ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *superior*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, metaphysical, psychological, sociological*


In the first half-hour of ATTACK OF THE CLONES, both of the starring Jedi characters-- Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker-- express dubious opinions about politicians. And well they should. CLONES represents to the fullest the shift of George Lucas's creative priorities from the metaphysics of myth and fairy tale to science-fiction politics. RETURN OF THE JEDI begins the shift, and PHANTOM MENACE shows Lucas at his most political. To be sure, the corruption of the Republic into the Empire also parallels the transformation of good-hearted Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, servant of evil, but the metaphysical aspects of the battle of good and evil is always secondary to the sociopolitical side of things.

Because most critics believe that the STAR WARS franchise is all about blistering action-sequences and bizarre alien forms, few if any have appreciated the extent to which Lucas appropriated a variety of major historical developments in order to formulate his fictional universe. The three most important developments are as follows:

(1) In Europe, the 1400s marked the end of knighthood as it had been maintained by the feudal lords of Europe. During the Renaissance, the forces of increasing governmental centralization brought forth the dependence of most countries upon standing armies, loyal to the country rather than to separate lords.

(2) Two hundred years later, European settlers made their first inroads in the New World. For the conglomeration of colonial settlements that would eventually become the United States, the most defining experience was the colonists' ongoing conflicts with the land's aboriginal inhabitants. Literary critic Richard Slotkin pointed out that the proto-literature that arose during this period was dominated by what Slotkin calls "captivity narratives." In these stories, often based in fact to some extent, settlers described to one another the horrors that transpired when Indian tribes abducted colonists-- particularly female colonists-- and attempted to force them to forswear European culture in order to continue their existence within the culture of Native Americans.

(3) Another two hundred years later, the Indians no longer held sway within the still fragile Union, but one half of the fledgling country attempted to separate itself from the other half. Then-President Lincoln resorted to a number of measures to secure his part of the country from the rebels, invoking Presidential "emergency powers," such as the suspension of habeas corpus. The separatist movement, based in part on the economics of slavery, was defeated, but this resulted, according to some historians, in a much more centralized government.

Lucas weaves these real-world scenarios into one impressive tapestry, shaping the loose design of the "galaxy far far away" into a more cohesive whole. Some of the details are less significant than others: while PHANTOM MENACE establishes that slavery is more often practiced by the outer-rim planets than by those closer to the Republic centers of power, but CLONES does not dwell on the ethics of slavery. But when the Separatist movement threatens, the central government's first response is the Military Creation Act, which would empower the government to create a standing army, rather than remaining dependent on the Jedi Knights for defense of the realm. Though ten years have passed since the events of PHANTOM MENACE, queen-turned-senator Padme Amidala looks no older. She opposes the Military Creation Act, though her reasons for so doing are not explicated until REVENGE OF THE SITH. Lucas is less concerned here with individual motivations than with the way all motivations are stage-managed by the "master of the show," Senator Palpatine, last seen also ascending to governmental power in MENACE.

Whatever Palpatine's been doing for those ten years, the Military Creation Act offers him the chance to initiate the first stand in his massive web, He is, as the viewer eventually learns, indirectly responsible for an attempt to assassinate Padme-- though, to judge from later occurrences, his whole plan would've come unraveled had the assassin succeeded.

The more immediate consequence of the assassination-attempt is that Anakin, who's been training with the Jedi for the last decade, is re-united with his former ally Padme. Anakin claims to have been fascinated with Padme even when he was just a ten-year-old, but he's not ten anymore. Despite the fact that he's still a padawan (Jedi trainee), and despite the fact that his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi is frequently critical of Anakin's emotionality, Anakin is assigned to protect Padme. Meanwhile, Kenobi is removed from the immediate action by his own assignment, that of finding out who fostered the unsuccessful assassin. It will eventually be evident that Palpatine has drawn together Anakin and Padme as part of a far-reaching plan to corrupt Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force. It's a little less obvious that Palpatine means Kenobi to follow the assassin's trail in order to unearth a secret plan to create a clone-army, though puppet-master Palpatine certainly seems okay with that development.

