Journal: News & Comment

Permalinks to this entry: individual page or in monthly context. For more material from my journal, visit my home page or the archive.

So how was it?

My wife and I saw Attack of the Clones Saturday night. Summary: better than Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace, not as good as Empire Strikes Back or the original Star Wars. In other words, pretty good.

The new movies sorely miss Han Solo (or Lando Calrissian, for that matter) -- a key character who is outside the political and mystical machinations of the main plotline, and who has some attitude. Even Boba Fett turns out to be way more crucially involved in the whole building-the-Empire thing than anyone would have guessed.

There are funny and creepy bits, spectacular digital spectacles -- and a very few that are beautiful because they aren't digital at all. What's best about the new film is that a whole lot of things are pretty topsy-turvy. People and things you thought were bad guys weren't always, and good guys aren't so good, or so wise. Plus Yoda kicks some butt.

 |