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Review: Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones
Much of the cast from Menace is back. Unfortunately none of the major actors manage to pull of a standout performance. Anakin is little improved from menace. I know he's supposed to be full of anger and angst, but mostly he just comes off as constipated and bitchy. Amidala seems to be taking a bit of a nap. Their romantic scenes together are the Jar Jar binks scenes of this movie: It just pauses the action, and the acting is so bad that the movie stalls until something interesting happened.
The rest of the cast is much better. Ewan McGregor has finally grabbed onto the role of Obi Wan. He's a bit preachy, but it works. Samuel L Jackson is the badass Jedi we want him to be. Senator Palpatine is pretty much the same guy as last time around. And Dooku, the flick's major bad guy is pretty excellent too. Its nice having villians with faces since they actually get to act a bit. The Fett family felt a little forced, but it was interesting.
Most notable this time around is the CGI characters. Episode I of course had Jar Jar, Watto, and many other CG chars, but Menace is literally crammed full of them. And the technology and animators have improved substantially since the last showing. No longer do they stick out like sore thumbs- now they merely stick out like a thumb with a little bit of a sliver. Yoda is of course the most important of the CG chars- everyone probably remembers the horrible animation on his one CG scene in Menance, but in Clones he is CG all the way. This is a huge deal since unlike most of the CG chars we've seen so far, this one works almost perfectly. There are a couple of shots where it doesn't seem quite right... but those are the exception, and not the rule.
What I'm saying is that CG characters have finally come into their own. In Menace, all I could think about is the fact that they were CG. The fact that they didn't looke quite right. This time around they are just part of the show. Another cast member delivering mediocre dialog. Ironically enough, several of the CG chars outshine their human counterparts.
The movie as a whole looks great. Many of the costumes look a lot more like Star Wars. From the clone army, to Amidala wearing a white costume for the last act, things just look like I would expect them to. We get to see some sets familiar from A New Hope as well as Menace, and that all really contributes to making the movie feel like a Star Wars flick. It also helps that the CG has continued to improve.
I'd also like to note that I didn't get to see it on the digital screen. I plan on seeing it digital in the next week or 2... I figured I'd see it at the local theater and make sure it didn't suck before I bothered driving to Southfield to see it in full digital splendor.
The rest of the review will focus a little more on plot. You've been warned. The story is of course largely a love story. There has been a threat on Amidala's life, and her old friends Anakin and Obi-Wan have been assigned by the Jedi Council to protect her. Investigating the asassination attempt leads Obi-Wan to a far away planet where he discovered a clone army being constructed, and a conspiracy to suppress information about it. Anakin and Amidala spend time together and get closer through a series of awkward pseudo romantic scenes where they both look like they would rather have been in different movies. Their utter lack of chemistry is almost amusing.
Obi-Wan gets into some smack, and so Anakin and Amidala go to rescue him, only to end up compounding the level of smack around for the good guys. Meanwhile the Senate does its thing and a major shift in power occurs. We learn who is responsible for the clone army, and what the plan for it is.
The last hour of Clones is the Payoff. A battle worthy of the original trilogy. I'm not going to go into it becuase that might spoil it, but let make the following points. First, we finally have enough light saber action. The massive jedi fight that we all knew these prequels could offer us. And my god was it ever worth the wait. But we also have Mace Windu kicking ass, and at long last, Yoda gets his chance to prove why he is so highly regarded.
The parallels to other movies in the SW Series, especially Empire Strikes Back are many. I'm avoiding mentioning them here, but I will say that the film tries to end on a dark note which is cool.
The packed theater that I saw this really seemed to feel the same way as me. A few awkward laughs during the romance scenes- even snickers during the sound-of-music picnic sequence. But when the final battles came around there were cheers around.
And that really sums it up. It took 3.5 hours of prequel film to get us to the payoff. For some it might not have been worth the wait... but for me, I'm just happy to finally to see most of what was promised delievered. And I'm reinvigorated towards Star Wars. If Episode III can pick up where II left off, III should finally be the Star Wars Prequel that we've been waiting for.
