SW: AOTC (longish, contains spoilers)

There are about 100 lines of spoiler space. Be warned...

















































































































































That should be enough.

I saw it last night in the rush between picking up a package from a
courier in London and getting an overnight experiment set up in
Rachael's lab. So I saw it tired, and I did not see very much of
the credits at all, which is unusual for me.

But this was a good film to see tired, or in a rush. The film itself
tends to rush. But the good news is, it's lost most of the
"Phantom Menace" mawkishness. The kid has grown up into a sullen
teenager, sort of vaguely like Kevin of Harry Enfield fame, but with
odd hair. He spent most of his time sulking or complaining that it
wasn't fair. It seems odd that one sulky teenager should be beyond
an organisation that has kept Galactic peace for a millenium, but hey.

The other thing he did, of course, was hang out with girls. I see that
many people didn't like the love-scenes, but I didn't think they were
so grim. There was one brief moment when I thought of Julie Andrews,
but generally it was not so bad. Certainly it's better than, say,
"The Mummy", and much better than a lot of romantic comedy.

Other than that stuff, I guess it's about action. And yes, there
is action. The big lightsabre battle is cool, and does exactly
what you'd expect. The boss battle at the end of that is fine,
and as for Yoda - he's not bad for a little muppet, is he?
Animatronics and CGI have moved on a lot since "The Empire Strikes
Back", when we first met him.

There were two other things I noticed: plot and scenery. Plot is
about average for a SW film. The motifs are a bit heavy-handed,
but there is a more subtle (for SW) backplot rumbling on about the
Dark Lords and where they are taking power. It was amusing to see
one of the really good methods of lying used: telling someone the
whole truth in such a way that they won't believe a word of it.
Plot was about average, then.

Scenery was good and bad. To me the scenery in SW films always has
a sort of sterile feeling: kind of like you'd never expect anyone
to live there. Either the places are just too grim to stand, or
they are too clean and sterile. This seemed to be better than
it was in AotC, although it was worrying that the sources were so
obvious. This was clearest in the Archives and in the diner where
Obi-Wan uses his dot in Underworld. The Archives had shelves of
blue lights because nobody would ever use books - but they had to
indicate "library" in some way. That's irritating. And as for
the diner - I thought the scene was in Coruscant, not Brooklyn.
But hey.

Generally the scenery was much better, though: there was advertising
in the city, which was (of course) completely incomprehensible to us.
There were toys, and wastebins, and vending machines, and traffic
jams, and all kinds of bits and pieces that actually looked like they
were really lived-in. I think this is the first SW film which looks
like it was filmed in a place that could be real.


Cross-film plot was interesting. It is nice to see that sweet,
lovable Jar-Jar is the Neville Chamberlain of his (her?) generation.
It couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. It was interesting to see where
Boba Fett came from, and Beru Whitesun, and others like this. But
why, if Anekin was so well known on Tattoine, do they try and hide
Luke there? What is that all about? Aren't there billions of
star systems? Sometimes it seems like there are only about six.


The last thing that is interesting, in view of what I wrote a couple
of weeks ago, is how *American* everything is. The Queen of Naboo is
elected - well fine - but why for two terms? Answer, boys and girls,
is because that's what the Americans do.

And the evil Trade Federation - the guys that are trying to destroy
Freedom and Democracy by trading them to death and, presumably,
bombing Pearl Harbour, still look like stereotyped Japanese.
But at least we know where Coruscant is - it's the USA. The
other places they might go are deserts, jungles, or Switzerland.
And they are all lawless places far from civilisation.

Perhaps it's just me.

But all moans aside, my impression is that this may be one of the
better ones of the series. I can see myself saying to my grandchildren
"yes, watch them in order by all means, but have at least two hours
of patience to get over the first one. It starts slowly."

And, of course, reminding them of how much special effects improved
during the 21st century... :-)

A good film.