Kenobi's investigation takes him to a world famous for cloning-technology, where he encounters the master template for the clone-army: mercenary Jango Fett, who, for reasons left obscure, retains one clone of himself to serve as a ready-made offspring, Boba Fett, who will go on to become a virtual mirror-image of Dear Old Dad during Luke Skywalker's lifetime. But once Kenobi has seen enough to make Palpatine's scheme clear to the viewer, the Jedi is captured, which eventually leads both Padme and Anakin to come to his rescue. Presumably all of this is also engineered by the villain, since the captivity of the three heroes brings about a battle in which the clone-army in turn comes to the rescue of Kenobi and a contingent of other Jedi Knights.

It doesn't take much acuity to realize that things consistently go Palpatine's way because his purpose aligns with the purpose of the universe's true architect, who has to bring about the destruction of the Jedi. But Palpatine goes from being fore-sighted to nearly omniscient where Anakin's mother is concerned. Not long after Anakin begins a secret romance with Padme, the young Jedi starts experiencing dreams of her death. Possibly the exigencies of the war make it impossible for him to garner news of  her welfare by any means but by traveling personally to his former homeworld. But by the time he gets there, he learns that Shmi Skywalker, released from slavery but married to an old farmer, has been for a full month the captive of the "vicious, mindless" savages known as the Tusken Raiders. To be sure, Lucas never says in any franchise-film that the Raiders, also called the Sandpeople, are the indigenous inhabitants of Tattooine. Nevertheless, their kidnapping of Shmi puts them in the same conceptual bailiwick as the native peoples of North America, and maybe Palpatine is somehow puppeteering them as well, since they conveniently bring about Shmi's death just in time to enrage Anakin, so that he slaughters the whole tribe in retaliation.

After this first descent into impassioned violence, Anakin gets somewhat back on track when he, Padme and the other Jedis seek to rescue Kenobi. However, secondary villain Count Dooku-- one of the pawns through which Palpatine works his will-- escapes Jedi capture, and not even Kenobi, who investigated the "false-front" creation of the clone-army, intuits that Dooku may've had something to do with the convenient appearance of said army, all clad the familiar regalia of Storm Troopers. All of the Jedi, even Old Man Yoda, maunder about weird movements in the Force. Srill, by film's end Palpatine has acquired the "emergency powers" that will eventually transform the Republic into the Empire.

What keeps the Jedi from seeing their danger? Early in the film Yoda remarks that the Jedi seem "too sure of themselves," and this critique seems to extend to the officials of the Republic. Even Kenobi, faced with the probability that someone has tampered with Republic computers, has to have this likelihood pointed out to him to a pre-teen padawan, who presumably sees with the fresh eyes of youth. That said, Anakin's youth doesn't preserve him from further falling into Palpatine's clutches, and even his concluding marriage to Padme doesn't lessen the sense that he's due to take a tragic fall.

Lucas's formulations of human psychology are not nearly as deep as his meditations on sociopolitics. Nevertheless, Anakin, the "virgin birth," does display a lot of daddy issues, projected not only upon perceptors like Kenobi and the late Qui-Gon Jinn, but also Palpatine and even the old fellow who marries Shmi and brings her into the family of the couple who will later rear Shmi's grandson. Lucas has often been criticized for the inadequacy of the Anakin-Padme relationship, and a lot of the dialogue is awkward (why does Anakin hope that Padme's kiss won't become "a scar?") But at least their interaction serves the plot fairly well, which is more than I can say for the Jango Fett revleations. I also believe that the FX in CLONES is unfairly dismissed by critics. Jango Fett may not be much of a character, but he and Kenobi have a kickass battle that more than makes up for son Boba's shortcomings in RETURN OF THE JEDI. Similarly, the big arena-battle deserves to be appreciated on the same kinetic level as the original attack on the Death Star. In terms of mythic discourse CLONES is the equal of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and also proves that George Lucas is best with his first and second acts. But the third-- not so much.