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Star Wars - Episode II, Attack of the Clones (Widescreen Edition)

Star Wars - Episode II, Attack of the Clones (Widescreen Edition)

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $13.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best sci fi/fant, best Star Wars movie, best movie EVER
Review: Fans who loved all the great things about the original trilogy will be delighted with what's in store in Episode 2. You will be brought back to why you liked Star Wars in the first place: action, adventure, fantasy, heroism, a world of wonder and intrigue. Yes, in case you haven't been fortunate enough to see it yet, George Lucas has really created a spectacle with AOTC. Even if you don't like the romantic angle or the way some dialog is delivered, you can't help but sit back in awe as you are swept off to that galaxy far, far away.

Never before have we seen an adrenalin pumping, pulse pounding, night-time speeder chase through the towers and busy traffic of Coruscant, or an all out battle involving thousands of droids and troops, hundreds of jedi, and weapons of mass destruction. Never before have we seen the origin of the stormtrooper army or the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy seen in ep. 4-6, or the way Palpatine came to power. Never before have we seen how Anakin turned to the dark side (ep. 3 will finish what started in ep. 2) or how the jedi were wiped out. Never before have we seen Yoda's combat skills, and when he does get involved it is a show stopper. All this and more is in episode 2. The Star Wars saga has never been more alive and kicking.

Clones is overwhelming and enjoyable at the same time. The viewer is placed in the middle of this rapidly progressing storyline of galactic proportions and must hold on for the ride (much like the Matrix or the Empire Strikes Back). Anakin, now playd by Hayden Christiansen, has become a powerful jedi yet still must learn to control his emotions. Hayden does a great job portraying the character who is faced with many crucial decisions involving forbidden love and the temptations of anger, all while trying to live up to his role as a jedi. You can literally see Anakin losing control of his actions and drawing strength from the dark side of the force. It will be inevitable in the next movie, something has to break.

Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Sam Jackson, and the rest of the familiar cast are back, all stepping up their performances a notch from Ep. 1. As the plot twists and turns, several new characters are introduced. Jango Fett, a ruthless bounty hunter along with the mysterious Count Dooku (played by Christopher Lee- Saruman in Lord of the Rings) are the two main additions and we finally get to see Boba Fett as a youngster. New locations include Kamino, an ocean covered planet where the clones are created and Geonosis, the home world of the Separatist movement- comprised of the Trade Fed., commerce guild, techno union, and other groups who are rebelling against the republic. New places, vehicles, ships, aliens, droids, weapons, etc. are always cool and there are TONS of them in Ep. 2. So much detail you could never see everything.

AOTC has the most action of any movie I've ever seen, the final battle alone involves thousands of droids, vehicles, jedi and clone troopers. I should point out that ep. 2 is the most violent movie in the series, probably not good for little kids. There are many scenes of various injuries due to lightsaber mayhem (decapitations, limb loss, bisection, ect.) although it never gets bloody like Starship Troopers. I am surprised it got a PG rating.

