Attack of the Clones is awful

Right, I forgot that Clones is considered by some to be the worst Star Wars movie. There's a case for that, so long as you don't count the Disney Trilogy as Star Wars movies, a position I endorse.

So right at the start we learn that several thousand star systems want to leave the Republic. Having pointed out in the last film that the Republic has neither a military nor a valid currency, I see their point and sympathize with them. But there's a problem. Everyone pointed out when the movie came out that the scroll says "several thousand solar systems" and there's only one solar system in the Universe because there's only one star called Sol, and it's our sun. I'm going to whine about something else. There are several thousand star systems that want to leave the Republic? I never got that sense from either this film or its sequel. The clone army is made up of two hundred thousand clones, with "another million well on the way." That's not enough to conquer one planet, let alone several thousand star systems. Are these clones or Astartes? You have 1.2 million clones, that's nice. For comparison's sake, almost twice that number were fielded in WWII. Oh, sorry, did I say that was the total number across all theaters? Oops, I meant that was the number of Japanese troops. Oh, sorry, did I say the Japanese had 2.2 million troops? Oops, I meant that's how many of their troops died. And I assume they had some left over at the end, because the USA still hasn't run out of purple hearts we'd ordered up for Operation Downfall. Operation Downfall wound up not happening because Hiroshima and Nagasaki wound up not existing instead. Hey, you know how many people died in the atomic bombings? According to the high-end estimates, over two hundred thousand people. In other words, the starting batch of clones could be taken out with two atom bombs, and the full batch could be killed twice over with conventional weapons in one theater of one planetary war. I get that writers cannot do math, but this is just egregiously wrong.

I mean, let's just do some math here. A Republic Star Destroyer has a crew of 7,400. I assume it's crewed by clones, because we never hear anything about complementing the clone army with volunteers or conscripts. Two hundred thousand clones could crew twenty-seven star destroyers. I'll be generous and assume that "crew" includes "ground troops," which any competent general knows you need if you're going to occupy enemy territory. Let's assume that "several thousand" star systems means "five thousand" star systems, and that each star system has 1.5 habitable worlds. That's 7,500 planets and/or moons, which you plan on conquering with 27 star destroyers. On, wait, you have another million clones incoming. Okay, 1,200,000/7,400= 162 and change. I'm sorry, but if 162 Star Destroyers can conquer 7,500 planets, I'm forced to assume that the Death Star was some sort of tax scam because there's no way the Empire would actually need to build one. On the other hand, maybe they built the Death Star because they'd rather destroy planets than invade them. 

I understand that the writers are really just trying to give us something to entertain us while we stuff our faces with popcorn, and aren't really worried about any lunatic doing an in-depth review of a sci-fi blockbuster for scientific accuracy, but this is the setup of the next two films we're talking about here, and it is stupid. Lucas wanted the Confederacy to be a big enough threat to warrant Palpatine seizing dictatorial powers, because that sort of thing never happens in asymmetric warfare. Furthermore, the galaxy is made up of 3.2 million habitable systems. So a few thousand is still an asymmetric threat, it's just now the scale makes even less sense.

I don't want to do too much of this, but how about "hey, that cult that we defeated thousands of years ago is back and we need to do blood tests on everyone to screen for medi-chlorians and find out who's a Sith." And there's a ruckus about civil liberties and whatnot, but Palpatine shepherds through a piece of legislation. And then, when they start doing blood tests, they don't find the Sith, but they do find that a whole lot of people are clones. And they don't know what's up with that, and the clones are viewed with increasing suspicion, paranoia, and hostility, until an incident happens and you have the Clone Wars. And Palpatine seizes even more power. Doesn't that make more sense?

No, instead we have two armies made up of entirely disposable troops, both funded out of thin air, neither of which seems competent enough to beat the other. "This is not really a good backdrop for people willingly surrendering their rights." -a blogger living in America in 2018.

And by the way: Palpatine's plan here is to create chaos and get the Senate to give the Chancellor more power, because he can't deal with it under the status quo. Palpatine's plan in the first film was to create chaos and get the Senate to kick out the current Chancellor, because he couldn't deal with it under the status quo. Just go ponder that one for a minute.