Of all the 8 and 9 year olds who will be able to see the series as a whole at nearly the same time, without having to accrue 20 years of cynicism, rose-colored retrospection and inflated expectations between viewing the older and newer trilogies. My feelings regarding the movies have been tempered and altered so severely by time that to expect "as good or better than ESB" (a common refrain in fandom) is simply ridiculous, due to the one thing Lucas cannot possibly do: make me an 9-year old again.
In what scene in Menace was Yoda CG?
Does anybody know where I can find a list of digital theatres presenting the film?
...for me has always been the change from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. It seems odd on the surface, but the most interesting element of the first trilogy was a transition that occurred years before.
It's just kind of fascinating. How does someone become what they've sworn to oppose? From Obi-Wan's comments in the original trilogy, you see a picture of Anakin as a good friend, a decent guy who falls from grace and becomes a great force for evil (no pun intended). Sure, the "redemption" at the end of RotJ is good, but we want to see the fall. =)
Even before seeing Episode I, my money was on Episode III to be what I was really waiting for. I and II are important to set these things up--I'll know more when I catch the 10:40 showing tonight--but the real story is going to be in Ep3.
How to bring about such a dark (Darth?) result while ending in such a way that the audiences won't hang him in effigy (or in fact) is something that I hope Lucas can pull off.
Somebody said to me that George should just cut together a 45-minute special effects feature (like the Terminator 3D ride at Universal Studios) and call it what it is; a CGI ride.
Stop trying to shove this square peg into the round hole of drama and cinema; that's not what it is any more. This is not about human drama and character and emotion any more than the Bond films are about international politics. The action scenes don't dazzle because they're charged with emotion for the characters; they dazzle because of the technology, the pretty lights.
That's not a bad thing; I'm a sucker for fireworks. But save us the time; don't try to force awkward romance scenes, cobbled together from scenes from other movies into your effects feature. Do what you do best, George. Give us the ride and save us the hour and a half of plot setup.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
Two words... Yoda, lightsaber :)
In the spoon, there is no Soviet Russia!
And it looks good. Given the amazing special effects and storyline I expect the MPAA will be able to use the profits to buy off 2-3 more congressmen and take away computers just a little bit faster. It's a good thing that just about everybody on /. is a hypocrite because on Monday we can all come back here and bitch about how the **AA has too much money and how they're trying to take away freedom after we just spent a weekend gorging ourselves on the latest crap they flung up against the wall to squeeze a little more money out of us. Well folx. if you see this movie, you deserve to not have any computers. Have a nice day.
And yes I *DO* have a lot of karma to burn, and no I *DON'T* care so mod me down you little hypocrite for hitting a little too close to home. You know I'm right.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Ugh. Thank you George Lucas for jumping on Hollywood's nipple bandwagon.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
What kills me about the entire discussion of SW is everyone's complaining about the dialogue and plot. In no case (with the possible exception of SW:TESB) was the plot all that great or the dialogue all that good. And the only reason people forgive and forget with Empire is because it was the 2nd scene - okay movie - and bad stuff happens to the characters or you have no real drama.
Lucas's dialogue is as bad as about any B movie you can find. But he has a fantastic mind for imagery and setting. His art directors have always made StarWars what it is - Eye Candy. Up until Midichlorians, he even made up some pretty cool names, technological ideas and drew from the coolest philosophical ideals.
So, my point? Why do people keep going back with these unbelievable expectations? The SW franchise (and let's get this straight, that's EXACTLY what it is) has always had the pleasure of good actors spewing out camp dialogue while dealing with herky-jerky plot moves. Can you blame them for crap acting? Sure... outside of some scenes in Episode IV, Mark H. couldn't act his way out of a bag. But They do bring life to the ideas and that's all that matters
Most people go to Star Wars with one thing in mind: Special Effects. From Light Sabers to Space Ships and more recently CGI actors and settings, we get a grand sense of Sci-Fi "feel". If you came to see an actual love story or anything more than a weakly fleshed out backplot you weren't thinking.
