Star Crap

The Star Wars Holiday Special
1978
* (out of 4)

Clone Wars
2003
*** (out of 4)

The Clone Wars
2008
* (out of 4)


A CLARIFICATION – Right off the bat, we need to distinguish between “The Clone Wars” and simply “Clone Wars.” Clone Wars (without the “The’) was a traditionally animated set of shorts that aired on Cartoon Network beginning in 2003. THE Clone Wars, released in 2008, was the computer animated feature that acted as a pilot to a different series, also on Cartoon Network. It’s important to remember the difference because one of them really really sucks.

I would’ve found it difficult to believe that any new product would join the dreaded Holiday Special in the smelly armpit of the Star Wars universe, but damned if The Clone Wars doesn’t sink right in there. Like its similarly named predecessor, The Clone Wars is meant to bridge Episodes II and III. The likeness ends there.

I get that The Clone Wars is geared toward kids. I get that it’s the pilot to a TV series and not a stand alone film. What I don’t get is how George Lucas could deliver a product so shabby. Sure, the prequels had their problems, but nothing remotely compared a drag queen Hut named Ziro, who sounds like a combination of Truman Capote and Droopy Dog.

Such atrocities abound! Anakin is provided a Padawan to train, who appears as a young alien girl, but talks like a modern day tween at the mall. She calls him “Sky Guy” and he calls her “Snips” (cause she’s snippy – get it.) The plot like thing that passes for a story involves the rescue of Jabba the Hut’s baby, nicknamed “stinky,” who fails to be cute, which is quite an accomplishment for a baby anything. Its educational that, during the commentary track, the filmmakers (I’m not even going to bother to look up their names) specifically credit Lucas with the most cringe-worthy moments.

Having heard about the various horrors mentioned, I was hoping for at least a bit of campiness to relieve the pain, but whenever idiocy is not on screen, The Clone Wars sinks into utter boredom (I honestly fell asleep). With a little lightsaber work thrown in here and there, a whole hour of this thing is basically droids and clone-troopers shooting at each other over and over again. To top it all off, the computer animation effects aren’t any good either. All the characters pretty much look like dead eyed toys, which may not have been an accident. We have advanced beyond the technology where hair needs to look like plastic.

As maddening as it is to see the Star Wars franchise sink this low, what’s truly unfathomable is that there already was a successful blueprint from which to start a Clone Wars series. That would be the traditionally animated Clone Wars shorts than ran in three to fifteen minute installments from 2003 to 2005. Produced by Genndy Tartakovsky, of Samurai Jack fame, this version of the Clone Wars had all the action and, more importantly, the Star Wars spirit lacking in the 2008 model.

It also had limitations, but they were inherent in the format. With the first set of shorts averaging less than five minutes each, there was only so much character development possible, not to mention the fact that they couldn’t mess with the continuity of the feature films. The animation style was traditional, only enhanced by CG for special effect shots. This old-fashioned look meant that there would be no jaw-dropping special effects, but it freed the creative team to explore fresh ideas in the Star Wars universe.

Clone Wars not only followed the Jedi we already know, but shown the spotlight on minor characters who only received a few seconds of screen time in the features. Underwater battles, a cave containing lightsaber crystals, a Jedi with four throats using his voice as a weapon, and an increasing array of weapons and aliens got the animator’s creative juices flowing.

Among my favorite sequences were those involving Mace Windu. Since Samuel L. Jackson’s vocal talents were unavailable, they had the character say little, but kick much butt while single-handedly facing an army of battle droids and a new secret weapon. Anakin is provided a suitable opponent in Asajj Ventressa, a hissing female Sith wannabee who makes a great entrance by easily vanquishing a squadron of Count Dooku’s minions.

Another villain, introduced near the end of the series, tied in directly to Episode III. It seems Lucas was suitably impressed with the first season of shorts to make the series canon. If you wondered why the lightsaber wielding cyborg, General Grievous, had a sickly wheeze in Revenge of the Sith, it’s because of an injury suffered during Clone Wars.

General Grievous and the plot to Kidnap Chancellor Palpatine ends Clone Wars at exactly the point where the last of the prequels begins. It remains the most impressive Star Wars product outside the feature films themselves.

No discussion of the Star Wars franchise would be complete without talking about the aforementioned armpit of awfulness known as The Star Wars Holiday Special. Unlike The Clone Wars (2008), which should be avoided at all costs, this is something you really need to see. Just as you need to see the Bee Gee’s and Peter Frampton try to make a movie of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band or hear William Shatner try to sing “Mr. Tambourine Man,” this is the accident on the side of the road that you can’t help but stare at in disbelief.

Take yourself back to 1978 and remember the variety shows popular back then – Donnie & Marie, Sonny & Cher, Barbara Mandrell & the freaking Mandrell Sisters. Now combine it with Star Wars and you can only begin to imagine the mess. The “story” involves the Millennium Falcon having to return to Chewbacca’s home planet so his family (Malla, Itchy and Lumpy) can celebrate “Life Day.”