Padme's coming to the Senate to cast a vote against the Military Creation Act. Passing over the question of why, in this super-advanced society that they have, queens-turned-senators can't vote via hologram from another planet, let's get to the second big problem with the film, THE CAMERA PANS UP INSTEAD OF DOWN HOW DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE YOU. (In reality, this is the most innovation we're going to get in a Star Wars film until Rogue One junks the crawl entirely. It's like putting the gunbarrel at the end of Quantum of Solace, which may or may not be a perfect example here.)

Padme's ship blows up. Fortunately, in addition to being a former elected queen and current senator, Padme is also a pilot, so she flew there herself. Honestly I feel like this was just a gimmick to get R2 in this movie. Her cyclops bodyguard (gee, I hope there aren't any threats standing just a little to his left) tells her that "this vote is very important." Oh. Thank you.

Palpatine is holding a meeting with the Space Samurai, because he "wants" them to be his army if the Confederacy secedes. Jedi Master Samuel L. Jackson tells him no, because there aren't enough of them. We also discover that Yoda was murdered and replaced by a clone, bred from the same stock as Jar Jar Abrams, who then presumably went back in time and murdered and replaced Yoda in Episode I as well.

Padme enters and everyone's happy she's alive. That's nice, but why do they care? Yoda says "Seeing you alive brings warm feelings to my heart," which must be his only line in this film that's not backwards, but I'm pretty sure he exchanged exactly zero lines with her in the previous film. And the previous film was set ten years ago. It's like the script Force told Yoda that Padme is an important character that he's supposed to care about.

Padme thinks Count Dracula was behind the assassination attempt. The title crawl said he was "mysterious," but here the dickhead samurai says that he's a "political idealist" and "not a murderer." Jedi Master Jackson says that Dracula was once a Jedi and that assassination is "not in his character." So is he "mysterious," as the title crawl says, or is he actually a very well-known quantity? I listened to George's commentary on the film in preparation for this post (most of it was the effects team patting themselves on the back, and Lucas pronouncing "Dooku" as "dough-KOO" when all the characters in the film he directed pronounce in "DOO-coo," go figure) and from what I gathered, by "mysterious," George actually meant "ambiguous." As in, it's not supposed to be evident until fairly late in the game exactly what side Count Dracula is on and what game he's playing. And that's fair - Dickhead Samurai doesn't realize that Count Dracula has fallen to the Dark Side, because Dickhead Samurai doesn't want to believe the Dark Side exists, as I went into in my last review. This movie wants to be smarter than I've given it credit for being, but the opening crawl just keeps shooting it in the foot for me.

Hang on. The misuse of the term "solar systems," the laughably wrong scale, the contradicted statement about Count Dracula, the pan up instead of down... the title crawl is lying to us! George Lucas is a genius, giving us a piece of in-universe propaganda to start a movie about secrets and political maneuvering.

What's also genius is giving Jar Jar Abrams an appearance in this movie. Apparently he is a "representative," which suggests that the Republic has a bicameral legislature. (In the third movie, we do indeed see two domes, but nothing else ever comes of this.) Jar Jar (a Representative) ends up giving a speech before the Senate in order to give Palpatine emergency powers. All of this begs the question of why Padme is not still the hereditary queen and why Jar Jar is not the senator. Yes, Padme had to come, in person, to cast a vote against the Military Creation Act. Frankly it'd make more sense for her to have to come in person as Queen to inveigh against it. And don't tell me the Naboo wouldn't make Jar Jar their senator, when they elected a fourteen-year-old girl their queen.

Also, I skipped over this: Why does Padme, who is voting against the Military Creation Act, think Count Dracula is behind the attempt on her life? That makes zero sense. In fact, it makes the complete opposite of sense. Count Dracula is trying to break away from the Republic. He has no beef with her, personally. We later learn that he is ultimately behind the attack because Hideki Gunray wants Padme's head, and that's a motivation that does make sense, because Padme thoroughly humiliated Hideki Gunray and he wants revenge. As far as the movie tells us, Padme has never met Count Dracula, and he doesn't know her from Eve. She just mentions his name so, I guess, they can get some exposition in about this character who won't appear for another hour.

And this is my first real gripe with the film. The problem with the size of the Confederacy and the clone army I started this review with could be solved with a couple of lines of ADR; that's not a major problem. What is a major problem is the way Count Dracula was handled. And I don't just mean the criminal under-use of Sir Christopher Lee. You're hot off The Phantom Menace, where everyone agrees that Darth Maul was one of the best things in it, so that's something you absolutely have to top this time. I know, let's have our villain show up for only a few scenes at the end of the film, act really impressive, and exit really anticlimactically! Sorry, George, it's not 1962.

