Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Dir: George Lucas

2002

**

After Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace  was released an on-line petition was created to get George Lucas to step down as director and to hire someone else, like he did with the first three films. That's pretty harsh criticism, especially as the petition gained hundreds of thousands of signatures. The harsh truth is though that it wasn't a bad idea but in the end it fell on deaf ears. The second of the second trilogy is a tiny bit better than the last film but not by very much. The SFX are slightly better in quality but still way overdone and the character development is still bad to nonexistent. It's saved by the Yoda fight scene, whereby the tiny green Jedi takes on Count Dooku, played by the mighty Christopher Lee (Miss Piggy Vs. Dracula) and Samuel L. Jackson and Ewan McGregor's worthy performances but the 'Attack of the Clones' scene, the big event that fans had been waiting for, should have been better than it was and the love story between Anakin and Padme should have had far less screen time. Okay, so it wasn't quite the incest scene of the first film but the the age gap between the two makes it a little bit awkward to watch and stinks of poor writing and an unfortunate lack of foresight. The middle film in a trilogy can be a tricky one but The Empire Strikes Back proves that it can also be the best. Lucas has undone some of the greatness that he created.