Oh, that I might have been involved in the script meetings...

Rating: Null/10 (16 November 2004)

Like many movie viewers, I saw the original Star Wars as a child. So great was its effect on me, I don't remember it so much as a movie as something that happened to me as a kid. As such, my feelings about the recent prequel trilogy are prone to be colored by my having placed the first trilogy on a rather inaccessible pedestal.
Nevertheless...I feel there are some problems with Episode 2--specifically story problems. To best explain my thinking, I must go back to Episode 1.
There was really only one mistake in the story of Episode 1. Too many people have hotly criticized Jar Jar Binks. I suppose his anachronistic dialogue could knock the audience out of their suspension of disbelief...but there was that kind of dialogue in Episodes 4-6, too. I think Jar Jar haters are just those who haven't realized that between Episode 4 and Episode 1, they grew up and suddenly didn't like the kid stuff anymore.
The real problem in Episode 1 was Anakin. I think Anakin should have been far more precocious in this first film. His assault on the droid armada should not have been guided so much by chance and ignorance as by design. He would have been a stronger character if he had known precisely what he was doing throughout the battle. There would have been no "I'll barrel roll...that's a neat trick" stuff in there. I think this would have made him the sort of heroic, decisive character that audiences adore.
Episode 2's failings again revolve around the character of Anakin. I think it was a mistake to make him into unlikable. It appears the filmmakers decided that he should be an average teenager: rebellious and with issues about being misunderstood. The only exceptional thing about him was his super-powers.
I think they should have made him wise beyond his years. I suppose they wanted a character that teenagers viewers could identify with, but I think they blew it. Nobody wants to identify with an ingrate, or someone who is driven by false beliefs or egotism. We like to watch someone greater than ourselves, because we can still empathize with that greatness, even if it only exists in small amounts in us personally.
So Anakin should have been very wise, patient and humble. Instead of bickering with Obi Wan, he should have constantly surprised and perhaps even surpassed Obi Wan by always doing the right thing, perhaps even shaming Obi Wan who wanted to do the wrong thing.
Part of the problem of writing Episode 2 is that you have to show the intricacies of the fall of a great man into an evil man. Darth Vader is a fabulous character. He's abjectly evil in Episode 4, but by Episode 6, he really does seem redeemable. I suppose some have criticized the change in Vader, but I thought it was well rendered. The conversation between Luke and Vader on Endor is beautiful (in large part because James Earl Jones read Vader's lines so well). 'It is too late for me, my son.' Heart wrenching stuff, and in my estimation, accurate to how real people find redemption.
Episode 2 has to show the reverse of this process. It has to show the fall.
I think the fall portrayed in the film is clunky. I never felt that Anakin was all that great a person to begin withhe doesn't start too high, and therefore can't really fall that low. He's just an arrogant turd. Back in Episode 1 he was an oblivious little kid, running completely on luck, rather than on moral impetus. In Episode 2 he's motivation seems to be his arrogance. That's why I think he should have been kinder, wiser, more patient, and therefore an all around more exceptional character from the start. Then there would have been a substantial level for him to fall from.
The seeds of his fall were amply planted in Episode 2. The republic is corrupt, and the Jedi council is losing its powers as a result. It would have been so easy to set up a rift between Anakin and the council. Anakin, through his profound powers in the force could have sensed the danger to his mother in time to save her. Yoda and the council, unable to see very far off, would have ordered him to stay put (wrongly), and then Shmi could have gotten killed. Instead of going on a murderous killing rampage (a huge mistakehow can I believe Amidala's falling in love with Anakin in the midst of his revealing that he's a mass-murderer?) Anakin should have tried to humbly accept the council's orders, and should have tried to tell himself that he was wrong and they were right. That internal schism would eventually get him, when in Episode 3 he and the council could once again disagreethis time relating to saving Amidala from some massive danger. This time the council would be right and Anakin wrong (the death of his mother would have wrecked his personal faith enough that his own foresight would have dwindled), and in disobeying the council, he would get Amidala killed.
Of course, I don't know if they plan to kill Amidala in Episode 3, but that would be the sort of massive guilt-inducing event (when Anakin would have to face his responsibility for her death, or actually deny the responsibility) that would send him into a downward spiral, denying all his beliefs to the point of turning on the Jedi and trying to destroy them.
Oh well. Maybe someday they'll make the last three films in the Star Wars storyline, and will be more insightful about their character arcs. In the meantime, Episode 2 is a wonderful film and impressive accomplishment. I just wish it would have been a little more profound, and finally got George Lucas a best film Oscar.