I have watched Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones all the way through in preparation for beginning the second round of my Star Wars: Deconstruction series. I find that watching the film as a whole sets up the context for each ten minute segment. If I were to start with small bits, I think I could easily become lost in the minutiae.
However, as I watched, I noticed something disturbing: there really seems to be very little connective tissue between the Phantom Menace and the Attack of the Clones. One could definitely watch Clones without having seen Menace and not miss a single thing. All of Menace is an unnecessary prologue to the real story of Clones.
Consider what happens in Menace: the Trade Federation invades Naboo, during the struggle a boy of immense Force potential is discovered, Palpatine becomes Chancellor of the Republic, and Queen Amidala reclaims her planet from hostile invasion while Anakin begins his Jedi training. Phantom Menace begins with a struggle that is said to be of great importance to the entire galaxy, but nothing galaxy-altering comes of it. The net movement during the film is zero, and while it might be interesting to see exactly how Palpatine came to power, or exactly where Anakin came from, or exactly who Senator Amidala is, nothing of the Phantom Menace is vital to the audience’s understanding of the rest of the Star Wars saga.
What is rather important to the Star Wars universe is what happens after Attack of the Clones but before Revenge of the Sith: the Clone Wars. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Amidala, Palpatine, and the Jedi live and fight during the most galaxy spanning conflict in a millennium, and as far as the films go, the audience sees little of it. What dark places does Anakin go to, emotionally, during war? How does Obi-Wan manage to continue growing as a wise and powerful Jedi while fighting a war? What devious dealings does Palpatine work out behind the scenes while everyone else is focused on winning battles? None of this should have been delegated to a second-rate TV show. This should be an entire movie itself beacuse of the huge impact it has on the characters and the way it alters their lives.
In my opinion, Attack of the Clones does a much better job of setting the stage for what happens in the life of Anakin Skywalker than the Phantom Menace ever could hope to do. Lucas should have started the prequels with Attack of the Clones, ended them with Revenge of the Sith, and put the Clone Wars in the middle (as a live action movie with way more intelligent writing than the TV show is receiving). The nature of the story and the dramatic scope of the Star Wars universe practically begs for this arrangement, and yet Lucas chose to start the story 10 years before anything happens and he completely ignores the biggest event in his hero’s life. This is such bad writing and poor story planning that it is almost unforgivable. This is why, for me, the prequel trilogy will always fail in presenting the whole story of Anakin Skywalker.
Giving the world the Phantom Menace is like what would have happened if Lucas, instead of starting with A New Hope, told the story of a nine year old Luke Skywalker having some adventure on Tatooine while elsewhere in the galaxy Boba Fett hunted down a contract and Darth Vader oppressed a planet and then skipped ahead to the Empire Strikes Back. Such a story might be interesting, and the background on Boba and the cruelty of Vader would be nice to know, but it would be a failure because none of that is important to the Saga. What is important is to see how the Empire destroys Luke’s life, Luke reunites with Leia, joins the Rebellion, and wins the first real battle against the Empire (which is what we get in A New Hope). Similarly, Clones shows how Palpatine has influence over Anakin, puts Anakin and Padme together, and the Clone Wars begin.
There are many flaws in the prequel trilogy, but as I say, I think most of them are the result of poor planning, and a broken foundation. But, as films go, Attack of the Clones is much better than the Phantom Menace, and I will start my deconstruction of the second episode next!
a simple man 