The Magic is Dead

Rating: 2/10 (2 June 2002)

I absolutely hated "Attack of the Clones." There are so many reasons it's difficult to even know where to begin. But I don't feel that it, in any way, lived up to the originals, and I could happily go through life without ever seeing it again.
My vehemence has reasons. For twenty years, I grew up hearing stories from my Dad about how Star Wars was /the/ movie. There were movies before Star Wars, and then movies after Star Wars, but it was the one that changed them all. Nothing was ever quite the same afterwards. Movie-dom had been irrevocably changed. It became a sort of cultural icon. Despite some of its flaws (some cheezy dialogue, perhaps some poor acting from Mark Hamill, though I didn't mind him), it resonated. It struck a chord, and there was no other movie experience quite like it.
I was four years old when it came out. My Dad took me to see it, and I still remember sitting there, so short that the seat was still folded up and I sat on top of it, and I was completely absorbed. I remember jumping when the Jawas shot R2-D2, and my horror when he got "electrocuted," issued a final moaning squeal, and then fell over, presumably dead. I still remember all those things, but again, I was only four. I couldn't fully appreciate what I was watching. I didn't know, at the time, that it was movie history.
I grew older, and movies got better -- at least technically. Better special effects, bigger budgets. Movie-makers had to try harder to impress us. My generation got jaded. Movies weren't quite so "magical" anymore. Maybe it's just an effect of growing up. But nothing could ever quite live up to Star Wars and its following sequels. Even "Return of the Jedi," with its cutesy, gimmicky Ewoks, still had that magic. It was part of Star Wars, after all. Nothing could taint that.
And for twenty years, for as long as there was the vague promise -- the faint /hint/ -- that George Lucas might make some more, I lived with the hope of seeing that magic again. Of seeing something truly great, that would change movies forever, just as my father had, twenty years ago in a darkened theater when he, my Mom, and my uncle first watched that Star Destroyer loom across the screen.
So finally, it happened. I won't launch into a lengthy critique of "The Phantom Menace," suffice it to say that I hated that too. But it had obvious flaws. JarJar Binks, first and foremost. I thought, well, it's bad, but if they just take that stuff out, it'll be fine. It just needs some editing. My hope was shaken, but still there. Oh, sure, I was pretty cynical about "Attack of the Clones." I griped, expressed by skepticism, and went into the theater with low expectations.
Except... except it played the same music. The theater got dark, the music started up, and there on the screen were those same magical words: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. And I /felt/ it. That twinge. That hope. I felt like a kid again, and I thought 'maybe this is it. Maybe it'll be just what I've been waiting for.'
Instead, I sit through painfully inane dialogue, woefully wooden acting (and this from people I /know/ can do better -- I blame the script), a barrage of gimmicky special effects, a flimsy plot, and a series of strung-together action sequences whose "coup de grace" is a leaping green ninja-Yoda versus someone named after a log of feces. I was not impressed. Worse, I was crushed. I felt like I'd been had. Like twenty years of starry-eyed loyalty had meant nothing -- Lucas just cared about my 7 bucks and he didn't give a damn what tripe he fed me. I'd been under the impression that if you took out the flaws of "The Phantom Menace," everything would be fine. But I was wrong. Those flaws just diverted me from the painful truth: the magic of Star Wars is dead, and it will never come back.
Some of you might be looking forward to the next installment, but I'm not. I'll be steering clear of the theaters whenever it rolls around, and instead remembering what Star Wars once meant to me.