Last night, at 12:01 a.m., I went to the first Utah County showing of Attack of the Clones. It was a sort of cast party for my Great Expectations cast. I thought I'd be the first kid on the block to start what I think may be another lively discussion. I should say immediately that this is written immediately after getting up in the morning, and that I have not read any of the criticism pertaining to the film.

A few disclaimers: I am not particularly a Sci-fi fan. I don't dislike the genre, and have in fact read quite a bit of sci-fi/fantasy, but consider myself at best a casual fan. I loved the first Star Wars film, but do not and never have thought any of the films were particularly profound or important. I certainly have never read any of the books, and would sooner face the gallows than do so. I thought Star Wars was a great B-movie. The fact that it wasn't actually a very good movie was part of what made it great. Cheesy dialogue, preposterous situations, amazing escapes and coincidences and Mark Hamill in the lead; it's pulp, it's a serial. Nothing wrong with that. I've never been persuaded that the Force is anything but a hack writer making sure we get who the good guys are. So those are my prejudices.

First the good news: Attack of the Clones is better than Phantom Menace. It's better paced, the action sequences are a lot more fun, and some of the actors have loosened up a bit. The Phantom Menace was bad enough that I really didn't want to see AOTC, but I went with some friends, and we all enjoyed ourselves.

The bad news: in our AML-List discussion of PM, I was troubled by what I perceived to be an anti-democratic bias in the film. Those concerns are increased exponentially in this one. I think, frankly, it's a film that detests and distrusts democracy and that supports what emerges as a fascist political stance. I was also troubled by what I perceived to be racist overtones in the last film. They're far worse here. In the last film, I suggested that Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) was essentially a Hitler figure. That's no longer true; I was mistaken. He's not Hitler, he's Himmler. He's not a fascist dictator, he's the right hand man. Finally, I was worried about the theological implications of the last film. Those concerns are, again, far greater in this one.

I am not saying, by the way, that George Lucas is racist, or fascist. I think he's a poor writer who has painted himself into a narrative corner, and who may have finally figured a way out in this film. I think that the troubling politics may be unintentional. All I can do is respond to the film I saw last night, and it's a very very weird film.

A few points to get out of the way first. The biggest problem that the prequel trilogy has is that we know how it's going to come out. There's no tension regarding Anakin -- we know he becomes Vader, and we know that his love affair with Princess Amidala (I'm probably misspelling all these names, forgive me), will result in the birth of Luke and Leia. In the last film, the poor kid who played Anakin was generally regarded as one the film's greatest weaknesses. I never thought that was fair; a child actor's performance is generally a reflection of the direction he's been given. Besides, he wasn't bad in the film. He wasn't unconvincing, he was just obnoxious. Well, Hayden Christensen, the new Anakin, is also fairly convincing, but Anakin, in this film, is an obnoxious teenager. He's sullen and rude and mercurial. I've got three teenagers living at home right now and am not partial to sullen selfishness. He's not a bad actor, but the character is also unlikable. And the film spends a lot of time developing the love story between him and Princess (now Senator) Amidala. Natalie Portman is cute, and not a bad actress. It's just one of those things; she and Christensen had no chemistry at all. They both worked at it really hard, and the film gave the relationship room. It never happened. So a good quarter of the film is wasted on a love story that a) has zero suspense anyway, and b) has no romantic tension or excitement or energy. Lucas does give us some pretty waterfalls and stuff to look at in the background, and believe me, we spend a lot of time checking 'em out.

Okay, let's talk politics.

In Star Wars, the first one, (Episode 4, I know, I absolutely refuse to call it A New Hope or whatever it is), you had your Rebel Alliance and you had your Empire. The Rebel Alliance are the good guys and the Empire were the bad guys. Part of the reason Phantom Menace stunk was because the politics were so convoluted it was hard to sort it all out. AOTC is far worse. You've got the Galactic Republic, governed by a Senate (unicameral, as far as I can tell, with passing reference made to a judicial branch), plus you've got a bunch of star systems who want to secede, plus you've got the Trade Federation, plus you've got the Jedi Knights who are sort of Texas Ranger/Royal Canadian Mounties/Green Beret supercops, plus you've got a rogue Jedi faction, plus you've got some mysterious cloning planet, plus you've got a key vote in the Senate over what seems to be a military appropriations bill, plus you've got Tom Daschle filibustering McCain's attempt to get a cloture vote to get the bill out of subcommittee. The opening scroll lets us know from the outset that the politics were going to be confusing, and that we would never sort it all out, and we never do.

Okay, it's a democracy, it's supposed to be a little sloppy. Except. There's a crucial scene between Amidala and Anakin, in which they talk a little political theory in between smooching sessions. And he says, in essence, "you need a strong leader. Someone you can trust. And then force everyone to do what he says." Amidala disagrees of course, and points out that what they have is a democracy, which she defends (though not, unfortunately, on grounds of personal liberty). The whole rest of the film subsequently proves that he's right and she's wrong. In fact, Yoda says it explicitly: the Senate cannot be trusted. And so Senator Jar Jar gets to do the one thing he does the whole movie; he makes a speech in which a state of emergency is declared and extraordinary dictatorial powers are given to Senator What's His Name. The creepy looking dude from PM. Who looks a lot like, and is probably going to turn out to be, the Emporer.

