Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

I posted last week about watching Star Wars Ep 1 A Phantom Menace last week, and I guess ITV are showing each of the movies (well the prequels at least), one every weekend. So yeah, Just finished watching Ep II: Attack of the Clones. Once again, not nearly as good as I remember it being from childhood.

The thing is, Phantom Menace was a pretty bad film but it had some resemblance to the original three in style if nothing else, AotC just seems like it's taking the piss out of itself. You've got the slapstick comedy stuff from R2D2 and C3PO, which has always been there, but here they're just too much. At one point you've got C3PO's head on a battledroid body shouting "Die Jedi! Die!". It really hit me that someone involved at least must have been taking the piss in the arena/execution scenes: Padme (Natalie Portman) is being attacked by some jaguar alien beast, dressed in some bodysuit, only to have it slash at her and somehow take half of her top clean off with no injuries. That's not even horror B movie standard, that's parody. Alongside this you've got Hayden Christiansen, playing an angsty teenager who's as easy to relate to as a beetle in a sewer drain.

Overall, I'm starting to come round to the idea that the prequels are totally unnecessary. I always thought those people were dicks, but not so much now that I'm actually going back and watching them again. That said, it is nice to see some of the Star Wars universe done with more special effects methods at the disposal of the Lucas, some of the battle scenes and the arena scene were still quite impressive.