Star Wars - The Clone Wars (3am reaction post)

First of all, before you read my response to this flick, please read this as it sums up my personal Star Wars philosophy in every possible way.

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1. Being a bit of a purist, I was not a big fan of the sounds over the LucasFilm logo and the "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away" but I'll let them slide. I cannot, however, let the narrated set-up slide. They could have at least put the text there! I mean, I understand it's a kid's movie (ostensibly) and theoretically (American) kids can't read, but... dude. It's Star Wars. It HAS to open with an overly political, slightly confusing, epic set-up in three yellow text blocks that fade slllloooowwwwllly into the stars. It has to. That having been said, had they just put what they said into those blocks, it would have been a damn-solid opener. Also? I really really need this new tricked-out version of the theme song.

2. War: (Good god, y'all) What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! (Sing it again!) This depiction of battles did better than any single other Star Wars movie, imho, in showing the moral dimensions of war realistically. The clones were given their due, I think, and I had to cringe at how violent and ugly their deaths were, but how unglorified the whole matter was. That opening battle did NOT seem like a kid's movie, guys. It was pretty horrifying. What I really, really, really liked was how individualized they made the clones. Oddball, Cody, and Rex all had very distinct personalities, it seemed, and when we saw a bunch of the troops with their helmets off we saw that even though they were all clones of Jango Fett (probably the best cartoon depiction of a prequel actor, actually) they all had different hair styles and colours. They were all individuals, like all soldiers, and you couldn't ignore their deaths and conscious sacrifices (Rex, in particular) as the duty of identical, nameless, faceless, cannon-fodder.

What added another layer to the whole thing--and this may have been unintentional--was the increased sentience of the battle-droids. In The Phantom Menace they were barely sentient and their humour came from their machine-logic being unable to cope with the Jedi and other creative beings. They were the quintessential cannon-fodder. In this, however, they were the comic relief in that they were really stupid and gullible, but they were very self-aware as well (case in point? When Ventress throws the one droid over the cliff in frustration he cries out 'whhhhyyyyyyyy?' on the way down. Very existential!) Additionally, one of the key traitors was that green droid at the monastary who lies, saying he was a prisoner, to escape destruction and facilitate the trap, but then gets busted at the transport. We never see him following orders, or any other droid identical to him. He may be a droid, but for all intents and purposes, he is an individual being with free will and personality like every other being. When Ashuka (sp?) decapitates him I worried that she was treading too close to the dark side. This wasn't addressed, of course, but ambiguous morality is the subtext of the whole film, and I think it's a bit implied. But I digress...

This film doesn't let you feel good that at least the Jedi survive, like Attack of the Clones does. You understand Anakin feeling like a right bastard for letting Rex down, but then Rex turns it right around and lets him off the moral hook, agreeing that the objective of the mission is what is important, not one soldier's life. So we have sentient, individualized droids fighting sentient, individualized clones and of course you have to root for the good guy, but that gets extra-complicated by the fact that the good guys look more like stormtroopers than the clones we see in Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith, so all of a sudden you are forced to recognize all the deaths on the hands of our heroes in the original trilogy.

This is a round about way of getting to the point that the message of this movie, if there is one, is that all actors in war have agency, from the soldiers on up, and it's only when you look at the big picture, the history--the over-arcs of the two trilogies--that this agency is invisible in the shadows of the ultimate elite of the heroes and villains.

3. Sexism: Um. Well. At least no one died in childbirth for lack of the will to live? But seriously, I actually had very few beefs with Ashuka, but the ones I had bugged the FUCK out of me. First of all, we FINALLY have a characterized female Jedi and her job is to rescue and care for a baby?!?!?!?! FOR REALSIES? Second, what the fuck is up with Anakin's random-ass nickname for her. Yeah she calls him 'sky guy' but, um, at least his name is Skywalker. His came out of fucking nowhere and just demeaned her, I think. Call her Padawan like everyone else, dude. Or, you know, her name! Three, um, naked and skinny and elongated much? Also? Anime eyes. I mean, maybe she's not human and is supposed to look like that but... not addressed. Four, "Artoo-y"? Really???? I mean, I know how having a vagina makes you want to cutify everything always, but at least pick something that isn't already the epitome of cute to begin with. Also, it just sounded like she was saying 'R2E' which doesn't even make sense.