Basically the thing starts out with about twenty minutes of Wookiee talk, highlighted by Grampa Wookiee seemingly getting off on some virtual reality Wookiee porn, which turns out to be Diane Carroll singing. This, closely followed by a Jefferson Starship performance (get it – Starship! ‘cause it’s in space - yeah.) and a plethora of guest stars like Art Carney and Harvey Korman, highlighted by Bea Arthur singing to a giant rat in the Cantina. As a bonus, the cast of Star Wars (yes, even Harrison Ford), humiliates themselves for our entertainment. Want to see Mark Hamill in way too much eye makeup? How about Carrie Fisher singing lyrics to the Star Wars theme?

Needless to say, after one showing in 1978, The Star Wars Holiday Special was hidden away in a secret vault in the hopes that it would be forgotten. As a result, it’s only available as a bootleg. The version I saw was a friend’s bootleg videotape of a New York airing that included commercials and a teaser to the evening’s local newscast. This teaser was of a mustached, very ‘70’s announcer right out of Anchorman, repeatedly promising, “fighting frizzies, tonight at 11:00!” This made me laugh hysterically because I had recently watched The South Park Holiday Special, which had a parody of that same news teaser. Utterly inexplicable; unless you had, not only seen the Holiday Special, but the version that aired in New York, with the commercials intact. Talk about an inside joke!

You know, I could go on reviewing even more Star Wars stuff. There were two Ewok Adventure TV movies, Saturday morning cartoons (Ewoks and Droids), The Clone Wars series and countess novelizations and comic books. I feel done though. So, in the name of the Force, the Star Wars forum is now closed. On to other adventures.

REVENGE OF THE SITH

Revenge of the Sith
2005
*** ½ (out of 4)

It was almost inevitable that Revenge of the Sith would have an edge up on its prequel predecessors. Episodes One and Two spent so much screen time futzing around with inessentials that the bulk of the story was left for the third installment. This only works to its benefit. After all, we now know what comes directly before and directly after. Provided with an inherently strong narrative, George Lucas and company proved (mostly) up to the task of bridging the prequels with the original trilogy.

Revenge of the Sith opens with the kind of majestic space battle that generally served as climaxes for earlier installments. It’s a tangible raising of the stakes, not only on an action level, but dramatically as well. Finally getting around to the tale of Anakin’s fall to the dark side puts all the action sequences in a broader context and they resonate more powerfully because of it.

This is especially true in scenes featuring Emperor Palpatine as played by Ian McDiarmid in one of the best performances of the series. Yes, he’s hamming it up in that old British Shakespearian actor’s way, but he finds the exact right tone for this type of movie, whether conveying deviousness or all out evil. When he’s tempting Anakin toward the dark side, Hayden Christensen (better here than in Attack of the Clones) shows more chemistry with McDiarmid than he did with Natalie Portman.

This leads to the great Force/lightsaber battles, first with Mace Windu, then with Yoda. As in Episode II, there’s something very gratifying in watching Yoda fight. More gratifying still is the climatic showdown between the, now fully dark, Anakin and Obi-Wan on the volcanic planet of Mustafar. Rumors of this battle, complete with its fiery setting, have been gestating at least back to the time of The Empire Strikes Back. With exploding lava in the background, thankfully, Lucas gets this epic moment right.

The results are pretty grim and, along with a very effective sequence showing the slaughter of all but a few Jedi, led Revenge of the Sith to become the first Star Wars movie with a PG-13 rating.

It’s not that Revenge of the Sith doesn’t have some problems. It’s just that, unlike The Phantom Menace’s Jar Jar Binks or Attack of the Clone’s sappy romantic dialogue, they’re small unfortunate moments that, all in all, total about a minute of screen time. In fact, if a few seconds here and a few seconds there were edited out of the film, it would easily graduate from very good to great.

These three moments, all near the end of the film, are as follows:

1) “She lost her will to live” – Please don’t make me issue a spoiler warning here. If you’ve been at all paying attention, the death of Luke and Leia’s mother should not come as a surprise. Why should Padme, a supposedly strong character, whose kids would hold the fate of the galaxy in their hands, simply give up on life while giving birth? (as explained in a line of dialogue by a nurse droid.) Especially since Anakin had already wounded her with the Vader throat choke, they already had a logical way to justify why she would die in childbirth.

2) “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” – OK, was this a moment in a Star Wars movie or a Simpson’s parody of a Star Wars movie. Upon learning of his wives death, the newly minted Darth Vader’s cry of anguish is rendered comical at the very wrong moment. Poor James Earl Jones gets to utter about two sentences and one of them is this!

3) “A new mission for you I have” – One of the mysteries of Star Wars has always been, why do some Jedi disappear into thin air when they die while others do not? I had hoped this would eventually be revealed, but not as a throwaway line jammed into the end of the film with no context or follow up. Seemingly, as Yoda tells Obi-Wan, the disappearing act is an advanced Jedi trick that can be learned through years of practice (cause you don’t want to get this one wrong.) Yoda’s mentioning of Qui-Gon Jinn as part of this training begs the question of why he didn’t vanish at the end of The Phantom Menace.