Now, there's room here for Lucas to get out of it. Yoda admits that the dark side is clouding his vision a bit. It could be that the next movie will show that Yoda was wrong, that he should have trusted the Senate, that giving too much power to one guy is a mistake. (In fact, we know it's a mistake, because we know what happens next). Some of that may happen in the next one.

But the fact is, for all the politics in this movie, there's no sense of, you know, actual poltics. Compromise, debate, discussion, finding a middle ground, balancing the needs of constituents over one's personal beliefs; there's none of that in the movie. Democracy is never shown to be anything but a mistake, and the Jedi (who we are to regard as enlightened and wise, even if capable of error), are profoundly mistrustful of the entire political process. And they make it clear that they will obey civilian orders only up to a point. So in the world of Star Wars, the Senate is corrupt, the strong man is given absolute power and the military plays wait and see. And this makeshift interplanetary banana republic is said to have kept the peace for a thousand years?

It gets better. The movie is called Attack of the Clones. Clones are in the film; they're genetically altered supersoldiers. All Polynesian (apparently on the theory that Pacific Islanders were the one minority Lucas hadn't offended yet). They're creepy and creepy looking. (SPOILER ALERT: STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW). We all recognize them immediately, of course, because they're Imperial Storm Troopers; same molded white plastic costumes. And they're on our side, the good guys' side. They fight with Yoda and Obi Wan, against . . . well, I'm not sure who against. Trade Federation battlebots in alliance with evil Jedi Dookoo (something like that), played, inevitably, by uber-villain Christopher Lee. They fly in, like cavalry, to save Obi-Wan's and Anikin's butts. The Storm Troopers, with all those wonderful Nazi overtones, are on our side. See what I mean about bizarre politics?

The religious overtones are equally weird. Anakin has to save his mother, who has been captured by, I think, Banta, or Sand People, or anyway bad guys. Anyway, they've got her and have been torturing her, and she's apparently also been crucified. (Remember Anakin's virgin birth?) He rescues her in time for her to die in his arms. And then he goes berserk and kills this whole tribe. I mean, slaughters men women and children, does a whole Book of Joshua on 'em. And then he comes back to Amidala and tells her and feels bad about it. (She's apparently okay with it, because they later get married) Now, we know that Anakin is attracted to the Dark Side, and we know he's going to go over to it. So I ask myself, how does this work theologically? Going berserk and wiping out an entire tribe of people, men women and children, that's not enough? That's insufficient to send one to the Dark Side? You have to do something even worse?

I loathed the unearned salvation of Anakin in Return of the Jedi. And, as I've said, I've never bought any part of the argument you hear about parallels between Star Wars and the gospel. But this film just makes it that much worse. There is apparently one one correlation between going over to Dark Side and our actions. And that is that going over to the Dark Side gives you more power. But even committing the worst atrocities does not qualify you for Dark Sideness.

Okay, so we've got all the Nazi overtones of genetic experimentation to create a master race of clones; that's part of the mix in this movie. And we've got Polynesian superwarriors, so wherever that takes us racially, that's in the mix. And we've got a democracy that doesn't work and that the film's heros don't trust, such that they propose a military dictatorship, which happens. And Yoda and Obi-Wan are in favor of all this; they use the clones in battle, on their side, and they propose the dictatorship. Our one democrat in the film, Amidala, is a lovesick and naive teenage girl, and is also apparently okay with the dictatorship. Frankly, there was one scene in the entire film that had some emotional resonance, and that was the pain on the face of the child playing Bobo Fett, when his father (who is fighting against the Jedi) dies, mostly because that particular child actor was very good.

This film, unlike the first two and 1/2, is not about Good vs Evil. That's not what's going on at all. The bad guys in the film, in fact, use robots to do their fighting, in contrast with our heros, who use Pacific Islander Hitler Youth. I can't help but shake the feeling that George Lucas just flat out doesn't trust democracy and despises politics. Maybe the last movie will show the tragic consequences of mistrusting democracy. Maybe the last film will show us how using clones is actually bad, that Yoda will be shown to have been mistaken. I suspect, in fact, that that's what will happen. But right now, I think I'm paying the film a compliment when I say that it's one confused film ideologically. I'm giving Lucas the benefit of the doubt, by saying that it's troubling or confused ideologically. I may well be complicating what's actually a fairly straighforward Nazi film.

What's worst of all, though, is how dispiriting the film is. Okay, the action sequences are better than in the last film. But the film has no wit, no cleverness, no energy. There's no Han Solo, no rogueish human spirit. Even Samuel L. Jackson, the coolest actor in the world, is given nothing to do but play a boring and colorless Jedi. The main character relationships don't work. Amidala and Anakin have no spark, no chemistry. Obi-Wan spends much of the film nagging sullen teenager Anakin, so that relationship is a drag. Yoda and Obi-Wan come across as genial colleagues, nothing deeper. It's well past time to close the R2D2/C3PO vaudeville act. It's a superior film to the last one technically; better paced, slightly more plausible, a little better acted.

And then, there's one absolutely great moment. One two minute segment, late in the movie, actually works, actually has the spark and energy and wit and humanity the whole rest of the film hasn't had. I'd say the film is worth watching really only for this one two minute sequence. It's the fight scene between Christopher Lee and Yoda. So that's where we are with this franchise. A muppet saves the day.

Eric Samuelsen