Thread: Episode II
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Old 05-22-2002, 12:33 PM   #5
Yui Unifex
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I think the movie was many things.  There were highly excellent scenes, and there were incredibly poor scenes. Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Complaints
Hayden Christensen had perhaps the worst acting in the entire movie, only shadowed by Ewan McGregor's unprofessionalism.  I chalk Kenobi's poor acting to Lucas, though, as it seems Kenobi should've been much more assertive than he was.  Anakin's acting was horrible at best, and Lucas is probably somewhat to blame for that as well.  But I'm not too bothered about acting so long as the story is enjoyable...

Romance is certainly not Lucas' forte.  The romantic scenes of Han Solo and Leia worked so well probably because Lucas didn't concentrate too much on it.  Anakin's romance seems are so forced you'd think Lucas was pointing a blaster at him from offstage!  I almost thought the movie was a comedy at this point, that Robin Williams was going to jump out and yell "Fooled you! Thought you were seeing Star Wars didn't ya?!".  It would probably have been best to intersperse Anakin and Amidala's romantic revelations throughout more actionable scenes; at least then the "love" wouldn't have been so shallow and unexplained.  One could also stand to have cut about 60% of the romantic footage as well.

I've also got to agree with TG_Nek, that Windu and most of the Jedi were disappointing with their sabers.  With the gameplay of Jedi Knight II fresh in my mind, Kyle Katarn could've taken half of that arena by himself!

Opinions
I don't think that being a Jedi Knight is all about the Force -- even for the powerful ones.  A Knight is supposed to use the Force to augment his saber powers; it's what tips the playing field in favor of the Jedi vs. ranged weaponry.  Swords are just fun.  And being a Jedi means that you can use a sword, even against someone with a ranged weapon, and kick their ass.  So to me, being a Jedi is about the Force just as much as it is about the lightsaber.

Sabers and Force powers add an element of strategy to a Jedi Duel.  Yoda and Dooku should've been flinging the Force left and right while they were dueling with sabers, in hopes of catching their opponent off-guard.

I have to admire that Lucas was able to make melee combat "work" in a scifi world.  I'm attempting to do such a thing myself, and it's no easy task.

Praise
There were many scenes that I really enjoyed.  Kamino was one that was very well done.  Another one I liked was the slow realization of anger when Anakin's mother died in his arms, although the scene with Padme afterwards was a little wooden and overlong, it was still enjoyable.  R2 and 3PO's comedy was much more fitting than Jar Jar's, and a welcome relief when the Jedi gang was captured.  Speaking of Jar Jar, he was much more mature in this movie, and I actually didn't mind his presence at all.

I absolutely loved Yoda's fight scene.  And the scene afterward, with the Imperial March playing while the clones were loaded up into Star Destroyers made my day.  To me, it even made up for the rest of the movie =).

In conclusion, I feel this was a pretty good movie.  It wasn't as perfect as Spider-Man, but I did enjoy it a great deal towards the end.  Still, I would be very pleased if someone took my advice and cut out most of the romance scenes =).
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