Go to Star Wars to see the kick ass fighting scenes, the action, the special effects, and the amazing artwork. I generally agree with Ebert on most stuff, and yes, all the 'Wars movies could and should have been better. But if a card carrying Jedi came around, we'd all want to join up. 'Nuff Said!
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. -Samuel Johns
i haven't seen it yet. what makes it so bad? and just for perspective, how much did you like any of the star wars series? i find that makes a difference.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
Well, it just wasn't very dramatic. Star Wars was about saving a princess from terrible danger and blowing up a doomsday weapon to save a planet.
Phantom Menace was about... a trade dispute?
I mean, I know that the trade dispute let Palpatine gain power, which leads to all the events in the other movies, but still... It wasn't that gripping.
There were a few things to like, but way more things to dislike about this film.
Actually, I'm starting to like "The Phantom Menance" after watching this. Seriously. Darth Maul was a MUCH better badass badguy they Dooku, and I liked the saber fight with Maul much better.
Things to like:
Mace Windu - Jackson was the only "Cool" part of the movie.
A few of the visual effects, especially the giant Ball shaped ship falling from the sky.
Things to dislike:
Yodas saber work - I laughed.
Obi Won and Anakin getting beat so quickly by Dooku.
Car Chase scene - Goofy Blade Runner ripoff.
The Love Story.
What really made me NOT like the film was that I felt it was a big stall. Nothing really seemed to happen. Anakin was not a bad guy, didn't go BAD at all...christ, a WHOLE lot of stuff has to happen in the next movie.
I sure wish Lucas would have added some new story arc, something new to surprise us. It's not to interesting watching Anakin, Dooku and Obi Wan fighting when you know there is NO WAY either Obi Wan or Anakin are going to die.
The interesting thing about this -- and what I haven't heard many people talking about is this: that until Lucas really delivers the quintessential Star Wars film -- hopefully in 2005 -- he's not doing any favors for the "film to digital" movement in Hollywood and around the world.
I say all this because Lucas insists that digital is the wave of the future -- digital "film" and digital "projection" -- and Lucas is clearly at the forefront of the movement. And that's fine. But until Lucas can deliver a single potent film -- shot digitally, edited digitally, and projected digitally -- he's actually hurting the "100% digital" movement.
I'm sure folks disagree -- and I'd be curious to hear counter-arguments -- but all this struck me when I was watching an interview with Lucas not long ago where he apparently wondered why Scorsese was building huge sets for his (Scorsese's) upcoming 'Gangs of New York' film in Rome. (Scorsese recreated turn of the century lower-Manhattan in, apparently, incredible detail -- right down to authentic leaded glass windows, glass bottles, you name it. Everything, interestingly enough, was created on Fellini's old studio outside of Rome.)
Lucas's point, as I understand it, was that Scorsese was wasting his time -- and Harvey Weinstein's money. Everything Scorsese was doing could be digitally created and the actors only had to show up in a studio lined with blue screens and simple foreground props. The background and atmosphere could be digitally created. Scorsese -- to his credit -- said no way, this is the way films have been done in the past, this is the way I want to make films.
Now, perhaps it's really Scorsese that's potentially on the losing end -- because he's *still* doing it the way it was always done. But I'm not so sure about that.
I understand what Lucas is saying -- and I understand what he means -- but with the exception, perhaps, of some truly original stuff in the Matrix (which, of course, had a fantastic story), I'm not convinced that 100% digital is convincing anyone yet. It'll make pretty pictures, sure, but good stories are still needed, too, and Lucas -- despite esentially an endless supply of cash -- hasn't done it. Didn't do it with Phantom Menance and (from what I hear) hasn't done it with Attack of the Clones.
Anyway, I don't mean this as a flame. I'm just curious what other folks think about this -- the idea that if Lucas is at the forefront of all this, he's really got to be the one that proves. Otherwise it'll get there eventually, sure, but not with the speed that Lucas (and other folks) hope.
I don't get the whole point of making a clone army to begin with. Lack of diversity would make it a sitting duck for bio-attacks.
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Episode Four is the only one that can stand on its own. It doesn't need a prequel. It doesn't need a sequel. We don't need to know the history of Darth Vader or his convoluted family tree. Everything we need to know was given to us in the first ten minutes.
