Star Wars EP II A review from overseas

Star Wars EP II A review from overseas

Star Wars EP II (A review from the war) WARNING THIS CONTAINS NOTHING BUT SPOILERS AND THE RANTINGS OF A BIG FAT GEEK! (this was a review I did when I was stationed overseas with the Air Force. I found it in the archives so I figured I post it in the reviews...)

I saw Star Wars AOTC last night. I have one word to describe my initial reaction, Wow! I loved it! Lucas pulled it off! He redeemed himself fully in my eyes. But was it perfect? No, there were a few things in it I didn\'t like, but then again, I could say that about any movie. Over all, I give it a 9 out of 10. Keep in mind; I saw the film in grainy DIVX/VCD versions. So some of the splendor of the digital effects and amazing sound were lost for me.

First, what I didn\'t like. I saw the movie after reading the first half of the novel. Like most novel/film comparisons, the book won out on character and plot development. It\'s just the nature of film, you can\'t show everything. But the first third of the film seemed a little choppy to me. It was like we were fast-forwarding through much of the initial story, just to save time and film. We lost great scenes like when Yoda said he\'d need to \'probe the dark side\' to find out who was behind the latest dilemma, or Anikan\'s nightmares about his mother and his related discussions with his Master Obi Wan. They basically dumped the whole Shmi Skywalker sub plot in our laps in the middle of the movie. I would have liked to at least seen her abduction in the very beginning, perhaps with a transition to Anikan waking up with a bad feeling. And why was there barely a mention of Count Dooku until the very end? Couldn\'t we at least get a clue as to what the Separatists were doing earlier on? Well, those are my complaints.

By far my favorite parts of the movie were Yoda\'s entrance and battle scenes with the clone army. Was he a bad ass general or what? Seeing Yoda, not as a passive monk, but as an extremely competent military leader, of the \'storm
troopers\' no less, was one of the coolest things this geek has ever seen! And the force/light saber duel at the end was simply awesome! Finally some character development! I\'d love to see Yoda lead an army against Palpatine\'s army in the next installment. The coolness of the clone army itself was also a plus. The arena scene was cool too, especially when all the Jedi appeared, too cool! Jango Fett was cool, but I would have liked to see more of him in action, and they should have kept him alive for the next movie. Lucas has a habit of killing off some of his coolest characters early on, like Darth Maul for instance.

I had heard that the acting and plot was going to be weak, but I saw nothing wrong with either. I especially love the performance of the guy that plays Palpatine. He\'s so good at being evil. Even when he\'s pretending to be good, he\'s bad. I found myself wanting to yell at the screen, \'Don\'t listen to him, he\'s evil! He\'s faking!\' I loved the fact that there was no real enemy, and that Palpatine was just engineering an entire war to gain more power. Did you pickup on the Death Star reference at the end of the droid battle? And how fitting it was that Jar Jar Binks was the one to make a senatorial motion to give Palpatine more power. I almost think Lucas purposely made Jar Jar so stupid in EP I so we\'d all go in hating him in this new movie making this scene that much better. You hated him because he was lame now hate him because he helped make the Emperor! HA! Another favorite was the Tusken Raider massacre. I loved that they played the Vader theme after that. If only we could have seen more of the carnage.

I could rant and rave all day, but bottom line is I love this movie. And although Lucas decided not to support the troops by sending his movie to us over seas, I forgive him. He\'s back in my good graces once again. Special thanks go out to Rampy and my other friends that got me copies of the movie. You\'ve made the troops out here very happy!

thebryon

Added:  Sunday, November 17, 2002
Reviewer:  thebryon
Score:
Related web link:  buy the movie
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Language: eng