The dvd itself is a superb production, great artwork, menus, features, and extras like Ep. 1. It's a 2 disc set, with hours of documentaries, deleted scenes, and effect breakdowns to explore. I highly recommend the widescreen dvd, excellent picture and sound. The music is really outstanding too. I recently saw the movie in Imax format, and I was blown away. It is cut down to about 2 hours, and they made it flow a lot better. Don't miss your chance to see a Star Wars movie on the giant screen (w/ incredible sound). In conclusion, AOTC is a wonderful experience, for me it has everything that makes a great movie. Thank you George Lucas and the small army of talented people who worked so hard on it. Can't wait for Episode 3!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This one has it all!
Review: Better than episode one, this one has all the elements that made Star Wars the franchise it is today. Light saber battles, Starship dog fights, an evil lord, Yoda actually in battle with a lightsabre! The extras truly have some worthwhile added scences which I thought didn't slow the movie down one bit. Too bad they weren't included in the final cut. I have to give it five stars for any Star Wars or even Star Trek fan.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not quite Empire, but much better than the previous episode
Review: First and foremost, less Jar Jar and that alone is a beautiful thing. I found Episode 2 to be much faster paced and lacking the horrible acting of the very young Anikan, his bad acting mother and Jar Jar. Ok, so the teen Anikan isn't much better. he does a great creepy, but is just a bad actor when it comes to romance. Plus he is whiney, but I suppose Luke was too..
the bonus CD is great. Enjoyed it thoroughly as an avid Star Wars fan would. Worth the price alone.
The action in this movie was fantastic and I feel it did lay some good ground work for the next movie (and following 3 we've all seen) without interfering like it did in the first one.
Lucas needs some serious help with his dialog, but when it comes to action and special effects- he is the best. Well worth your money and fun for the whole family.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best one yet
Review: This Star Wars is definately the best one yet. The special effects are far more superior than anything that has been released ever, and it will take others a long time to match what George Lucas has done. The story is enthralling and gets the viewer even more excited about Episode III. This one is a must see for anyone, regardless if you are a Star Wars fan or not.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Enjoyable but no classic
Review: This installment in the Star Wars series was another solid outing on the entertainment side of it but is in no way the quality of the original 3 (nothing really could). The movie seemed rushed and thrown togather acting wise. Portman is a great cast for her role but Lucas doesn't seem to be able to get a good performance out of her. She is dry and amatuerish. McGreggor is the ideal fit for Kenobi yet in this episode he struggles withthe character immensely. I don't blame the actors I just blame direction not doing it's job. The stars just don't seem to be getting into their characters enough to match what is expected. Overall though the film is action oriented and the new characters are a great addition to the Star Wars series. Dooku is well done and I forgot the actors name but he was great. Yoda fighting was classic! The whole Jango/Boba Fett angle was a little weak but my bias's are probably because of a lot of 3rd party influence into Boba Fett's world via novels and comics but those have nothing to do with Lucas. All I can really say is if you love Star Wars and tolerated Episode One then well pick this up. it is a good addition and entertaining although it is no classic like the Empire Strikes Back. Lets hope George gets it right with Episode 3.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Attack of the Terrible Screenwriters
Review: I must have seen a different movie because the one I saw on opening day with bated breath did not deserve five stars. Like most of America, I eagerly anticipated the next installment, hearing nothing but good things about it.

Man was I disappointed. The acting was awful; apparently Hayden Christiansen has negative talent, because no one in the scenes he was in could act, not even Ewan McGregor or Natalie Portman. The love scenes were as badly written written as a soap opera. ("I've been dying a little each day since you came back."? Come on.) I guess I wouldn't have had so much of a problem, except these excruciating scenes took up too of the movie. One suggestion for George Lucas when he goes to make the third installment - get off your high horse and hire a decent screenwriter! We all know you're brilliant (You created Star Wars for heaven's sake), so no one will think less of you if you don't try and write the thing, okay?

Enough of that - there were good things about this movie - i.e. the parts that weren't focusing on Anakin and Padme. (That's one star) This movie is called Attack of the Clones - let's see more of that!

Also, this movie did have the coolest scene in the Star Wars saga by far - Yoda. No one can touch that guy with a light saber, and that scene was just awesome. It almost makes the whole movie worth watching. There's another star.

Instead of two stars like the theatrical release, this DVD gets three stars because of 1) the cool extras and 2) because it looks way better! The theatrical release was awful - digital film onto analog reels makes for a terrible projection. It was like watching an mpeg. A good mpeg, but an mpeg nonetheless. Everything was grainy, and it looked worse thant if it had just been shot with standard 35mm stock. The DVD has no analog whatsoever, and as a result looks better than it did in the theater.

p.s. in response to another reviewer - Lord of the Rings is still a much better movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Decent movie, terrible DVD extras
Review: I think that the other reviews do a decent job on reviewing the movie, so I'll touch on what everyone seems to be leaving out.

The DVD extras are worthless.

I only watched the 'action' featurette because let's face it, you aren't watching Star Wars for a good love story or for a story that captivates you and makes you think. So logically I watched the action featurette first. All it did was recap the story. Many of the films actors only stated the obvious, like 'this is the first time we get to see a whole lot of jedi fighting at one time' -- you're kidding! How riveting! 90% of what they say in this featurette is obvious when you just watch the film. Like I said, it's more of a movie summary than anything interesting.

Could have easily done without Dex's Diner. Conceptual art would have been better than seeing joe-jedi eating a hamburger on the set.

One thing I began to notice was that if you watch about 3 things off of the extras you've pretty much seen all the rest. All you need to do is arrange the clips in a new order, and presto - new featurette. There was a lot of repetition.