ESB and RotJ were great sequels, but they cannot stand on their own. Only A New Hope can claim that. And without the preknowledge that Anakin becomes Darth, TPM and AotC seem confused.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
...because there are only 323 posts on /. about it. Stupid judgical rulings get more respone than that.
We shouldn't have to wait until the fucking second or third episode to start with.
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
I'm going to wander a bit, but I think there's an important point that people are missing. People miss the context of these movies and Lucas has put a very subversive political statement in them- both in how they are made and in the story they tell.
I never quite understood the complaints from the Star Wars "fans" about Phantom Menace. It seems there's a lot of people who wanted A New Hope remade and hated tht Lucas released a movie with a different story! Jar Jar was the lightning rod for this.
But PM was a summer bubble gum movie, JUST LIKE Star Wars originally was.
Lucas has stayed true to his vision with this movie, as we move towards the period in which ANH takes place we can see how we got from PM to ANH.
This movie, shot digitally, and shown digitally, really rocks. It is a compelling argument for digital theater. Its unfortunate that the reviewer is reviewing the movie not as it was meant to be seen-- but film isn't the only issue here. When ships rumbled this morning I felt it in my legs. (Cinerama in Seattle, best theater I've ever been in.) The image was pristine the sound system THX and turned up.
The other is that this is not a Tom Clancy story. This is not a Wim Wenders story. This is not a typical movie saga-- this is Space Opera.
A lot of "fans" seem to have forgotten this. This isn't The Matrix-- they are different categories of movies. Unfortunately, there is so little Science Fiction that all Science Fiction is perceived to be the same genre.
I freely admit that I prefer the style of story and dialogue of Blade Runner and the Matrix over Star Wars-- but Lucas's does his job so well that I have to give his movies the higher marks.
Lucas is telling a Galactic sized story, and only has 270 minutes to do it in. That means each scene must convey a lot of information, and the result is tortured dialog... and even then it feels like there's a whole lot that we don't get to see.
I respect this ambition, and I accept that it means that finding a cast that can convey it is going to be difficult-- especially given the financial, and political constraints on Lucas. Remember, these movies are made outside the hollywood system and without union crews-- and I applaud that. Its the ONLY way to tell the story you want to tell.
Many "fans" seem to forget who the audience for these movies is. It isn't 35 year old computer geeks. Otherwise they wouldn't be popular. The audience is middle america who wants entertainment. And Lucas, consistently, delivers what they want.
That's why we have Jar Jar - kids love him. That's why we have a love story in this movie. (Not to mention it would be hard to conceive Luke and Leia without some love story somewhere.)
And the reason he "compromises" in this way is not just to get the big box office, but to serve his larger, ultimate goal. Notice how much politics there are in these films? There's a really subversive message. One that Marx made (before jumping to foolish conclusions) and most americans ignore, but is extremely poignant these days:
When given the chance, people will trade liberty for security.
Ben Franklin brought this up a long time ago, in a country far far away, and Lucas is making the point again, but a bit too subtly for most people to pick up on it.
Do you trade democracy for the perceived security of a clone army? Regular inspections at airports? Do you concede your inalienable right to self defense and rely on the Jedi? Notice that Amadala is a pretty self sufficient person when the going gets tough.
And when you do, ultimately, as all democracies seem want to do, trade liberty for perceived security, you get neither-- you get an empire.
As we react to being attacked by "seperatists" with increased government control over our lives, we move in the direction of the dark side- of fascism- does it need to be pointed out how similar the empire's soldiers in the first three movies looked like our Nazis? The fixation with Nazis shown in the indiana jones movies?
They do make great villains, especially visually. but there's a lot more going on here.
Hitler was freely elected in Germany. A chancellor, or senator, he was. Germans, after the defeat and Trade Federations imposition at the treaty of versailles, wanted a strong leader. One who would raise an army despite the prohibitions. Hitler was that leader. He raised an army of genetically pure "clones" with rigid behavioral conformity and turned the country into an empire.
