Retrospective: Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (Patreon)

Attack of the Clones makes extensive use of misdirection as a theme and a narrative tool. The attempted assassination of Padmé Amidala that begins the movie is a fake-out - we see the senator's ship explode, only to discover that her decoy was the one who was killed — indicating that Amidala still uses decoys, and that we're about to see a movie full of clones. It's a small detail, but it points to a narrative attention to detail that was absent from The Phantom Menace and scarce in the original trilogy.

Attack of the Clones is an Alan Pakula-style paranoid thriller. Obi-Wan Kenobi plays the Woodward/Bernstein detective who slowly uncovers a mass conspiracy by the powers by discovering small-scale acts of deception. Amidala's first assassin is a shapeshifter, and also not the lynchpin. Jango Fett initially seems to be responsible for the plot, but he's just a mercenary, not unlike the Kaminoans. The Jedi are too focused on the clone army — which they spectacularly failed to observe getting commissioned — to notice the rise of fascism right underneath their nose. Nobody's attention is where it should be.

This movie sees most of its protagonists focusing on the wrong things. Mace Windu dismisses the idea that Count Dooku, one of his own associates, could be responsible for the plot against Amidala, instead accusing disgruntled miners near Amidala's home planet. Anakin and Obi-Wan are too busy arguing about politics to protect the politician under their care. The Separatists have no idea what they're fighting for (and, to be fair, neither does Lucas). Palpatine is the only character with a clear plan — a bizarre plan that involves orchestrating a galactic civil war in order to take down the Republic from the inside. Is it bad when fascists are the only ones with a clear vision for the future?

Setting Star Wars in another genre does Attack of the Clones a lot of favors. It gives a shape and structure to the movie that its predecessors are missing. George Lucas really should have brought back Jonathan Hales to co-write Revenge of the Sith. But like his own characters, Lucas' eye was everywhere except where it needed to be. Instead of satisfactorily resolving the saga of democracy's fall, he needed to do some continuity wank. Maybe I'll be proven wrong when I rewatch Revenge of the Sith. We'll see. If Attack of the Clones has misled me, well, that's to its credit.