All is set right by the very end, however, with scenes taking place on there very ship that opens the first Star Wars, as well the Tatooine home where Luke would grow up. All throughout Revenge of the Sith, ship models, set design and music more closely hearken back to the original trilogy, providing a pronounced feeling of nostalgia. It’s a good nostalgia though, and necessary to close the circle and set the stage for “A New Hope.” That it succeeds in its primary purpose is enough to set Revenge of the Sith apart and ahead of the other prequels.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES

Attack of the Clones
2002
*** (out of 4)

The last half hour of Attack of the Clones brings the energy and adrenaline that had been missing from the Star Wars prequels thus far. Finally the promise made to fans was fulfilled and once again the Force was with us. It must be noted that Attack of the Clones runs almost two and a half hours and getting to that last half hour is a bit of an uneven trudge.

It’s in this film that the main Achilles Heal of the prequels reveals itself and is not so easily solved as cutting down Jar Jar Bink’s screen time. Episodes 1-3 purport to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker’s temptation, fall to the dark side and the destruction of his soul that leads him to become Darth Vader. This is the stuff of high tragedy, but to make that work, at some point the audience needs to relate to and like Anakin.

Young Anakin of The Phantom Menace was likable enough, but simply too young a child to relate to as a full character. Hayden Christensen, taking over the role for Attack of the Clones, plays the teenage Anakin as moody, selfish and whiney. This all taking place before the influence of the dark side means he didn’t have too far to fall. In the original Star Wars, Luke Skywalker also began as whiny and immature, but his story arch turned him into a hero we could root for. For Anakin, what should have been tragic instead plays out as inevitable.

Attack of the Clones was marketed as the “love story” episode. The romance of Anakin and (formerly princess) Senator Padme Amidala, as played by Natalie Portman, is a key plot point, but here’s where the going gets rough. Not only do Christensen and Portman have zero chemistry, but they are provided with possibly the worst romantic dialogue I have ever heard. The language is so gooey sugary that one expects a punch-line. Unfortunately, there’s not a trace of irony in such saccharine moments as when Anakin favorably compares Padme to sand. Considering the spunky lines Lawrence Kasdan gave Han and Leia in Empire, Lucas should have known his own limitations and outsourced to a quality writer.

Things don’t improve much as our young lovers, cavorting in a Naboo field straight out of The Sound of Music, turn the conversation to politics. Anakin’s simple minded assertion that all would be well if he was simply in charged might have been a hint that he was not playing with a full deck. I buy that love is blind, but does it have to be dumb as well?

I initially thought the mistake was in casting Hayden Christensen, who I had not seen prior to this film. The kid can’t act, I figured. A few years later, seeing him in the newspaper drama, Shattered Glass, I was proven wrong by his steady lead as an ethically challenged newspaper reporter. Natalie Portman had long been one of the better young actresses around and would soon give one of the decade’s powerhouse performances in Mike Nichols’ sexual battlefield tale, Closer. Still, both actors are so wooden in Attack of the Clones, that it seems they were instructed to act badly.

Relief from all this comes with the expertly crafted action scenes that are the reason to see this film. A flying car chase through the crowded skyways of Coruscant and Obi-Wan’s rain drenched brawl with Jango Fett are pre-climax highlights. The later sequence being significant for cleverly introducing the clone army concept and providing a cameo for young Boba Fett, a character who, in the first trilogy, developed quite the cult following that has always escaped me.

In the original Star Wars, a much older Obi-Wan Kenobi made a passing reference to the Clone Wars. Considering all the mythology surrounding that first film, this unseen bit of history remained an intriguing piece of the puzzle that is finally brought to fruition in Attack of the Clones. Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme are all taken prisoner on the planet of Geonosis, populated by strange cockroach type creatures. The young couple are to be sacrificed in the galactic version of a gladiator arena to an even stranger selection of beasts.

Obi-Wan is interrogated by Christopher Lee’s Count Dooku, now revealed to be a Sith Lord. Bringing in Christopher Lee is a great bit of casting fun, since he co-starred, from the 50’s through the 70’s, in a long running series of horror film by the British Hammer studios. His nemesis in these films tended to be played by Peter Cushing who neared the end of his career as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars.

The momentum of the climax kicks into high gear as the Jedi Knights come to the rescue. This would be our first glimpse of Jedi in their prime (i.e. who are not being trained, incredibly old or half cyborg) in full blooded action. The resulting battle does not disappoint, but must take a back seat in coolness to an all digital, lightsaber wielding, badass Yoda who just steals the movie from everybody.

Here again, the mythology of the original trilogy is so strong that it carries on to a film made decades later. The depiction of Yoda as a master of the Force was so convincing in Empire that we just knew, despite his size (“size matters not”) that he could kick some major ass. In Attack of the Clones, we see him do it.

The film ends on a strong note with the clone army looking like prototype stormtroopers and our first glimpse of what will become Imperial Star Destroyers, all as “The Imperial March” ominously plays on the soundtrack. A cut to the (thankfully dialogueless) wedding of Anakin and Padme, with emphasis on the groom’s now artificial hand, indicates that the circle between the two trilogies are closing.

Despite the unevenness displayed throughout, the climax of Attack of the Clones showed that Lucas could still do some Star Wars when he sets his mind to it.