Nobody thinks it could happen here, but difficult to see, the dark side is.
BitGeek
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Apparently someone is not a Star Wars fan. :) He even admits to not liking things about the first movies (the title screen anyway). But personally I think he's missing the big point. It's not about an amazing plot line, or the best acting ever. It's about the magic (which I know seems cliche, but bear with me).
George Lucas created a universe with the first films. In the prequels he's telling some of the history of that universe. It's a place of fantasy (not Tolkien fantasy...fantasy as in "a creation of the imaginative faculty "). It's a story you can get lost in. It's fun. And when you start getting too serious about it (like mr. i'm-unhappy-so-i'll-take-it-out-on-star-wars over here), you lose the fun and "magic" of it.
Yes, little bits of nostalgia are thrown in, but that's part of the universe. If every single movie had different characters, different aliens and different planets it wouldn't feel like one big place. It would feel like separate movies which happen to have similarities. It's all about showing that the different races interact throughout time, and not just in those rare instances. And also to introduce new elements (you can mention every planet in the galaxy in 2 hours). It allows for mystery, because you don't know everything that's out there, but you do have a sense of what some of this world is like.
And everything is supposed to relate to each other. You see Luke's future home on Tatooine because these characters are all part of a singular destiny. Some may think it's "fate", others may thing it's corny. Now we know how Luke ends up on Tatooine, and what links his family had there.
And I'll just mention a quick thing about the whole Palpatine-Sidious debate. The Jedi don't know who Sidious is. They realized his presence in Menace, but have never come in contact with him. We, as the audience, see Palpatine in both roles so we know instantly (especially if you've seen the other movies). And of course, as yoda points out in Episode I "Clouded is the Dark Side, etc." Meaning, since he's an incredibly powerful sith lord, he can conceal his presence, even across the room.
There's more I could say, but I have a final in an hour so I'll wrap this up with the following: I'll admit that I do understand where this guy is coming from. It isn't the best movie of all time. But like I said before, it's more about the magic than breaking it down into plotline, acting ability, and CG. Star Wars was great originally because it was something new. Everyone wants more of the original Star Wars trilogy, but they don't want the same old thing. It's hard to balance between making it the same, making it different, and (the real purpose) to tell a story. If this guy doesn't like this movie fine. No one's forcing him to watch it. Although people are exposed to the hype everyday, but then again they were with Spiderman, and The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings, but not as many people criticize that hype. Why? Because Star Wars is different. It's about the magic, but people try to say it's about something else. It's a story. Whether Jar Jar is used to tell it or not, the basic story is the same.
I love Star Wars. I love Attack of the Clones. It far exceeded my expectations. If you're not a Star Wars fan, then you probably wouldn't like other Star Wars movies. I wouldn't ask a 10 year old for a review of a broadway musical. It's a little out of his element. And if liking Star Wars means I'm gonna turn into an "emotionally underdeveloped adult", then fine. I'll remain a kid at heart. I have no problem with that.
Whining endlessly about the tyranny of the MPAA, then slavishly promoting its most garish products.
Screaming for boycotts, then masturbating like crazed chimps whenever a movie about time traveling robots, hobbits, or jedi knights is released.
I will no longer post relevant comments to these discussions. The site itself has become a steaming turd, a shallow parody of itself. Its editors are hypocritical corporate shills, and the readers are mindless drones.
A troll is born today!
However... Anakin's father is not Dooku but Palpatine/Darth Sidious is.
Not through a direct relationship with Shmi but through a planting of genetically-enhanced(thus explaining the midichlorian thing) sperm while she was unconscious.
Sidious needs an apprentice who will be loyal to him (Do you think he really can trust Dooku?).
Who better than a son?
It would explain why Palpatine has such a liking for Anakin and sets us up for the scene in Ep. III where Palpatine says to Anakin "Join me and we shall rule the galaxy...Yada Yada"
Palpatine may have been planning on picking him up from Tattoine himself around the time Qing-Jong found him. Why interfere when he can have the Jedi train Anakin and then switch him over to the dark side later.