I really don't want to do too much of this, but if I were writing Attack of the Clones, I would have gone from the explosion on the landing platform to Count Dracula giving a speech to the Senate about why he turned his back on the Jedi Order and why he's turning his back on them. Then on his way out, he crosses paths with Amygdala and tells her he heard about the assassination attempt and he's very grateful she survived. She wonders why someone who hates the Republic so much would care about one of its senators and he replies that the Republic needs voices of reason like her. This would a) give him a few character beats right off the bat and b) give us an actual "okay, he's a bad guy" moment later on when he's talking to Hideki Gunray about how Gunray wants Amygdala's head on a plate. Then, when Padme goes up to see Palpatine, c) her line about suspecting Count Dracula would actually make sense, since how could he have heard about the assassination attempt so quickly? (The Jedi could just brush this off with "he's Force sensitive.") I realize that one big objection to my idea is that people were so turned off by "Space C-Span" from the previous film, but come on, imagine Christopher Lee's voice booming across that massive chamber and tell me you're not sorry it doesn't exist.

(Upon further research, I have learned that "Dooku" is apparently derived from the Japanese word for poison. If so, it would be pronounced closer to Lucas's pronunciation than the one given by the cast. I have also learned that Dooku went through about eighteen quintillion versions before they cast Christopher Lee, which might explain why he's not very well fleshed out.)

Anyway, Palpatine suggests that Anakin Skywalker be Padme's new bodyguard, and here's our movie plot. Obi-Wan will investigate who was trying to kill Padme, while Anakin guards her body. But Obi-Wan doesn't want to investigate at first, mostly because we have to have Anakin looking like a hot-headed, emotionally insecure nerd, and once again I am immensely grateful that we don't have The Actor Adam Driver trying to scowl at the camera here.

So Anakin makes an ass out of himself in front of the girl of his dreams, thus making him the most relatable character in any Star Wars movie ever. No, wait, first we have a quick scene in an elevator to establish that Anakin and Obi-Wan are, all future interactions notwithstanding, friends. I listened to the commentary so you don't have to: Lucas added this scene late for the exact reason I gave in the previous sentence. Their "friendship" established, Anakin makes an ass out of himself in front of the girl of his dreams.

Now, there are things that work with the love story here, and things that don't work. Anakin has grown up surrounded by Jedi who obviously never taught him how to date a woman. So his unrelenting awkwardness and awkward relentlessness suit his character very well. The problem is on Padme's end. That young Anakin was smitten with Padme back in Episode I was obvious, but it never looked like she was all that taken with him. But we suddenly learn towards the end that yeah, Padme has feelings for him too, I guess. Okay. Where did those feelings come from? I have a theory. But that is, essentially, the love story, and having summarized it here, I'm mostly ignoring Romeo and Juliet until they get to Tatooine.

Well anyway, there is another assassination attempt, primarily because it's been ten minutes and we need an action sequence. Also to get Obi-Wan fully on-board with the whole "investigate who's trying to kill Padme" thing, which he's not in his first scene because we need some early tension with Anakin.

I rationalized in the previous film that Darth Palpatine uses incompetent proxies because he doesn't want them to actually, you know, win. But let's go through this. Palpatine is using Anakin's love for Padme to seduce him to the Dark Side, so he needs Padme to be alive (for now). But Palpatine's lackey Count Dracula is setting up the Separatists and he wants the Trade Federation to join in. The Trade Federation wants Padme's head on a spike in return. So Count Dracula hires Jango Fett to kill Padme, and Jango Fett hires a Disposable Bounty Hunter Who Is Not Jango Fett to do the job for him. The RLM review went through all the smarter ways to try to kill Padme, so I'm not going to rehash it. We got an action scene that leads back to the Disposable Bounty Hunter Who Is Not Jango Fett because the script required it. All we got out of it was the Kamino Saberdarrrrrrrrt, which could just as easily have been a Kamino Warhead Fragment from whatever blew up Padme's ship, and we could have skipped this entire sequence.

