Watch the Skies!

Rating: Null/10 (4 October 2002)

It is interesting to note, that in these uncertain political times, creators of texts are turning more and more to themes that hark back to our darkest times; in this case, war. Charlotte Grey (2002), Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Thin Red Line (1998), We Were Soldiers (2002) all attempt to make sense of the futility of war and the effect on the human spirit. We have since had The Lord of the Rings (2002) in which the effects of the Industrial Revolution have inexorably led to a greater global conflict. On television, programmes like The Cazalets (2001) and The 1940s House (2001) have explored the effects of World War II on the ordinary citizen. In the first Star Wars (1977 - 1983) films, George Lucas had referenced the causes and effects of World War II. Now he gives us Star Wars Episode 2: The Attack of the Clones (2002) in which, he attempts to lay some blame on the politicians who draw society into the trap of war.
Of course Lucas, like Spielberg, has always been interested in the 1930s and 1940s through the films, design, values and attitudes of the periods. These directors are not just harking back to a `golden age' of filmmaking. Instead, they are referencing them to make sense of them historically and to make modern audiences question their own values that have become blurred since WWII ended. In Clones, when Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) stands alone looking out over a balcony onto a serene lake on the planet Naboo, his posture and the camera angle reference Hitler doing much the same thing at the Berghof, Berchtesgaden. There are numerous visual references to the Nuremberg Rallies and a cinematic nod to Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1934). This episode of the series is a heart on his sleeve celebration of all things cinematic. The dialogue is pure 1940s and the production design is a glorious reworking of Bauhaus, Art Deco, Frank Lloyd Wright, De Chirico and even The Trigan Empire comics.
For the planet Coruscant, a city much like New York emerges from the clouds, but New York was never like this. Referencing Things to Come (1936), Lucas gives us a metropolis by way of The Fifth Element (1997) and Blade Runner(1982). His opening shots are paraphrasing the conversation in Lunar Hilton in 2001 (1968) and his initial chase sequence comes out of knowledge of film noir. Lucas understands action and he knows how to cut action but he has difficulty directing people. His old-fashioned lines need an old-fashioned style. Charlton Heston can do cheesy dialogue and so can Harrison Ford but oldies such as Christopher Lee and Ian McDiarmid overshadow the young cast. Some of the casting is woeful - who in their right mind convinced Lucas to hire Samuel L Jackson? He looks uncomfortable, especially in his fight scenes. Lee as Dooku, the Jedi turned bad has a wonderful light sabre battle with Yoda, a highlight of the film and, once again, shows that casting is everything. The Casablanca (1942) sequence, lit almost exactly as the original, has all the ingredients - fireplace, shadows, music and Natalie Portman even does a credible Ingrid Bergman but it lacks the spark and yet, if you look at the eyes of the actors, it's all there. It needed a people's director to bring it out. You will forgive Lucas, however, because he is making a 40s film and he is referencing an age gone by, for new audiences. When he has Senator Amidala (Natalie Portman) on screen he draws his inspiration from the actresses of the past - Hepburn, Harlow, Bergman and he paraphrases the movies that must have been his formative learning and his pleasure. In an idyllic world called Naboo, we see glimpses of Camelot (1967) and The Sound of Music (1965) and he pays homage to Sergio Leone by calling his bounty hunter Jango as well as referencing Django (1966) in the Clint Eastwood poncho that Anakin wears as the lovers flee Paris, oops Coruscant.
This is a very sophisticated movie, dull in parts but high on adrenalin and full of detail and made with love. It is much darker than The Phantom Menace (1999) especially in the scene where our hero finds his abused mother in the Raiders camp and kills every male, female, child and animal within reach. He is an outcast, forever looking through windows (one of the recurring motifs in the film) and like John Wayne in The Searchers (1956), he cannot comprehend a world of double dealing and politics. Like Arthur in Camelot (1967), he toys with the idea of a benevolent dictatorship. This sequence is made the more poignant because we know how this is all going to turn out, having seen the films that follow this one.
You can be forgiven that these knights are a bit thick and the senate much like a circus (which it resembles strongly in the film) but Lucas is making a point here. These warriors belong to a chivalrous age; one that is fading before their eyes and all the technology that surrounds them is purely enslavement to a future where machines and clones rule the day. The early genesis of the Imperial Storm troopers is also eerie because we know what will happen. Lucas wants us to see what will happen when we are duped as Jar-Jar Binks is duped in the senate to allow unchallenged powers to Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and when we are not vigilant. In ET (1982), a movie marquee warned us to Watch the Skies! (the working title for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)) and here, that warning ( itself a motif in Lucas and Spielberg films) gains further resonance with his referencing of such science fiction films as AI (2001), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Things to Come (1936), Dr Strangelove (1964), The Fifth Element, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and of course his own Star Wars films. Lucas also creates a world, which is heavily influenced by Asian culture, to make it all the more alienating (excuse the pun). This is a world that is imploding from the inside and is it any wonder that there are so many nasty creatures both humanoid and animal that inhabit it? A recurring motif in this film is the endless walking that characters do usually in corridors. They never seem to get anywhere just as their futile quest to maintain a sane, just world is doomed from the start.
One of the big set pieces is the arena sequence - a fantastic reworking of the colosseum sequence from Quo Vadis? (1951). It is here that Lucas saves his best for last. The sequence becomes a fight for the past and he throws all the WWII imagery he can at this scene. We have Lancaster Bombers, B52s, and war on a grand scale. What he does not do, however, is to give us a satisfactory comeuppance for the baddies. He shows us how the seeds of these warriors' destruction have been sown. Lucas plays with colour in this film. He uses mainly blues and colder colours to begin and ends with sunsets as twilight of the gods. As Merlin says in Excalibur (1981), `it is a time of men and their ways, our time has come. The old magic has given way to new gods'. When Annkin/Arthur marries his Padme/Guenivere, it is at sunset; a hasty marriage or a doomed lover's pact?
This film is as dark as The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and deserves to be seen in this light. Lucas is a clever filmmaker and he sometimes lets his themes and myths get in the way of good storytelling but this film is a celebration of film, a celebration of the human spirit to overcome adversity and a timely warning to heed the history lessons of the past. A class act and a must see.