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ATTACK OF THE CLONES Script Review: THE SPOILERS!! THE JEDI Since I was a child, I have dreamed of seeing The Jedi in their full glory. It's that simple. It's that primal. I'm not going to dress it up or intellectualize it beyond that. I was seven years old when I saw STAR WARS for the first time. It marked me. So many hours of my childhood were spent playing with the toys Lucas gave me, and despite what my parents or today's collectors think, those toys weren't made of plastic, and they don't have resale value. Those toys were the images and the ideas and the permission to dream that the films gave me. The idea of owning a lightsaber, of leaving my home behind to ride into Mos Eisley in search of a ship that would take me away from my planet, into whatever adventure my life was going to be... that's the dream Lucas gave me. And in this film, you'll see The Jedi in all their glory. You'll see them in a fight that is, quite simply, one of the greatest action set pieces I've ever read in a science-fiction script. You'll see more of the way the Jedi Temple works. You'll see children in training, and you'll get a glimpse of their history. You'll see that there are personalities, imperfections, friction. They're not some passive, bland, flawless superheroes. There's political infighting that has led a number of Jedi to leave the order over the years. I have no complaints at all about The Jedi or the way they're portrayed here. It's a dream fulfilled. Reading the passages of the script that had to do with The Jedi in action or in council gave me a singular joy, an almost chemical buzz. Anyone who saw the Toy Fair photos or who has paid attention to the excellent work of Cinescape's T-Bone or TheForce.net or Episode-X or even such outlaws as darth psychotic or TFN-Sucks has got to have a pretty good idea of how the big climactic Jedi battle in the arena on Geonosis plays out, but it's all about the details. It reads amazing, and by all accounts, it got much, much better on the set. We're going to get to see just why the Jedi were once feared and respected throughout the galaxy. And no matter what else you think about the prequels, you can't be a true fan of the saga if this material leaves you cold. This is what it's all about, what we've all been waiting for. Knowing that Sam Jackson's Mace Windu is a major player this time out gives me an indecent amount of joy, and I can't wait to see Yoda, who sees his own share of action this time out. Watching him weild a lightsaber in a classroom will be strange enough, but seeing him actually engage an enemy in hand-to-hand battle is one of the riskiest things I've read in recent memory. It's either brilliant or completely retarded, and it's a real fine line. I also can't wait to see the way Lucas fleshes out all these other Jedi characters. Here's a chance for the design team to give us something genuinely eye-popping to look at. People who charge Lucas with being a racist are obviously deranged; his universe is overloaded with a multitude of races and species, all communicating, all living together, all dealing with one another. It's as inclusive a fantasy vision as one could ask for. The Jedi are framed in this movie, set up to look like they wanted to start a war, and now it makes sense to me. Now I can understand how the Republic looked the other way while the Jedi were destroyed in the great purge that is sure to follow the end of this movie. A lie is told that the Jedi never manage to overcome. At the end of this film, the Jedi have no idea who has set them up. They also still don't understand the true nature of the Sith threat against them. And again... the echoes of the future nearly broke my heart, thinking about how Yoda's final years played out, hidden in squalor on Dagobah. The fact that we don't see Mace Windu in the original trilogy speaks volumes about his eventual fate, but we're spared it in this chapter of the film. At the end of the movie, he's ragged and definitely singed from battle, but he's still alive. To me, Samuel Jackson is the winner in the all-time Biggest STAR WARS Geek In the World Sweepstakes. All of us have imagined having a lightsaber of our own. He has managed to go from being a viewer in the audience, herbed up and blown away by the original 1977 film, to having one of the coolest roles in any of the films, a noble Knight in the waning days of the Jedi Order. And how about the relationship between Anakin and his adopted family? How does he do as a Jedi? God knows he tries, but it seems like he's never really suited to the life. His growing pains reach a dangerous peak in the middle of this film, and much of the plot is driven by his repeated drive to disobey orders. No matter what size role Liam Neeson does or doesn't have in this film (how's that for vague?), the shadow of Qui-Gon looms large over everything we see. Both Obi-Wan and Anakin are obviously influenced by him, by his almost arrogant obstinance, and we see where it came from when we meet the Jedi who trained him in the first place. ANAKIN AND AMIDALA Here's the thing that scares me the most. If there was anything that threw me in those first three trailers, it was the tone of the romance footage in the "Forbidden Love" trailer. There's a fair amount of it in the film, and as I read some of the scenes, I found myself wincing, imagining how wrong things could go. The way the storyline builds to its eventual finish, though, pays it off to such an extent that I think it ends up being worth the trip. The truth is that when you are young, you fall in love with a sort of reckless ferocity that frequently burns down logic and reason, and Anakin is in desperate need of a family. When he sees where Amidala came from and sees the way she's connected to her siblings and her parents, it strikes him deeply. And when his bittersweet reunion with his own mother ends in horror, longing turns to desperation. Anakin turns his back on what he sees as his destiny in order to embrace his one chance at love, and we understand. It is the secret wedding of Anakin and Amidala which concludes the movie, and that's what I was referring to when I said that this normally joyous image chilled me more than anything. If the chemistry between Christensen and Portman pays off, then this romance could ignite, and it could become powerfully affecting as it unravels later. If Lucas is unable to create a real sense of intimacy between them, then this is going to be the material that causes the most dissent this time around. I've got my fingers crossed. exterior. |