Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999): [5/10]
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002): [6/10]
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005): [7/10]
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002): [6/10]
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005): [7/10]
These movies should be better.
At the very core of this narrative, Lucas has a really interesting storyline. Across these films is a fascinating, multifaceted tragedy about a man who tried to stop death but could only create it. The world Lucas creates is fascinating even in the weakest of these films, and his imagination is unparalleled. But, at least at this point, he was a shockingly incompetent filmmaker. Each of these movies is noticeably better than the previous one, but they retain fundamental flaws with such basic things as acting and pacing. Lucas is a visionary with a keen eye for worldbuilding, but he clearly has no experience with writing a tragedy, and it's abundantly clear that his work in the 70s and 80s only turned out well because he had more talented people to fix his mistakes.
The Phantom Menace is the most fundamentally flawed of the trilogy, in part because the visuals are the least advanced, but also because it's nearly devoid of character development and boasts such a ponderous, disjointed story. It's a corpse that has been picked clean, but it bears repeating just how dull the backstory is; the banal trade dispute facilitates the film's heavy-handed allegory for the rise of fascism, but it provides no real emotional stakes. Worse still, despite the skills of Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson, the lead characters are all two-dimensional and thin. They don't really grow or change, and most of them have few defining characteristics.
But even if these storylines were interesting, the film gets bogged down in a lengthy diversion on Tatooine. This section becomes relatively interesting, because it sets up the tragedy of the later films; it's very significant that Anakin was a slave, and the scene where he is separated from his mother is genuinely heartbreaking. But almost all of the acting is wooden and emotionless, and almost all of the dialogue is leaden and unnatural. Much has also been said about the film's pervasive use of racial stereotypes for the aliens, which is nowhere worse than the deeply annoying Jar Jar Binks.
And the CGI really is distracting, mainly because the green screen work is incredibly obvious, deflating the impact of most of the action scenes. But the climax is suitably exciting, and the lightsaber fights have remarkable choreography even if they aren't as kinetically filmed as they could have been. However, that doesn't fully explain why I didn't fully hate this movie, as sluggish and annoying as it is. Returning to Tatooine is somewhat disappointing, given the scale of this universe, but the world is still imaginatively and beautifully rendered. Behind all of the dated CGI is a wealth of astonishing artistry, to the extent that I think this movie would be much better with all the dialogue removed.
Lucas would make several steps forward with Attack of the Clones, which at least wraps its dull political story in an intriguing mystery, and features actual character development by doubling down on Anakin's tragedy. The story has actual momentum here - rather than getting bogged down with a weird diversion about betting on pod racing, this one wisely cuts between its main story (Obi-Wan investigating Jango Fett) and Anakin's character turmoil, granting both of them more momentum. But the story actually makes even less sense than The Phantom Menace: once the mystery is finally resolved, the storytelling suddenly becomes increasingly muddy, to the point where I wasn't entirely sure what anyone's motivations were during the climactic battle.
This movie benefits a lot from a higher density of action scenes, and because the CGI had improved between 1999 and 2002, they look a lot less cartoonish and unconvincing. The green screen effect is still obvious a lot of the time, but the improved effects make it a lot less of a problem. But while stretches of Attack of the Clones are genuinely compelling, they're often the parts with the least dialogue, as the infamous central romance of this film might be just as agonizing as Jar Jar Binks in the previous one. Lucas's attempts at humour have improved this time around, though it often comes across as a vague approximation of the original trilogy, but a lot of his writing is still stilted and unnatural, and his romantic dialogue is absolutely agonizing.
A big part of the problem is that he just cannot direct actors, and the chemistry between Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman is nonexistent to the point that it seems like they must have genuinely hated each other behind the scenes. Portman's Padmé is a major weak link of these films - Lucas gives her little to work with, but Portman makes no effort to make it seem like she likes Anakin at all. Meanwhile Christiansen tries very hard but is thoroughly unnatural, as if Anakin is trying to delude himself into loving her. But he also keeps packing exposition into places where it doesn't belong, which is a continuing issue with these films. He cannot write an organic conversation. Other issues that were less significant in The Phantom Menace also stand out more because Lucas's filmmaking has improved, most notably the jarring transitions. For whatever reason, scenes always cut away just when something new is starting to happen, leaving the film with a herky-jerky rhythm that constantly breaks the film's momentum.