I will briefly cut over to Anakin and Padme at this point, because the droid cook on their ship being an anti-droid bigot is, frankly, hilarious. But I also want to point out yet another plot hole. There's a scene when they depart that establishes that Padme is still using a decoy, right? But she has Jar Jar act in her stead in the Senate. So from the public's perspective, is she on vacation or not? If she's not on vacation, why is Jar Jar acting in her stead? If she is on vacation, wouldn't an assassin look for her on Naboo? (In the deleted scenes, it's even worse, because she literally visits her family.) And what is it, anyway, with people thinking that they're hiding by living with their relatives? Because this won't be the last time the Jedi decide it's a brilliant idea (although at least with Luke, they have the advantage of Vader not knowing that Luke exists).

Right, Obi-Wan needs to get information, so it's time to introduce a scoundrel character. No, not Baby Han Solo. That would have been too ridiculous even for George. So, Dexter Jettster. The CGI is good for its day - a recurring problem throughout the prequels is that while the characters look real enough, they're rarely (at least to my eyes) composited into the scene well. And I don't mean that the shadows are wrong or anything, it's just that I know I'm looking at a fake thing, and no matter how well-made the fake thing looks, I know it's a fake thing and not really there.

But let's compare this scene to the scene at the beginning of The Farce Awakens where Poe Solo goes to visit Max von Sydow. In both cases, we have the deuteragonist visiting a one-scene character who gives them an important piece of information that sets the plot of the film in motion. Now you may disagree, but I think the scene in II is much better than the scene in VII. The relationship between the characters is established much better (Dex knows Obi-Wan from some adventure; Max and Poe may or may not know each other at all); the source of the information that the one-scene character imparts to the deuteragonist is much clearer (Dex happened by Kamino in his scoundrel days; Max, um, found the map when he was cleaning out his basement); and, frankly, Dex has personality, whereas Max is just a special guest star.

I would also like to point out that this sequence is an example of good editing by George Lucas. There's a deleted scene where Obi-Wan has the dart analyzed by a robot at the Jedi Temple. It's completely superfluous because Obi-Wan mentions running an analysis at Dex's diner. Lucas was 100% correct to cut that scene out. Well done, George!

Obi-Wan returns to the Jedi Library, where a snooty librarian tells him that his information must be wrong. Again, the Prequel Jedi all have Rey's staff up their butts and got what they deserved. Except Yoda. Yoda does not have a stick up his butt, but he deserves what he got because he butchered the English language.

Also in the library, there were a few deleted lines about Count Dracula, and this time George was wrong to cut them. I still don't know anything about this guy. Say what you will about the Space Toads, we knew who they were and what they wanted. We don't know anything concrete about Count Dracula and we have no idea what he's actually like or what he's trying to do.

This is, to me, one of the more frustrating things about the film. For all its faults, The Phantom Menace at least tried to engage in some worldbuilding. This film says, "yeah, there's this order of Space Samurai Monks who are the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. By the way, twenty of them have defected over the years, and one of those defectors is the bad guy of this film. We will spend exactly zero time discussing the implications of what is for all intents and purposes a Space Ronin." Like, what do ex-Jedi normally do? What does an onmipotent being who's not locked up in a space monastery do in his spare time? Do they go off and meditate? Do they involve themselves more directly in galactic affairs? Do any of them become mercenaries or brigands? Has the Jedi Order ever had to send someone to stop a rogue Jedi? What about the political fallout?

So anyway, Yoda gets a student to tell Obi-Wan that obviously somebody erased a planet from the map in the Jedi archives. Why Obi-Wan never checked with the Cartography Guild or whatever is a mystery. Perhaps the Jedi Temple's map of the galaxy is the only copy of any galactic map on Coruscant. No, that sounds stupid. Anyway, there's a known historical fact that was somehow successfully purged from every database in the universe, apparently.

So Obi-Wan finally jets off to Kimono. He's met by a type of alien he's never seen before, who tells him that they've been expecting him. Apparently, a Jedi Master who died ten years ago ordered up a clone army before he died. Lucas's commentary promises that this will be followed up on in the next film. Anyway, there's a mystery army out here, all of which was cloned from one bounty hunter.

There are two things we have to discuss here: Boba Fett's origin, and using a bounty hunter as a template for the clones. According to Lucas's commentary, Boba was always a renegade stormtrooper. (But then, according to Lucas, Vader was always Luke's father, and that simply was not true until the second draft of Empire.) Well, okay, I guess. I assumed Boba was a mysterious figure, but any imperial officer who's been around for 20 years will recognize his voice as every original-generation clone trooper. So... lame.

