burgeoning civil war.
Episode II shows the events leading up to the Clone War, while Zhivago depicts the events
leading to the Russian Revolution.
The romance central to both movies is forbidden by social expectations or class.
Anakin’s role as a Jedi forbids him from love — “Attachment is forbidden” — whereas
Zhivago and Lara’s pre-existing marriages hinder their love: Zhivago to the wealthy
Tonya, and Lara to the Bolshevik Commander Strelnikov.
Both films even depict our main characters forced to travel as refugees.
The biggest similarity is in how both films depict the devastating consequences ‘True
Love’ can have.
Love acts as a corrupting influence on Anakin.
Whether it’s him disobeying orders to find his mother and going psycho when she dies,
or how he believes his and Padme’s love could be hidden — "We could keep it a secret..."
— the strength of Anakin’s love causes him to do some stupid, sinister and downright
evil things.
While it doesn’t go to the same extreme, Doctor Zhivago depicts a good man who heals
the sick, driven to breaking small laws like stealing firewood to provide for his family,
then driven to lie and cheat on that family because of his love for Lara.
Zhivago’s love for Lara results in him abandoning his wife and children.
But by the end, said love makes him abandon Lara and his unborn child, as well, to save
them from persecution.
Anakin’s love for Padme, by contrast, results in the death of thousands of Jedi and the
creation of a fascist Galactic Empire, which seems a little like overkill to me.
So, if Attack of the Clones is cribbing so closely from one of the great love stories
of all time, why is it such a dud?
Sure, there’s the toe-curlingly bad dialogue — "I hate sand." — and the total lack
of chemistry between Anakin and Padme, but all of that might have been okay if it wasn’t
for the fact Lucas missed the mark on how the politics and love story of Doctor Zhivago
are integrated.
Doctor Zhivago succeeds because the romantic leads have conflicting loyalties, but are
willing to forgo them for the sake of love and their shared compassion for others.
Zhivago and Lara are seen together several times in the first hour of the movie, but
don’t actually come together until something happens that reveals their shared the desire
to help the injured.
"Are you a nurse?"
They, then, both end up working closely together in a field hospital where, sure enough, they
fall in love.
The fact Zhivago and Lara forego their respective loyalties out of a desire to help, then fall
in love because of that, encapsulates how well the political backdrop and love story
are integrated.
Attack of the Clones, by contrast, pushes Anakin and Padme together with forces outside
of their control.
Palpatine suggests Obi Wan and Anakin protect Padme, then the Jedi Council orders Anakin
to protect Padme alone in the conveniently romantic setting of Naboo.
None of these actions are their choice.
“Senator Amidala will not refuse an executive order.”
Padme and Anakin are forced together by the political conflict, as opposed to being drawn
to one another by their feelings about the conflict.
This is the same problem we mentioned in our Episode I video: the characters are metaphorical
‘Paper Boats’ being carried along by the current of the plot; they have no agency.
Whereas Zhivago’s arc is all about the choices he makes.
Near the beginning he is supportive of Bolshevik protests — “Justice, equality, and bread.
Don't you think they're splendid?"
“Yes, I do!” — and then sees their slaughter in the square by the Cossacks.
But later, his house is taken by the Communist State — "There was living space for 13 families
in this one house!" — he is forced to lie about the existence of typhus and starvation
in the capital — "You've been listening to rumormongers, comrade.
There is no typhus in this city." — and is even forced to flee with his family because
he now disagrees with the Party’s policies.
Zhivago’s loyalties change over the course of the movie and his choices reflect that.
His choice to find Lara and be with her at the end of the film is motivated by the events
of the film.
Instead of being railroaded into one way of life by the changing political landscape,
he chooses to be with Lara.
No paper boats there.
Episode II on the other hand offers no such character arc or agency.
Anakin starts as a disobedient brat — “And you will pay attention to my lead.”
“Why?”
"What?" — and ends as a disobedient brat — “We'll take him together.
You go in slowly on the left, and-" "I'm taking him now!"
"No, Anakin, no!
No!"
He starts off with an unrequited love for Padme, and ends with a requited love because…
reasons?
We never hear his opinion on the conflict, only his pretty suspect opinions on the running
of the republic — “The- the trouble is that people don't always agree."
"Well, then they should be made to."
"Sounds a lot like a dictatorship to me."
"Well, if it works..."
And this isn’t just true of Zhivago and Anakin.
In Doctor Zhivago, Lara marries a Revolutionary, but after being forced to flee those same
revolutionaries she ends up saying, "This is an awful time to be alive!"
Her loyalties shift.
Whereas Padme, believes in democracy at the beginning of Star Wars and still does by the
end, largely because the movie tells her to.
“The day we stop believing democracy can work is the day we lose it."
"Let's pray that day never comes."
The biggest change she undergoes is to confess she loves Anakin after having resisted the
relationship throughout the whole movie.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It'll take us to a place we cannot go, regardless of the way we feel about each other.”
And even then, that change of heart is only because — "I think our lives are about to
be destroyed anyway."
How romantic.
While Padme shows some signs of resistance, — "I do not like this idea of hiding."
— she still shows little agency in her decisions, if she makes any at all.
But surely, in a movie that ends with war, the politics must have some bearing on the
character arcs, right?
Well, not really…
Doctor Zhivago succeeds in exploring the complexities of relationships at a time of war because
it shows us the moral ambiguity of that time.
