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| The romantic story thread is going to take the most fire, and deservedly. It’s like pretty much all Hollywood romance: all shortcuts and soulful looks, with tortured confessions of all-consuming emotion as both young lovers pout and preen in equal measure. It’s really not much deeper as a romance than your average Freddie Prinze Jr. film to start. But something changes midway through the film, and in the second half, things pay off. Padme sees Anakin through the darkest moment of his life. She’s the one person who knows the truth about him, and her reaching out to him is a gesture that falls in line with what we’ve seen about her nature. She wants to save this little boy she met so long ago, save him from his own pain and anger. She falls in love with the young man who protects her, who saves her life, but the entire time, it’s as if she already knows that they’re doomed, like she’s seen episodes 4-6, and she’s just trying to stave off the inevitable. I’m sorry... I know I’m sort of bobbing and weaving my way through this one. It’s just there’s so much to discuss about this film, and sitting and listening to the Williams score, all sorts of impressions of the movie come rushing back. Which, of course, brings up the score itself. This is the second finest overall composition for the STAR WARS series, I’d say. It’s a tremendously evocative score, the soul of the film. Williams is in a playful mood here, like the moment with the interrupted kiss on Naboo, when the score itself hesitates, surprised. He’s woven in themes from the original trilogy, drawing us towards what we know is coming. The Emperor’s theme, Yoda’s theme, the Imperial March... they all show up here as well as Duel of the Fates, the strongest piece from EPISODE I’s otherwise limp score, and there’s the sweeping, lovely “Across The Stars,” the love theme from this film, standing tall alongside all those other pieces. It’s as if Williams was busy quoting his earlier, seminal STAR WARS work, and he simply clicked back into the mindset in a very, very particular way. He’s always been a major part of the allure of the films, and he’s done some of the best work of his career here, inspired and fresh even after all this time. One of the things Williams does that’s so important is give inner life to Anakin Skywalker, and he’s as key to the success of the performance as Hayden Christensen is. I thought Hayden’s performance in LIFE AS A HOUSE was mannered, but interesting, and I could understand why Lucas chose him. He gives good sullen. More than that, though, his smile is a secret weapon. This kid can be petulant, arrogant, irritating, and then he flashes that smile, and everything’s forgiven. One of the revelations of the movie for me is that Anakin Skywalker never turned into Darth Vader; he simply always is Vader. It’s not a process where suddenly one person becomes someone else. His values are set very early on. There’s a great scene between Hayden and Portman in front of a beautiful vista of waterfalls, where he reveals the drive to dominate people “for their own good,” a deeply rooted belief that someone has to tell people what to do. When he’s talking to her, it’s easy to picture Vader’s Super Star Destroyers surrounding a planet, enforcing some whim of the Emperor. Later, he see how willing he is to let emotion get the better of him, how nothing is important to him when he is in the grips of some powerful feeling, whether it’s anger or love or fear. He is a slave to how he feels. It’s no wonder he was the perfect vessel for the Dark Side. Lucas has often been accused of fingerpainting the emotional complexities of his films in simple blacks and whites, but this is a film where the whole world is carved in shades of grey. There is one truly “bad guy” in the film, a master manipulator with the political reach of an octopus, his hand behind pretty much everything that happens in the film. But the so-called “good guys” in this film aren’t spotless and pure and bland. The Jedi Order itself, one of the flagbearers of “good” in the films, is shown to be sluggish, arrogant, too sure of itself. They are manipulated precisely because they’re so sure they can’t be manipulated. After all, the Jedi Mind Trick only works on weak minds. Only someone weak could be manipulated, right? Jocasta Nu (Althea McGrath) scolds Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), a smile fixed on her face as she does so. “If a planet isn’t in the Jedi Archives, then it doesn’t exist.” The fact that she’s wrong is later figured out by children, a particularly telling comment, I thought. Yoda seems delighted when the “younglings,” as he calls them, are able to see through the mystery that stumped the Keeper of the Archives, but he later observes that arrogance has become a problem for more and more of the Jedi ranks. He knows the end is coming, and knows that they may well be powerless to stop it. Ahhhhh... Yoda. Speaking of. I’m going to propose something radical here, but before I do, you have to realize that my two favorite characters from the Original Trilogy are Chewbacca and Yoda. In particular, the Yoda of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. He was creepy and moody and pissy and cantankerous and not remotely cute or Muppetty. The work that Stuart Freeborn and Frank Oz did in bringing him to life was remarkable, and there are few things in film that make me happy the way the scene where Yoda raises Luke’s X-Wing from the swamps of Dagobah made me happy. He is an actor in that film, not an effect, and I was praying for at least a glimpse of that this time out. I got a hell of a lot more than a glimpse. Yoda is one of the stars of this movie. He is in most of this movie, with a fairly active role. He is important to the plot, a key player. He is an action hero and a spiritual leader as the Republic crumbles around him. He is everything I could have hoped for from the character as a fan. And I propose the Academy nominate Rob Coleman and Frank Oz for Best Supporting Actor next year to reward the effort. This is that day where we have to ask the question: who is the performer in the case of a CGI character? Is it the person who does the voice? Because that’s only part of it, to my way of thinking. Animators have always been performers. They have to understand the subtle nuances that make up great performance if they are going to illustrate it. They must appreciate the value of every raised eyebrow, every wan half-smile, the body language of a moment. Rob Coleman’s work on Yoda is spectacular. He gets the little things right, like the way Yoda’s rubber ears would wiggle as Frank Oz moved him. There’s a great sort of sour face that Yoda makes when he’s using The Force or when he’s irritated that Coleman gets perfectly right. His hands, his face, his whole carriage... set free now. He’s so much more expressive, yet somehow he retains the spirit of the actual puppeteering that defined the character in the first place. I thought the Yoda puppet looked stoned in the first film, and found him to be one of the biggest disappointments of the whole movie. Now, not only has he been redeemed, but he’s been elevated. We understand why he is called “Master” finally. |