The deleted scenes were not that interesting. We'd rather have deleted action scenes that we know exist, but we got more dialogue. Hmmm... What do fans want to see? Is Star Wars better known for it's action, or intriguing dialogue?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great Movie Adventure
Review: People either love the Star Wars movies or they hate them. I happen to fall in the former category, so the release of Attack of the Clones was highly anticipated by me. The story of part two has been well discussed here, so I will just comment on the tape itself. I have the VHS version, and the only complaint I have is that there are slight intermittent fluctuations in the soundtrack. This happened perhaps five times during the movie but really did not spoil the watching of the film. I did not feel that I had to return the tape. Perhaps this means that the DVD is the format to buy for a digital film.

Some of the deleted scenes are included after the movie, and they are highly interesting as to their contribution to the story. I found it interesting that many of these scenes are musically scored so it must have been a close to a final cut of the film when these scenes were removed. Each clip is introduced with an explanation of the action and why the scene was not included in the film. There are one or two of these scenes that I think should have been left in the film, particularly the scene of Patme's family.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Extras make this worthwhile
Review: Love or hate Star Wars Episode II, you almost have to own this movie. Star Wars is a social consciousness phenomenon and you have to respect the power that it commands in the collective consciousness. In this case, SWE2's extras do make the DVD worth having. The deleted scense are well done and I appreciated the commentary around the context of WHY they were deleted. It gives you some deeper perspective on Padme and why she is the way she is (plus you get to see Natlie Portman in an AMAZING dress - yowza!) I admit the stuff on the digital characters could have been broken out better. I'd rather have had the option of focusing just on Yoda's development as a CGI character alone without the rest of the bestiary. But all in all, worth the price of admission.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: "Padme...you're my density..."
Review: First of all, I couldn't decide whether to give three or four stars. I finally decided four just could not be justified, so it's really more like 3.5/5 from me. So, as you know by now, this is not a great movie, but it's better than Episode I by a considerable margin. The special effects are great and seamless (moments in Episode I and especially the ones added to the 3 original SW films were quite flawed). The asteroid chase and rain planet and Yoda's lightsaber duel were all memorable. I noticed some grainy scenes in the theater, but everything looks good -- almost TOO good -- on the DVD. The plot this time around is less convoluted and more coherent and flows more naturally from scene to scene. The video and surround audio are both reference quality on this DVD, and there's enough extras to keep the most ardent fans busy for a long time. 'Nuff said about that -- no complaints at all there.

But alas, the characters and their interactions with each other, is the film's downfall, due to poor acting, directing, and screenwriting. I appreciated trying to add some romantic facets, but the dialogue is laughably bad in many scenes, and certain actors are so blandly disinterested they cannot overcome the material to convince us otherwise. Hayden Christiansen is simply awful, there is no other way to put it. The annoying, forgettable, hokey child actor in Episode I has been replaced by an annoying, forgettable, hokey teenage actor here. Natalie Portman is only slightly less wooden than in Episode I, which must be blamed on the direction, because in other places she's proved herself to be a competent actor. And although I generally like him, I never quite bought Samuel Jackson as a Jedi Knight. He goes through the entire film with an odd look on his face and I get the distinct feeling he was always on the verge of breaking into laughter reading his lines. Christopher Lee and Ewan McGregor are the only actors worthy of the roles, along, of course, with the vocal talent that gives the CG Yoda life. Thankfully the insipid Jar Jar Binks is less prominent in this film, although even after five seconds he begins to grate on you. I guess he had to put in an appearance so they could pump another action figure into Toy 'R' Us stores around the world. As for the direction, Lucas needs to just give it up and let someone who knows what they are doing handle it. He is NOT a great director. His two best films, Empire and Raiders, were directed by someone other than him. There was some great screen chemistry in the original Star Wars but it must have just been stars-aligning dumb luck, since he has never been able to reproduce it since.

Reading this you might think I hated this movie, but I actually didn't. You just need to let yourself become a kid again for a few hours and ignore the bad things. Then it just becomes fun, and if you are expecting something more from a Star Wars film then you aren't being realistic. The first three Star Wars films also had lots of bad acting, bad screenwriting, uneven direction, cheesy special effects, and a ridiculous plot but we never saw that, because we were young and unjaded and had no preconceptions or expectations for the films to live up to, and we were experiencing instead of analyzing as we watched. If you can force yourself to do the same here, you'll enjoy it.


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