The whole first hour is about setting up Oligarchs like Lara’s employer to be heartless monsters,
only for the idealistic revolutionaries like Lara’s husband to become equally heartless.
Lara and Zhivago are caught in the middle of these blurred distinctions.
Lara dines and dances with her creepy, oligarch employer Komarovsky at a fancy club, but when
she meets up with her wide-eyed idealist husband-to-be, Pasha, a few scenes later, he says this is
— “Where the pigs were eating and dancing!” — not knowing Lara was there.
At the end of the movie, Zhivago must accept Komarovsky’s help to save Lara — "These
men that came with me today, as an escort, will come for her and the child tomorrow,
as a firing squad! — a man who earlier raped Lara and then was shot by her, a wound Zhivago
is asked to heal.
These are the kind of complexities and confused loyalties that life in a time of conflict
creates; complexities that don’t really exist in Attack of the Clones.
For example, where Dr. Zhivago has the character of Pasha, a political protester turned tyrannical
commander, Attack of the Clones has Count Dooku, a former Jedi turned traitor to the
Republic.
Both characters are depicted in similar ways.
Pasha, who becomes the commander of the Red Army, changes his name to ‘Strelnikov’,
and Count Dooku changes his name to Tyranus.
They are both either shown or explained to be idealists at the start.
Dooku is referred to within the first five minutes of the movie as, — “He's a political
idealist, not a murderer."
“You know, my lady, Count Dooku was once a jedi.
He couldn't assassinate anyone; it’s not in his character.”
— while we are introduced to Pasha handing out fliers to workers for a protest.
The problem is how we see these characters change and develop over the course of the
movie.
We think Pasha is killed in the trenches of WWI only for his reveal as Strelnikov to be
the shock twist that concludes the first half of the movie.
We knew his allegiances before the war, and it makes sense that he would make his way
up the ranks of the Bolshevik army.
It’s a twist because we thought he was dead not because his motivations changed.
There is no revelation or even catharsis in Attack of the Clones.
The next time we hear anything about Dooku, after his passing mention at the start, is
over halfway through when he appears and basically explains his entire conspiracy while Obi Wan
is in earshot.
After that, he tries to convince Obi Wan to join his cause by pretending to be on his
side — “Oh no, my friend, this is a mistake, a terrible mistake they have gone too far!
This is madness!”
This would have been a great opportunity to develop his character more.
If he had been introduced earlier, it could show some conflict about his ideals, maybe
then Obi Wan would sympathize with him.
But no, the next minute Dooku sentences them all to death, chops off Anakin’s arm and
delivers the Death Star plans to Darth Sidious.
No such moral ambiguity there.
Other than a few sentences from nameless characters at the start, the audience is given no reason
to care about Dooku’s treachery or where his loyalties lie.
A lot of these problems can be traced back to the same script issues Episode I had.
Whether it’s the threat of Padme’s life, being sent to Naboo, Obi Wan stumbling across
the Clone Army, or a declaration of war, all of this happens to the characters, not because
of the characters.
In fact, the most significant decision of the whole movie is done off screen by Jar
Jar, who decides to grant the Chancellor executive powers.
This choice shapes the fate of the galaxy, but the most we see of his decision-making
process is a shot of him looking pensive.
Episode II’s biggest flaw, though, is the romance itself.
Where Zhivago and Lara’s love is tortured and forbidden, but ultimately feels true,
Anakin and Padme’s is meant to be all those things but we’re never really given any
reason to believe that.
Zhivago falls for a woman who shares his compassion, while Lara falls for a good man of great talent
and character whom she admires.
Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a moody teenager inexplicably wins over a much older woman
by being really — “My goodness you've grown."
"So have you...
grown more beautiful, I mean."
— really — “I don't think she liked me watching her."
— really — “The thought of not being with you...
I can't breathe."
— REALLY creepy.
Not only that, the ‘forbidden’ nature of their romance doesn’t seem all that forbidden.
Though we are repeatedly told it’s wrong — "You're studying to become a jedi, I'm-
I'm a senator."
— we’re not really shown any drawbacks.
Anakin even explains a loophole — “Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love,
is central to a Jedi’s life.
So, you might say that we are encouraged to love.” — and though Obi Wan says Anakin
has made a commitment to the Jedi Order, he also says, “You have made a commitment to
the Jedi order, a commitment not easily broken."
So wait, it’s not easy but CAN be broken?
That, and Anakin and Padme don’t seem all that shy about hiding it when they make out
in front of an ARENA FULL OF PEOPLE, INCLUDING OBI WAN.
Their relationship is discouraged, but not ‘forbidden.'
And they don’t seem to love each other because they admire one another’s characters, political
beliefs or talents like Zhivago and Lara, they love each other because the script tells
them to.
In the end, Attack of the Clones fails because of its ambitions.
By trying to make the movie a cautionary political drama, an Epic Romance, a conspiracy thriller,
a mystery, and a war movie, Lucas gives himself too much ground to cover in two hours, and
as a result, he doesn’t integrate these pieces well enough to give them time enough
to develop.
Time that Doctor Zhivago has in spades with its 3 hours and 20 minute running time.
And while taking some surface pointers from a cinema classic is admirable, it fails to
deliver on all those key elements that made the original so great.
“Alright, I get the picture."
But what do you think Wisecrack?
Is it a misunderstood masterpiece, or do you hate it as much as Anakin hates sand?
Let us know in the comments, and thanks to all our patrons who support the channel and
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