George Lucas read&watched LordOfTheRings closely and learned

Rating: Null/10 (17 May 2002)

Ep2 has a more distinguished place in history of cinema than Ep1, 5 and 6, without being groundbreaking. There are numerous cliche-scenes, old-fashioned costumes, and the directing overall was conventional. But of course, that's why we go and see a Star Wars movie. Lucas definitely did not let us down. Anybody who wants 2 C art should look further. All the references to other classic scifi-movies are great. To name a few: Blade Runner (noir feel of the dark side, rain, robots who want to live, air traffic), Metropolis (dehumanised workers, air traffic), Matrix (computercontrolled breeding of human beings), Robocop (Jango Fett), Starship Troopers (massive action scenes), Gladiator (arena fights), LOTR1 (fantasy politics, good vs evil forces) and basically most movies based on stories by Philip K. Dick. Yes, even A.I. (coldness, boy looking for mama). W/o the ethical questions that is, and w/o intelligence.
After the first 45 min I was afraid that Ep2 was turning into some kind of Star Trek, but luckily I was wrong and treated with magnificent action mostly in the latter half of the movie. And the lightsaber-battles have become delightfully more convincing. The star wars are back! A much heard complaint about the unfinished storylines in Ep2 is a very weak one, because nobody complained about unfinished storylines in LOTR 1 did they? Everyone knows the events in Ep3 will be the link between Ep2 (2002) and Ep4 (1977).
Great that the annoying Jar Jar Binks has almost vanished from the story. Let's hope he'll be completely removed from Ep3. Good riddance. Ep2 is more mature than Ep1, but the 'dark side' is still not all over the movie as promised. For the first time it does rain though in Star Wars, a lot happens at night time and the evil Christopher 'Saruman' Lee and Temuera Morrison (Once were warriors) contribute to a new sense of evilness that hopefully will stretch far into Ep3.
Some complaints: firstly, the CGI animals in the 'Gladiator'-scene are pathetic, because there seems 2 B no neither gravity nor mass and none of the protagonists seems 2 B emotionally affected. Not even Boba Fett for christ sake, despite he must have suffered the most. Secondly: are chromatic 30-year-old SR-71's (Blackbird) and 20-year-old B-2's suddenly the airplanes from the future (also in Ep1)? In Ep2 they don't even have jet engines anymore, but returned to the good old days of conventional engines. But the roaring definitely makes them more impressive. Third: the 'airtraffic'-scene in the beginning of the movie was uninvolving and not new too (Fifth Element, Blade Runner). Fourth: 'Ep2 - attack of the clones' is NOT the first completely digitally shot movie as Lucas likes to believe: that was Vidocq (2001).
Ep2 is entertaining enough to be 180 min though. The music has become somewhat more subtle in my opinion and does more justice to the storyline than in Ep1 and Ep6. The CGI and the action scenes almost surpass LOTR1 (never the art direction) and the acting was WAY better than in the callow Ep1. The humor is still a bit childish. Let's say Ep2 is the puberty of Star Wars and let's hope Ep3 will be grown up (not too much though ;-). Don't expect much more than thrilling action, scifi and fantasy in Ep2: 8/10. (Ep4:10; Ep5:9; Ep6:6; Ep1:4)