OK, You Can Talk to Me About Star Wars Now!

Well, I finaly got out to see Attack of the Clones yesterday. I had to; it was getting so I couldn't read my e-mail. Seems like half of it was nothing but spoiler-laden Star Wars discussions sent to me by well-meaning fellow-geek friends...

So, my opinions of the movie? Well... As a movie, it made a great video game.

Honestly, it had very much the same kind of feel as a well-excuted (but action-oriented) computer adventure game. Incredible visuals (in fact, I almost typed "graphics," because, after all, they pretty much are all CGI). Wonderfully detailed settings (again, mainly in a visual way). Amazing, exciting, increasingly complex action scenes. And plot and dialog that mainly seem to exist to provide a flimsy framework for the action and the visuals.

Which is kind of unfortunate, I suppose, seeing that it's supposed to be part of this big epic story in which all kinds of things are happening that are shaping the course of history in the Star Wars universe. But it sure as hell felt like Lucas or whoever didn't care about the plot and the politics and yadda yadda except as they provided an excuse for kick-ass lightsabre fights, so I found it pretty hard to care, too. The only exception was Anakin beginning his slide over to the Dark Side, which did involve some real characterization, and actually had some of the same kinds of mythic resonances we got in the original trilogy. But even that felt a little... I dunno, a little off, a little flat. Definitely not as powerful as it should be.

And then there was the love story, complete with cheesy Jedi pickup lines. No, I couldn't really buy it. Look, imagine you're Amidala. You're beautiful, you're powerful, you're a busy professional person. And this guy you haven't seen since he was nine starts comes up to you and starts going on about how he hasn't been able to sleep at night thinking of you for ten years and how he longs deeply just to be near you, etc, etc, etc. (And in between adolescent whinings about how his father-figure doesn't understand him, no less!) I dunno about you, but if I was Amidala, I'd be thinking "restraining order"...

But the visuals were incredible. I know I tend to go on and on, in my curmudgeonly way about how unimportant special effects ultimately are, and how if the story isn't interesting, and the characters aren't interesting, no amount of eye candy is going to make the movie worth watching for me. I'll tell ya, though, this movie almost induces me to change my mind. It's not just that things look good, it's that there is so much rich visual detail that the mind can't even take it all in at once, and it's all utterly fascinating detail. Screw plot. Screw character. Frankly, this movie is worth watching even with the sound off. Except that then we wouldn't get all the cool swooshy sound effects...

Is that horribly hypocritical of me to say, do you think?