Now. Why would you clone a bounty hunter for your clone army? Because he's physically fit? You can genetically engineer these clones to grow faster, you can make them have more efficient muscles. His natural instincts? His natural instincts would tend towards lone-wolf bounty hunting, not any sort of chain of command or squad tactics. This guy is basically a one-man army, sure, but he's a one-man sociopath army.

The only explanation I can think of is that Palpatine wants to have an army of sociopaths that he can then discard because they're, um, sociopaths, so he can implement universal conscription and bend the galaxy to his will. People have a lot more time on their hands to organize a resistance if they don't have to be up at 5 for a barracks inspection. Just saying. That would explain why the OT stormtroopers don't sound like Jango Fett, which the movies don't bother doing.

So Obi-Wan goes to talk to Django DNA-chain-sequenced (I promise not to do that again). I guess George wanted the hero and the villain to meet face-to-face. Sidebar: between Jango and Arrow's incarnation of Deathstroke, I now have New Zealand accents inexorably linked to utter badassitude. But back to the film. Jango says he was recruited by a man named Tyranus. We will later learn that Tyranus is Count Dooku. Several Jedi, including Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu, will see Jango Fett, the template for the clone army, fighting alongside the Separatists. Not once (that we see) does any Jedi wonder why the template for the clone army might be fighting against the clone army, an army that, I remind you, came out of nowhere. The Jedi are never suspicious of the clones, and so they can easily be killed by the clones at the conclusion of the war. This is stupid.

It seems to me like Palpatine could have saved a lot of time by tricking all of his opponents into joining the Separatists, getting the Jedi to go to Geonosis, getting all the Jedi killed on Geonosis, and then napalming the planet from orbit with his clone troopers while everyone disloyal to him is on the planet.

Well, the Jedi ask Obi-Wan to bring in Jango Fett. Obi-Wan, the patient, rational Jedi, decides to rush Jango on the landing platform. Obi-Wan ends up going off the platform, which probably wouldn't have happened if Force Flight was a real thing. Guess it's not. Although I suppose I do have to point out that Star Wars is hardly consistent in portraying what the Force can and cannot do. For example, there's no reason I can see why Obi-Wan couldn't have just Force Levitated Jango. But George wants to see a Jedi get his butt kicked by a mere mortal, so that's what we get to watch. And again, this should set off some alarm bells: "Hey, the guy who's the template for the clone army can go toe-to-toe with a Jedi. Should we be worried about the clones?" "Nah."

Now we re-join the Romeo and Juliet plotline. Anakin has gone back to Tatooine because he dreamed that his mother was in trouble. Okay. This is happening because Anakin needs to lose someone close to him, so that he can open himself to the Dark Side, and so that there can be some pathos in the next film when Anakin gets scared of losing another person who is close to him. There's nothing totally wrong with this scene from a Watsonian standpoint, but frankly, George is leaving too much ground to cover in the third film. I almost feel like Anakin should have fallen at the end of II, he should have done something that was unquestionably evil in pursuit of a Jedi ideal, and spent the first part of III trying to hide the fact that he'd fallen from his Jedi friends. And then Palpatine reveals that Anakin is not alone, and Palps can provide Anakin a way out. To me, that would make Anakin more human and relatable. Instead, George spends two films having Anakin falter on his way to becoming the hero he is at the start of III - the first twenty minutes of III should have, frankly, been the last twenty minutes of II - so that George can knock him down and put him in the suit in III. If it had been up to me, I'd have fixed the script of II to make Anakin more heroic, made that movie I, except for the bit with Anakin's mother, which I would have kept in II, and gone directly from that to him killing Dooku and being knighted Darth Vader. There's great tragedy in the fall of a noble hero, but Anakin Skywalker was never allowed to be that. But I'm rambling.

Aside from not being very good/smart from a macro-plotting perspective, there's nothing inherently offensive with this subplot. It's in Anakin's character to go find his mother and slaughter a bunch of Space Arabs. It's in Padme's character (such as it is, and what there is of it) to tag along and offer a shoulder to cry on. It's something that had to happen in this bloated mess of a filler film.

Obi-Wan puts a tracker (Rian) on Jango's ship so he can track (Rian) Jango through hyperspace (Rian). They arrive at a rock planet called Geo-Knossos. How. Frakking. Clever.