Lucas always said he filmed the middle trilogy because it was the most action packed one. Now that he's rich, he can do the other two trilogies.
Of course, we know he considers then inferioir to the middle one, so obviously no one is going to be as happy about them as with the ESB, the best movie of the best trilogy of the Star Wars epic.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Anakin is little improved from menace. I know he's supposed to be full of anger and angst, but mostly he just comes off as constipated and bitchy. Amidala seems to be taking a bit of a nap. Their romantic scenes together are the Jar Jar binks scenes of this movie: It just pauses the action, and the acting is so bad that the movie stalls until something interesting happened.
The romantic parts of the movie are the best parts. They are realistically awkward, slow, and mangled. Perfect romantic relationships dont just happen and Ep2 was an excellent example of what happens when you put 2 exceptional young adults together who like each other. Another important thing about Ep2 was that the human characters looked much more PLAIN (sans outrageous costumes and makeup and CG/movie lighting) and therefore real. Anakin was played perfectly by an excellent actor and we finally got to see some Amidala nipply-goodness!
Often wrong but never in doubt.
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Everyone knows me.
I'm going to come off as a Luddite here, but so here goes....
Personally, I think there was TOO MUCH CGI in Ep 2. Too much? Why, yes. Backgrounds, scenery, characters... it was prevailant. Unfortunately, that left very little for the actors to interact with. I'd say a good 80% of the film was done with actors in greenscreen stages, and/or interacting directly with computer-generated characters. This resulted in wooden performances. (Well, that and the fact that George Lucas can't write a love story.) The actors had nobody to act *with*, or they had no scenery to help them "get into" a scene.
If anything, shooting it digitally excaberated the situation. Okay, quick lesson: one foot of 75mm film -- about 12 frames, half a second at standard 24fps -- can run for US$1000. Film gets expensive quickly! Shooting digital means you can reuse the media for dailies, and it's releatively cheap, too. And when you get to editing, you can use all sorts of super-nifty non-linear editing techniques.
But there's a reason why editing and sound mastering is an art form and neccessarilly difficult. A good editor can make a good movie *great*, or can even make a poor movie tolerable. There are reasons why mastering and editing are done in expensive rooms that look like movie theaters that have multiple, hundred-channel consoles mounted elegently in them. It's as much an art form as directing is. I think something is lost when you move away from physical film as your editing medium.
Another point: Again, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but digital will never be able to compare to 24 frames/second, siver halide film. Any 'pixelation' is, frankly, microscopic, and the halides have an infinite range of color matching. You aren't limited by the picture format, by the compression format, by the number of bits per pixel used. It's natural color. Citizen Kane would have not nearly the impact that it did if it was filmed and edited digitally.
The computer animation student in me was thrilled and ecstatic, overwhelmed and overawed by the amount of CGI in the film. (And the miligeek in me was enthralled by the big battle.) Taco's right, CGI has come a LONG way, between Final Fantasy and Episode 2. The traditionalist in me, though, was dismayed and appalled by the way the CGI simply drowned out the actors.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Very damned funny, insightful and will definitely be considered in bad taste by those who support the Empire and the decision to bomb the hell out of Hoth and/or voted for the Emperor. And that's just fine. Those types need to be assaulted by more bad taste.
Fortunately, I think there are a lot fewer of them since right after the destruction of the Death Star. But, there will always be those law and order types who'd rather see their tax dollar go to Star Destroyers instead of education.
May the Farce be with you!
Get your flamethrowers out boys.
;-)
George Lucas has set movie heroines back at least 50 years with the use of Natalie Portman in AOTC.
I know I know...you all think she's a hottie what with her exposed back in the infamous perilously draped bedsheet as dress number on the terrace scene, or the strapless black pleather dominatrix wannabe getup in the hokey fireplace festivities scene or even the white longjohns in the colliseum battle scene...once they've been conveniently slashed to reveal her tummy.
Take it from a real woman - Nat's a "nottie"
Meta-Quote "There are no jiggling breasts in space". --Carrie Fisher in 'Skywalking' quoting George Lucas's reason for mercilessly taping her breasts flat to her body for the filming of ANH.
