Are Star Wars fans really becoming as bad as Trekkies?

Rating: 8/10 (21 May 2002)

I saw Attack of the Clones with my two elder children (ages 4 and 7) on Friday, but decided to wait a couple of days and let the film sink in before commenting on it. As for what my children thought, they enjoyed it very much, my 4 year-old boy moreso than my 7 year-old girl. That being said, I must admit that I cannot compare this film to the rest of the original Star Wars trilogy, for a number of reasons. One is that the intent here seems to be different.
Lucas is doing what was previously thought impossible and presenting the back story for the original trilogy in film form. As such he is having to fill in blanks that fans have used their imaginations to fill... until now. It stands to reason that there will be some opposition to this approach, as evidenced by the overall reaction to Episode I, which was pure back story. Episode II, on the other hand, plays fast and loose with ideas fans had never really thought about, such as the origin of Boba Fett, and what exactly drove Anakin Skywalker to the dark side, rather than exploring his childhood, which was admittedly a dull prospect at best. As a result, the film takes on probably the darkest tone of any SW film, Empire included. There are some scenes in this film that will send chills up your spine if you are intimately familiar with the franchise, and others that will make you stand up and cheer that the franchise has achieved its former glory. I will not go so far as to say that, but I will say at this point that this is by far the riskiest film of the franchise, in many different ways.
One thing that stuck out in my mind about Episode II is Lucas' attempts to better develop his characters, which goes back to the whole back story idea I was talking about. Rather than the snapshot we get of Luke, Leia, et al in Eps. 4, 5, & 6, Lucas is laying bare the progression of these characters for the whole world to see, something that could not happen in the comparatively short timeline of the later episodes. It is an effort that deserves to be commended. Now, on to the detractors of Episode II; to those who say that Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman are wooden compared to the rest of the cast, especially in the love scenes: did you forget how stiff Hamill, Ford, and Fisher were in the first film? These newer actors have yet to develop the rapport that the others possessed for the rest of the saga. Some woodenness is to be expected, and Hamill et al were criticised for the same thing at the time of the original films' release. Next up: those who are begging Lucas to bring Larry Kasdan back to write Episode III. The person responsible for the crackling dialogue between Han and Leia in Empire (and believe me, of any of the films, Empire has the best lines) was the late Leigh Brackett; Kasdan was brought in to finish the screenplay when she died, and the film he wrote completely on his own, Return of the Jedi, gave Luke, among others, some of the lamest lines in cinematic history. Finally, to those of you who fault the pacing of this one (meaning Ep II), remember 1) it's back story; the pacing is going to be slack because of the sheer amount of time it covers, and 2) the best paced episode is still Empire, because of Irvin Kershner's wealth of experience as an action director.
What I'm getting at is simply this: you are trying to make Attack of the Clones compete with a memory, and since memory is subjective, imperfect, and reconstructive, anything new just isn't going to be able to compete. aprreciate the film for what it is, which is a snapshot of a filmmaker's maturation, which is a difficult and painful process. Aren't you glad I managed to get through this without any spoilers?