And yet. Christiansen does a very poor job of conveying Anakin's internal turmoil, but it's the one bit of writing that really works in this movie. He is established here to be impulsive, and he is haunted by visions of his still-enslaved mother dying, so there is real emotional weight when he finally discovers her. Watching the build to his massacre of the Tuscan Raiders is genuinely haunting. Plus the action scenes are all tremendous, even though they grow increasingly goofy as the film goes on, and the worldbuilding of the franchise remains intoxicating to me. People say this one is worse than The Phantom Menace because so much of it is the terrible romance, but in nearly every other way it seems like an obvious improvement to me.
That trend of improvement is even greater in the final installment, Revenge of the Sith. Suddenly, Lucas's filmmaking became almost competent. There are still issues with editing, pacing, acting, and dialogue, but each of those is significantly diminished, and the CGI is mostly convincing. Moreover, the tragedy takes centre stage here, meaning that this movie has a story that not only makes sense but is also genuinely exciting. This is not as good as A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back, and both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi would be significantly better, but it is operatic and tragic where it needs to be, and it contains more than one of the franchise's best action scenes.
General Grievous, a lieutenant of Count Dooku from Attack of the Clones, is a major villain through the first half of this one, and although he barely has more of a personality than Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, he is present for much more of the film, and has a generally charismatic presence. The sequence of Obi-Wan hunting him down is genuinely exciting, even though Lucas cuts away from it at completely baffling moments. A lot of what happens here seems to exist only to keep the film exciting as it tracks Anakin's temptation to the dark side, including a completely superfluous thread of Yoda hanging out on the front lines of the civil war, but it does a great job of setting the scene, and all of that activity is admittedly effective in keeping the film entertaining.
The romance scenes are still a major weak link, alas. Lucas's dialogue has improved dramatically since Attack of the Clones, but there are still some completely baffling exchanges between Anakin and Padmé, and those actors seem to be the only two who haven't figured out how to work around Lucas's lack of direction. In addition, Anakin's temptation to the dark side is clearly rushed; we don't get a full sense of how much influence Palpatine has had on him, and he goes through his arc unnaturally quickly. But the complexity of the story still shines through: he is afraid of losing those he loves, the Jedi Council is largely neglecting him, and Palpatine keeps telling him exactly what he wants to hear. Lucas's intentions shine through the flaws in execution, and the tragedy of is genuinely affecting. Anakin committed atrocities, but all he really wanted was to protect the people he loved, and only the fascist dictator took him seriously.
Other issues stand out even more because of the improvements. There is still some jarring editing. The green screen effects still occasionally fail. Christiansen and Portman are embarrassing, especially with Ewan McGregor now running circles around them. And for whatever reason, Lucas has pushed Yoda's dialogue into self-parody, which is probably the most irritating thing about this installment. But I was able to look past that because, for a long time, it was coherent and exciting and thoughtful. Alas, the final act becomes increasingly silly, as it repeats Yoda's nonsensical acrobatics from Attack of the Clones, has Obi-Wan and Anakin fight on a volcano planet for some reason, and increases the rate of ludicrous plot points. The ultimate effect is more like a soap opera than a Shakespearean tragedy. But, y'know, it's a pretty good soap opera, and even amid ludicrous moments like Padmé losing the will to live, there's still a lot that is genuinely powerful about this story.
It makes no sense that it took Lucas so long to reach a level of baseline competence. That he had no oversight in making these movies explains a lot of the dubious creative choices, but it's far more conspicuous that, with his decades of industry experience, he still struggles with the basic technical qualities of filmmaking. It's hard not to wonder what these movies would have been like had he solicited outside help with shaping the overall narrative, and gotten other people to direct, edit, and write. But his imagination is one of the most impressive in the industry, and there is a reason why Star Wars remained popular during this era. I probably don't ever need to see The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones ever again, but they are fascinating messes with significant high points, and Revenge of the Sith is a worthy entry in the series even in spite of its faults. It is said that nobody hates Star Wars as much as Star Wars fans, but by the same token, I wonder if these movies would be able to inspire so much bile if they didn't have any good in them.
These movies really should be better, but even in such a compromised state, there is a reason why Star Wars is so popular. There is still good in these movies.
