Politics and the Prequels: Episode II

By the time we get to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, set ten years after the events of The Phantom Menace, the political crisis started in the previous film has now become a full-fledged secession movement known as the Confederation of Independent Systems. Thousands of planetary systems are leaving the Republic under the leadership of an ex-Jedi Master known as Count Dooku, secretly a Sith Apprentice working with Darth Siddous/Palpatine.

The movement is supported by a conglomeration of corporate entities with names like The Banking Clan, The Techno Union, and the Commerce Guild as well as the Trade Federation from Episode I. These groups have all been chafing under the taxation and regulation of the Republic, under the leadership of Chancellor Palpatine, who is deftly using all the powers at his disposal to arrange things in a way the leads to a giant war. It may at first seem that The Phantom Menace has little to do with the other two movies in the trilogy as it takes place so far before them but the political climate in the previous movie sets the stage for the breakout of the Clone Wars in Attack of the Clones.

They are defending freedom! Or attacking it! Either way, support them!

The Jedi, having grudgingly accepted the return of the Sith toward the end of the last movie, are no closer to identifying the Sith Lord hiding right under their noses. The fact that the CIS is lead by an ex-Jedi is no doubt a great embarrassment to them, although at the beginning of the movie they (again) wrongly believe that Dooku is just a "political idealist." The de facto rulers of the Jedi Council, Yoda and Mace Windu, later on discuss that the presence of the Sith is diminishing their collective powers and that they must keep this from the Senate. Here we see the Jedi defensive and their secretive and autocratic streak is revealed.

Ethically ambiguous, we are.

The Jedi never state what powers are being diminished and it seems curious as the movie is filled with Jedi doing amazing things. The power that Windu refers to I believe is the power of foresight or precognition. This is Siddious's greatest ability, the power to see enough into the future to see what needs to be done at a given time to reach the desired goals. It's a power that the Jedi perhaps never get the hang of. "Always in motion the future is," Yoda years later would complain to Luke Skywalker whereas the Emperor Palaptine of the same era seems supremely confident of his abilities to see the future ("I have foreseen it!")

An assassination attempt on now-Senator Amadala of Naboo brings her once again face to face with Obi-Wan Kenobi and his restless apprentice, Anakin Skywalker. There is an immediate attraction between Skywalker and Amadala, despite the fact that these sort of romantic entanglements are against the "Jedi Code." Kenobi warns him against trusting her, as she is "a politician." And he astutely observes that Chancellor Palpatine is good at manipulating the Senate. It seems everyone is cynical about politics in a galaxy far, far away.

Skywalker is ordered by the Chancellor to protect Amadala as she flees to her own planet despite the fact that she is dead set on voting against the upcoming "Military Creation Act" that would give the Republic a standing army. Anakin and Amadala spend a lot of time exploring their feelings for one another on Naboo. The two discuss politics and romance and Anakin voices his disgust with the corruption of the Senate and describes a dictatorship as the ideal form of government. A dictatorship run by "someone wise." This is one of the best and most illuminating exchanges in the whole movie, unfortunately buried in one of the worst scenes in all six movies.

This scene reveals Anakin's fatal character flaw: He is unable to deal with subtleties and fine distinctions. People have said that based on his portrayal and the way that the character is written that he is stupid but what if that is his tragic flaw? What if he is supremely powerful and good but unfortunately just not that bright? Personally, I think that is a really interesting (and realistic) combination of traits. How often to you really see a stupid hero? Villains are frequently presented as stupid but almost never heroes and he certainly does a lot of stupid things in the following movie.

She's with stupid.

His intentions are good. After what has already been established of politics in the Star Wars galaxy, he is absolutely right to be upset with the Senate but if he could, he would force his idea of the "right" thing upon everyone. How much of this is his own arrogance and how much has been fostered by the Jedi Order? Despite the fact that they are sworn to protect the government, they don't seem to have much respect for it (perhaps rightly so). In the next film we see them all but ready to take over when they have decided they've had enough of Palpatine. After Episode III, and the famous "Only Sith deal in absolutes!" line people began comparing Anakin to George W. Bush but I think the comparison starts here. Attack of the Clones is, remember, the first post 911 Star Wars movie.

Ah, remember those days?

Obi-Wan, meanwhile, has traced the Senator's attacker to the planet Kamino (Camino=Path, in Spanish) where he discovers a secret army of clones grown for the Republic on the orders of a deceased Jedi Master. Interestingly, Obi-Wan (nor any of the other Jedi) does not seem bothered by the idea of genetically altered human beings mass produced in a factory to fight in a war. I would think this would be against the Jedi Code but apparently it is not. The Jedi are very particular about the moral battles in which they engage. Mysteriously, the clones are all grown from DNA of Amadala's attacker, the bounty hunter, Jango Fett.

And nobody has a problem with this?

Following a force-vision of his mother in danger, Anakin and Amadala return to Tatooine, Anakin's home world. When he finally locates his mother, she has been captured and tortured by a native group on the planet. In his rage, Anakin slaughters the entire tribe and takes his first real step toward the Dark Side. He vows never to lose anyone like that again and his obsession with protecting those he loves will take him the rest of the way to the dark side.

"Around the survivors, a perimeter form must you," Yoda, giving concise military instructions.

Obi-Wan has followed Jango Fett to the Planet Geonosis (Based on the Biblical Genesis?) where an army of robots is being manufactured and a meeting between Count Dooku and the backing organizations of the CIS is taking place. In a telling line cut from the final movie, Dooku promises the organizations "unrestricted capitalism," continuing the theme from Episode I of the evil using the greedy to their own ends. So if the CIS represents "unrestricted capitalism" then does that mean the Republic represents regulated socialism? While transmitting his findings to the Jedi Council, Obi-Wan is captured. Anakin, Amadala, the Jedi, and their new army of clones all converge upon the planet and do battle with CIS and their droid army. Thus begins the Clone Wars.

One of the great things about the prequels is that the concept of the "good guys" and the "bad guys" is very nebulous. There are only a couple of characters that we can support as "heroes" without reservations (Obi-Wan and Padme never let us down). Although the Jedi as a whole are superficially presented as heroic characters, they are deeply flawed. As viewers, we are meant to sympathize with the Republic and not the Confederation but the Republic is controlled by the most evil character in the movies. What about the clones? Should we support these troops even though they so closely resemble the evil Stormtroopers of the Original Trilogy?

This ambiguity even applies to the movie's title, arguably the worst of all six movies. To attack usually has a negative connotation, yet it seems the only thing attacked by the clones in this movie are the "evil" Separatists, who in some ways seem analogous to the heroic Rebels in the classic movies. Are we supposed to suddenly jump to the CIS point-of-view to appreciate that title? In the larger and more metaphoric sense, what the clones are attacking is the peaceful Republic that had existed up until this point. What they represent is an attack on ideals.

Does anyone know of a good Queensryche song to play over this scene?

By the end of the movie Anakin and Amadala are married in secret. Siddious has succeeded in dividing Anakin from the rest of the Jedi as Anakin now has something to lose which can be manipulated to control him, which makes one wonder if the kidnapping of his motheer was somehow engineered to happen. We also see a meeting between Dooku and Siddious that formalized their association. The Clone Wars will now be an enormous chess match between the two that will allow Siddious to assume more executive powers and also thin the ranks of the Jedi who will now be Generals in the war until his end game is ready to be played.