Every second Little Miss 'I better use my only 2 talents 'cause I sure as hell can't act worth a crap' was on screen I secretly longed for Leia to swoop in and bitch slap the dumb blonde conveniently disguised as a brunette Amidala (I'm supposed to believe she's Leia's *mother*?!?! I don't think so...). Assassins kept trying to kill Amidala through out AOTC and what does she do? Change outfits, usually to something that would even have Joe Pesci's Vinnie saying a la My Cousin Vinnie 'Oh yeah Padme, you blend...not!' Here's a fashion tip: A shiny silver cape on a desert planet is about as subtle as Jennifer Lopez's Grammy Awards bathrobe in a mosque filled with Shiite Muslim clerics - nothing like the impractical outfit to remind the killers just where their target is at all times (see Kate Capshaw in Temple of Doom).
Leia Organa was and in my mind still is the only regal female character, a real Star Wars fan's princess. That Padme's now only a Senator says something (apparently even a pair of perky ones doesn't translate to a lifetime guarantee to a crown). And while we're on the subject of breasts, Carrie Fisher had to go through two and a half full movies before she was ever allowed to show a little skin and she still hooked up with Harrison Ford, Even fully clothed that relationship was damned sexy! Watching Padme half-naked and forced to keep saying 'no we really shouldn't Ani' while making cow eyes at him was beyond stupid and painful and sends the not so subtle message that George has forgotten what makes for a real heroine - the ability of a woman to stand up for herself and kick a little ass whether she's taped and covered in a white shroud and has her hair done up in to ear-covering danishes or whether she's chained half-naked to a morbidly obese slime slobbering lounge lizard.
While Leia would shove a Wookie into a stinking trash compactor to get away from imminent danger, Padme can't figure out how to crawl out of a big bucket. Where Leia would give Han Solo shit about being a money grubbing mercenary jerk, Amidala can't even convincingly defend her own politics to an escaped boy band look alike who is a cross between Wesley Crusher and any dreaded Mary Sue from any fanfic cannon you'd care to name.
And let's get to Amidala's taste in uh sullen teenagers. Hayden is certainly no James Earl Jones, he's not a Harrison, heck he's not even up to Hamill on Mark's worst day. Hayden has exactly two facial expressions: drool and pout and most of the time he doesn't know which one he should don. This poor little boy's character is saddled with the great task of becoming the menacing Darth-freaking-Vader and anytime he does something vaguely unsettling (like say committing small scale genocide to avenge a plot device...I mean his mother's death) our heroine's first instinct is to give him a cuddle?!?! Besides Anakin being ten years younger, a thousand times less smooth than the geekiest geek you can imagine, and a future mass murderer Padme all of a sudden finds Ani peachy keen and hints that she'll put out for him if he'll fight by her side when it looks like they're both going to be executed. Gag me with a lightsaber already! Or better yet Harrison appearing as Indiana with a big black revolver and shooting the creepy lovers the way he did with the big sabre wielding dude in 'Raiders' would have made me respect George Lucas again.
And there lies the crux of the problem: by using Padme/Natalie as the female protagonist in this first trilogy old Papa Skywalker Ranch is really saying he doesn't give a rat's patootie about his female characters other than as fashion accessories and plot devices. I'd like for Georgie Porgie to remember that the women in his audience young and old are all smarter than those Kenner action figures he's gonna retire on. It's sad that he's dumbed down his plots so that kids won't see too much death and bad stuff (ie why the Dark Side of the Force has been stripped from this first trilogy) but it's unforgiveable that Padme doesn't stand up for herself until very late in AOTC. The message this first trilogy sends to women and young girls is that we're not a factor in a major political and spiritual revolution except as a fetus factories and eye candy and for someone as smart as Lucas it's unforgiveable. He had better give Padme some honorary cojones for Episode III or he's gonna lose his female audience (you know the future mothers and grandmothers and ticket buyers for the generation of little urchins to whom the third Star Wars trilogy will be marketed) and lord knows he can't conquer the box offices or the Dark Side without us.
Besides every geek knows that smart is infinitely sexier than skin