New Star Wars review up!!

Updated on April 3, 2010 By Ken Begg 17 Comments

That guy who did that now famous, long-form review of Star Wars Part 1 (which I yet think is the single best piece of criticism I’ve ever seen) has now gotten his apparently even longer piece about Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones up. I’m heading over to YouTube to watch it now.

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  • monoceros4

    I’m with the reviewer here: Episode I isn’t as bad as Episode II. Heaven help me, I actually think The Phantom Menace is watchable. There are worse things in the world than a little kid saying “Yippee!” and a CGI comic-relief character saying “Exsqueeze me!” especially since these annoyances really only take up maybe ten or fifteen minutes of screen time. Unfortunately Attack of the Clones finds many worse annoyances and fills the whole damn movie with them.

    The serial-killer stuff really isn’t that funny, though. The fellow’s a sharp enough critic to hold our attention without needing these bits of strained humor to keep us watching.

  • alex

    The prequels do have a cold,sterile vibe about them that is very off-putting. And Lucas scripts feel like first drafts. I think the reviewer put his finger on the problem in the Pantom Menace review where he showed Lucas looking at the climax of Episode one and saying to collaborators something like ‘Well maybe I put a little too much, but I can’t take anything out in editing’ and everybody in the room just nod. Lucas is smart but he has nobody to talk to on a equal level (power wise) to tell him ‘This is the problem and let’s see how we can fix it’. The only person I could think of would be Spielberg but he is not involved with the Star Wars films.

    It’s the classic problem, he’s surrounded by yes men. Nobody who works for Lucas will tell him that the script isn’t good or that the movie doesn’t work. Nobody wants to alienate him so he gets no constructive feedback. I don’t think he’s a bad guy, he doesn’t appear to be, but he is so rich and powerful that people are intimidated.

    Maybe Lucas should have done for these prequels what he did with Empire Strike Back. Give the script or a treatment to a talented guy he trusted (Kershner) and let him do his thing.

    I wonder for example what if Lucas had cast Kenneth Branagh as Kenobi and maybe let Branagh direct the actors and help with the scripts?

  • I agree that the serial killer gags are not that great. However, the review’s insights are spot on and,ironically, provide much more entertainment than the actual film.

    I saw the first Star Wars (1977), in the theater, the week it first premiered in New York and I was an instant fan. When Phantom Menace came out, I was disappointed beyond words (especially with all the hype – much of it centered around the almost non-existent Darth Maul).

    Lucas has proven himself an indulgent film maker who is so far out of touch with the basics of film making (and his audience) that you would have thought that a least someone would have said “NO” – but then again, you still have to feed your family – so why risk your job?

  • I must be the target audience. I find the loony murderer stuff to be highly amusing.

  • BeckoningChasm

    I thought the serial killer stuff was a bit too prominent this time around, and I too wish he’d left it on the cutting room floor.

    That said, it did have a great payoff in the last episode.

  • Food

    The guy’s site has reviews of Episodes I and II, five Star Trek movies, and Atavar.

    But I could’ve sworn he also had a Superman IV review as well. Am I thinking of someone else?

  • he only has star trek and star wars (and avatar). so far. Maybe you are thinking of the Nostalgia Critic?

  • tim

    I thought the serial killer stuff was a bit forced. he’s done that already. but the two women he had who kept saying “that’s what he said” were even more annoying. the rest of the review was decent. not as good as the others, I thought. but I’ll still keep watching. can’t wait for revenge of the sith. that’s the best of the new trilogy, but that’s like saying you beat verne troyer to win the ultimate fighting championship.

  • Thanks for pointing out the Red Letter Media reviews for me, Ken. Hilarious.

    I agree with most, though, that the “Mr. Plinkett is a sex murderer” stuff was overplayed in this one. It was funnier when it was 15-second sequences.

  • BeckoningChasm

    Off Topic: If you want to watch some GOOD science fiction, Amazon has the complete “Farscape” series for $60 today, but only for the next four hours.

  • Tork_110

    The beauty of these reviews is that I care more about that hooker than I ever did about Padme.

  • That’s actually true. Kudos to Lori Petty, although you can’t really blame Natalie Portman for the endemic Padme indifference.

    I think what’s so impressive about this second review (and depressive about the second movie) is that he doesn’t recycle a lot of the points from the first review that are still relevant. He mentions that there still isn’t a real, single main character, but doesn’t spend a lot of time on that, since it was covered earlier. In other words, this even longer second review mostly deals with entirely new ground.

    I thought his thoughts on the weird role reversals for Obi Wan and Anakin were particularly interesting, as was his point that the light sabers (like the Borg and Galactus) were much less interesting than they originally were because they were so overused.

  • Petoht

    His points about the lightsaber fights in the first movie, and his points about them and the force in the second movie are his most damning points, in my mind. He so ably demonstrates that Lucas had no clue about the mythology he created.

  • Aussiesmurf

    Part 1 of the review has been removed apparently because of a Cartoon Network copyright claim. Any ideas about this?

  • Boy, you’d think that would be covered by fair use law. However, I’m sure the guy can’t afford a lawsuit, even if he won.

    I’m not a conspiracy guy, but I will note that Cartoon Network has worked extensively with George Lucas in the past on shows like Family Guy and Robot Chicken. Could this be a way to block the thing by proxy so that Lucas can keep his hands clean?

  • tim

    if they can take that down for cartoon network copyright claims, why couldn’t EVERYTHING of his get taken down for copyright claims?

  • It could. As noted, such suits wouldn’t even have to win, just threaten the makers of the reviews with huge legal bills.

    Again, I think Lucas would like the reviews down (that’s just from my reading of his character), but doesn’t want to take the massive PR hit as a censor. However–and again, I usually am not a conspiracy guy–he’s always had a good relationship the Cartoon Network, as shown by the authorized Star Wars specials of Family Guy and Robot Chicken, the Clone Wars show. Meanwhile, Lucas is starting his own animated Star Wars ‘sitcom,’ the home for which has not been chosen, so you can imagine Cartoon Network would like to stay on his good side.