Okay, I'm going to actually praise the movie for a moment here. I love the space mines that mute all the sound for a second (Rian). I love that the music doesn't kick in until late in this sequence. I love that Bobby Fed learns from the "enemy hiding on the back of something" trick Obi-Wan uses here so that Han Solo doesn't trick him in Empire. It's like someone else wrote and directed this one sequence, because it doesn't belong in a film this awful.

Another thing that doesn't belong in a film this awful is the soundtrack. To be frank, the Anakin/Padme love theme is basically tied with the sparsely-used "Luke and Leia" theme from Jedi as far as the best piece of music in a Star Wars film. This is an example of what I call the Moonraker Rule, which states that the best soundtrack in a series will be found in one of the worst films in that series. (I could also make a Skyfall Rule, which states that the best cinematography in a series will also be found in one of the worst films in that series. DON'T @ ME, SCUFFLE IS TERRIBLE. Or I could call it the Last Jedi Rule.)

So Anakin is standing outside the Lars farm, ready to go find his mother. Padme comes up and they exchange some words. This scene is framed really neat, with their shadows cast on the hut and all, but did you forget that Tatooine has two suns? Because it sure looks like George did.

Obi-Wan lands on Geo-Knossos and finally encounters Darth Dracula. After an entire film worth of build-up for the big threat to replace Darth Maul, we get... Christopher Lee as Mavic Chen.

And he's... talking about space politics. And treaties.

Sigh.

Anakin brings a corpse home and whines.

Sigh.

Count Dracula meets Obi-Wan in the containment cell. I really wish this was Dooku's first scene, because we're actually given a few character beats to work with. The problem is, because we saw him pretty much tell Hideki Gunray he was going to get Padme's head on plate, we know that he's a bad guy already. But what if Obi-Wan hadn't seen him? What if Obi-Wan actually thought he could get through to him, while Dooku was trying to convince Obi-Wan that the Republic was corrupt and beyond saving? I find myself wishing that Dooku wasn't a Sith Lord at all, just a "fallen" Jedi. And Anakin's like "oh, that worked out for him, I can leave the Jedi Order too." But no.

I know this scene was added late, but it doesn't make any sense. Dooku is a Sith Lord, so why's he warning Obi-Wan about the Sith? It's stupid. Is he actually trying to get Obi-Wan to leave the Jedi Order? That kind of makes sense, given that he's Obi's Jedi grandfather, so to speak.

Okay, while this stupidity is going on, Anakin and Padme have picked up Obi-Wan's distress signal, so they're going to Geo-Knossos to rescue him. They bring 3PO because the Force marketing team demanded it. Meanwhile, the Jedi tell the Chancellor about the clone army, and there's a discussion about how to get authorization to use it. Jar Jar Abrams is guilted into giving Palpatine "emergency powers." Which he can do, I guess. I mean, we don't need a fifty-minute backstory on the minutiae of how to amend the galactic constitution. Yoda is going to Kamino to get the clones. Mace is going to send "what fighters we have" to Geo-Knossos.

Okay... why not kill all the Jedi now? And have the clones be the new peacekeepers of the Republic? I mean, that's Palpatine's end goal, right? No, we have to drag this crap out for one more film. But really, all the Jedi who can fight will be on Geo-Knossos. You know what must be done.

Anakin and Padme run through a video game obstacle course and get captured. Then Padme confesses that she's in love with Anakin, and they're carted out into the arena. Yes, the Separatists are going to execute a Republic Senator by feeding her to monsters. So I guess everybody wants a war? Like, okay, Hideki Gunray wants Padme dead, because he's an obtuse scapegoat for everything. And Count Dracula wants a war because he is Sidious's puppet. But, like, none of the other Separatists are thinking "boy, this could backfire" oh forget it.

And I have nothing bad to say about the next five or so minutes. Yes, Padme's wardrobe malfunction is improbable and exploitative. But we get to watch Jedi without their lightsabers. I would also like to point out that at no point does any Jedi attempt to Force Mary Poppins out of the arena, Rian.

Mace Jackson appears, as do a bunch of Jedi. Well, okay. Obi-Wan was one Jedi, and he got caught. But I guess all the guards had the day off today, because it was Watch Us Execute A Frickin' Republic Senator Day.