Other than that though, I quite liked the character. She was a great match for Anakin because she is so much like him, and a way for him to show that he has actually changed and bettered under Obi-Wan's tutelage. Also, I think it's a bit humbling for him to see that for 'normal' Jedi (ones who aren't conceived by the midichlorians or whatnot) his psycho-tactics are not actually as advised as he might have thought in the past. In contrast, however, I also think she shows him that he has developed into a Jedi whose style is quite distinct from that of Obi-Wan's but that is still respected in some way by Yoda & co. I wonder how she dies...

4. Racism. Oh Star Wars, why why why must you always 'orientalize' your minor evil characters. Your good-guy music was all alt-rock and marching bands and your ominous, mysterious bad-gal music was all aboriginal and Indian. Seriously? If you're gonna pull a new style of music into the score for the film, at least spread it out a bit for thematic coherency and to not further other non-western culture in the Star Wars canon.

5. Zero the Hutt. Just... wtf. I seriously do not know what to make of that. Was it homophobic? Was it a really awesome nod to the fact that Hutts change sex when they're pregnant? Was it an homage to something I'm not clear on? Was Zero the Hutt really an effeminate southern gentleman? Someone please explain it to me because I have no freaking clue.

6. Animation: 80% freaking awesome and 20% cringe-worthy. The thing is, that the prequels were so heavily animated that unless a scene closed in on a character's face, it looked like normal Star Wars. So, when it did go in for the close-up, the expressionless, stylized faces (however good at capturing the likeness of the original actors) were jarring, every single time. I could deal with the flat delivery because, well, it's Star Wars and that's not what's important ever anyway. But the lack of expressions and the weirdly long legs bothered me. Oh well. Obi-Wan was still hot. Shut up. I know it wasn't Ewan. But somehow, my brain doesn't care. When he lost his saber and STILL fought of Ventress? HAWT. I applauded, and so did one of the other eight people in the theatre.

7. Self-referencing and in-jokes: they rocked them. The visual quotes were STUNNING and yet subtle. When they showed crashed transport, open and empty in the Tatooine desert with the Jawas gathering in front of it looking exactly like one of the first scenes of A New Hope I gasped. Also, I think the initial fight scene where Anakin uses one of the big-evil-gun-things to trip the other, it was a nice subtle reference to Empire in the battle of Hoth and the AT-ATs. I think they even threw in a few EU references in there (don't have my books with me, so I can't check, but the monks that Ashuka mentions outside the monastery? Aren't those the ones that take-over Jabba's palace and have brains in jars and robotic spider-legs? Maybe?) just to make me happy. However, they did Tatooine justice like whoa, but really short-changed the other planets. Also? I really loved the parallel of having Padme approach a Hutt in disguise a la Princess Leia.

8. Plot: Not bad, actually. Yeah the Hutt-baby bit was kind of dumb, but at least they all acknowledged that it was and that they had to do it for political purposes. What I want to know, though, is why they didn't make use of the fact that Anakin used to be owned by a Hutt to their advantage to further convince Jabba that Anakin was coming to kill him. So obvious, guys!

9. I'll tell you what. The best damn delivery in the whole movie? Anthony Daniels as Threepio, per usual. His tiny moment of glory felt more like the original trilogy than pretty much anything else.

10. What can I say, though. It's Star Wars. It is. There is almost no critique I can make of this film that I can't and haven't made of any of the trilogy. It holds up the mythology to my satisfaction, and gives me some character and story points to chew over. I can't honestly say whether or not I'm going to think of this as proper canon in my head or relegate it to the place in my head where I keep the novelizations (but not the EU. Shut up, I'm contrary.) as an almost-AU. I have to think on it more. But either way, I approve this message.