Jango Fett uses a flamethrower on Mace Jackson, which begs three questions. One, where does he keep the fuel for it? In The Farce Awakens we see flamethrower-toting stormtroopers with big tanks on their backs and I cannot believe I just cited that garbage as an authoritative Star Wars text. Fornicate it, Jango keeps his flamethrower fuel in his TARDIS, right next to his jetpack fuel. Second question: why does nobody else ever try to kill a Jedi with a flamethrower? Like, these are the Separatists, right? They know that there's going to be a war with the Jedi? None of their robots have flamethrowers? It's just "pour unholy amounts of laserbeams at them until they die." Grr. Three: why doesn't Jango try this trick a minute later when Mace kills him?

During this sequence, we also have 3PO's head on a battle droid body, and a battle droid head on 3PO's body. It is extremely unlikely that either robot could function in that state. And, I thought the battle droids were controlled by a Trade Federation signal? Where is that signal received? Is it in the battle droid body? If so, why is the battle droid head on 3PO's body fighting on the Separatist side? If it's in the battle droid head, why is 3PO's head on the battle droid body fighting on the Separatist side? Like, we know from Empire that 3PO's "brain" is in his head, so I do not understand why 3PO can't control the body his head is stuck on.

Then Yoda shows up with the clones. Everyone gets in the gunships, leaving Boba Fett to mourn his father/primogenitor. Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme end up chasing Count Dracula. (Anakin helps destroy a ship, which might be where the "cunning warrior" line in IV comes from. Box checked!) Anakin tells the clone pilot to shoot Dracula down, and the clone pilot says they can't because they're out of rockets. Even though the gunship has lasers. This isn't a plot hole - the clones are clearly programmed to allow Dracula to escape so that the Clone Wars can actually be a thing - but neither Anakin or Obi-Wan call him on it, and that is a plot hole.

Then Padme falls out of a convenient door. Anakin tells the pilot to take the ship down. Obi-Wan says no, they have to go chase Dracula. I guess they don't have a way of tracking him, Rian. He says Anakin will be expelled from the Jedi Order and... um, get a bust of his head in the library, I guess. Yeah, that's not a very convincing threat. Obi-Wan gets Anakin to come to his senses when he points out that Padme is now covered in sand, which Anakin was previously established as hating.

Anyway, Anakin and Obi-Wan confront Dooku in his hangar. Then Anakin foolishly rushes at Dooku. It ends poorly. This allows a stuntman with Christopher Lee's head compugrafted on to fight Obi-Wan and Anakin one at a time. The stuntman defeats them both. Yoda comes in and does his shtick, and Dooku drops a thing on Anakin and Obi-Wan. Yoda takes his sweet time moving it, so Dooku escapes. Hey Yoda, I thought size matters not? Why not flick that thing away like you did your walking stick? No? Okay.

Dooku meets Sidious, confirming that they have been in league the entire time and begging the question of why Dooku wanted to warn Obi-Wan about Sidious. The Jedi Council confers. And then we get the bets part of the movie, no, not the ending, the bit that comes immediately before. Lucas has it in his head that the movies should all end with a scene that doesn't have any dialogue (never mind that Empire, unambiguously the best Star Wars film, really doesn't. Like, yeah, the film runs on for another thirty seconds after the dialogue runs out, but it's still the same scene). Here it actually works because of John Williams's music and the fact that we have zero clunky dialogue to work with.

Fin.

Having said all that, this film is still preferable to the Disney Trilogy. There's no question in my mind about this. Part of that is because of real-world events. Yes, the prequels could have been better, but we have stuff like the Clone Wars shows to improve around the edges. And at the end of the day, we still got what we wanted from the prequels, which was seeing Anakin go into the suit and become Darth Vader.

What we wanted from the sequels was a reunion. We wanted to see Luke, Han, and Leia thirty years on. We wanted to see the Original Trinity back together again one last time. We didn't get that. Now we can never get that. It is possible that, in the future, the Prequel Trilogy will be remade with a better director and a script doctor. I'm not saying it should be done, only that it is more likely than not. The characters will be recast again, as they were in the nineties. We accepted that then, and we'll accept that again.

But the Sequel Trilogy? There would be no point. Carrie Fisher is gone. They would have to recast those characters, but Disney has contorted those characters to the point of unreconizability. What would be the point? Why have new actors parade around pretending to be Luke, Han, and Leia when they're manifestly not?