This article won’t have too much Star Wars Destiny content mostly because I haven’t played a ton since I’m waiting for the new holocron update. I dipped my toes with the Vader list that I highlighted last week and its a little more difficult to pilot then I anticipated. I like it and if you are into the whole idea of playing Vader give it a look! I will be doing a Star Wars Episode 2 review and after that there will be some Destiny cards I made based off of one random scene from the movie, if you don’t care to read my review skip to the end.

Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones Review

I hadn’t watched Episode 2 in a while because I was fearing dying from cringe overload. While I survived my opinion hasn’t changed much. Its a deeply flawed movie that is imaginative. The acting is overall poor aside from the bright spots of Ewin McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ian McDiarmid as Palaptine. And while the acting is poor the writing is just as bad each one magnifying each other.

The biggest issue with the movie is that Hayden Christensen, who portrays Anakin Skywalker, is given the almost impossible task of carrying the movie. He was 20 years old and he was pretty much set up to fail. In his role he tries to balance the difficult task of being a stoic Jedi while also having the emotions of a horny teenager. He’s also experiencing the classic and very relatable feeling of rebellion towards of his father/older brother figure(Obi-Wan). All of that was pretty much too much to ask of any young thespian. If you compare young Annie from Episode 1, who was given much less screen time, you can see that even though his performance is also flawed it isn’t the reason that movie is a train wreck.

I couldn’t imagine the kind of excitement and pressure Hayden was feeling. He had to act and also follow the vision of George Lucas. Lucas wrote the script in a way that would have been nearly impossible for a young person to succeed in and while the writing could have been better part of that might have been writing the story with Obi-Wan being more of the focal point. The story is written in such a way that the casting for Anakin needed to be perfect and it wasn’t. If you want to blame someone besides Lucas you can blame Robin Gurland.

No idea why I’m here…

You probably have no idea who this is – it’s the casting director of episode 2. While I assume Lucas had a heavy hand in casting she must have had some say in the process. The top spot for her IMDB is episode 2 so that was the best she ever did in her career, fame wise at least. Since the script is so focused on Anakin and his relationship with Padme, played by Natalie Portman, it was crucial that they cast someone who would have good chemistry with Portman.

Chemistry

The chemistry between Portman and Hayden isn’t there. At times he seems like a kid at hist first school dance that has to put his hand on a girls hip for the first time. “Is this ok? I don’t want to make her uncomfortable…” And you might say to yourself, Nick that’s kind of the point, the character is like 18ish, not Don Juan. To that I say, no, this is a movie and the love and romance needs to be believable. While a little awkwardness is expected their whole love affair is just one cringe exchange after another.

“I’m haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating, hoping it won’t become a scar.” The writing in this scene is cringe AF and I wouldn’t fault anyone for thinking that its mostly the writing. We can get into a chicken and egg debate until we go blue in the face “Was it the writing or the acting?” I’m going to cheat and say it is both.

If we look at Leia/Han or Reylo we see much more chemistry come through. A lot of it is written with brevity but the tension of their relationships are done through looks, body language and better dialogue.

That look that Leia gives Han is so genuinely annoyed and maybe you think it’s overacting but I’ve definitely received that look from someone who was fed up with me. There’s a good back and forth here and its all one shot which makes me question the choice to use multiple cameras in the Anakin/Padme scene above.

Reylo is different because while their relationship has some additional tension because they are on opposite sides of good and bad.

Its more similar to Han/Leia i.e scoundrel/princes which is similar to light/dark side. Say what you will about the Last Jedi it does a good job of presenting a legitimate reason why there might be romantic spark. Add a little bit of Ben Swolo and you got some sexual tension filled dialogue without it becoming Don Juan DeMarco.

In my opinion Episode 2 doesn’t hold my interest during most of the movie because of the lack of chemistry between the two romantic leads and poor dialogue they have to work with.

All The Other Stuff

The writing ranges from terrible, to serviceable with some good lines delivered here and there that elegantly reveal motivations. When Palpatine says to Padme “If something were to happen to you I would be absolutely devastated.” That just sent shivers down my spine. The camera then cuts back to him looking a little evil, those two things reveal so much. If you knew nothing about Star Wars it would still show him as someone who was up to no good.

The special effects in the movie were great for the time and most of them still hold up. The chase scene with Anakin and Obi going after the Bounty Hunter was pretty fun. Later in the movie I was particularly struck by how disgusting looking all the bug Seperatist people looked. All the wing fluttering was making me a little queezy as if the Colosseum was actually full of giant insects.

The plot of the movie might be a bit too complicated but it makes total sense to me, its hard to remove myself from knowing exactly what the story line is and look at it objectively but I think I was pretty confused the first time I was watching it. The movie covers so much and if you were to just watch it out of context I could imagine you being very confused.

As a fan of the franchise I enjoyed most of the weird Star Wars flavor things. I particularly love the scene:

Elan Sleazebaggano tries to sell Obi some death sticks. This is almost like a sketch comedy bit and it works to relieve some tension after the intense chase scene. It’s also worth noticing some scantly clad space female aliens at the beginning of this scene. Its the end of the era of thong wearing space ladies and our lead in leather corsets and expose naval outfits (heck, even Kylo wasn’t showing his naval in The Last Jedi). With Disney at the helm we are assuredly in a post male-gaze era of Star Wars movies.

Sorry boys…

Some Star Wars movies have been pretty dark but the main episodes will probably still be pretty kid friendly. Episode 2 deals with themes of slavery (Anakins mom), genocide (Anakin kills all of them Tuskans) and drugs (don’t do death sticks). Because of all those things this movie holds a special place in my heart.

Card Design

In honor of one of my favorite scenes in all of Star Wars I present you with some custom Destiny cards. Feel free to put them in some cubes or whatever. I tried to balance them but they have only been tested by the Youngling ghosts that live in my brain.

The 1 melee represents him putting out death sticks on people, the indirect representing death sticks second hand smoke (or vapors), the focus is him rethinking his life and the disrupt is him throwing death sticks at stuff – that shit is strong! The general design is with the next card in mind and because I’d like to see yellow downgrades become a powerful strategy and something like this would certainly help.

I’m pretty proud of this one since I think it hits the flavor of death sticks while also making an interesting card that is balanced.

Let me know what you thought of this on here or on social media. If I do any movie reviews they will probably be on non-destiny days unless the card creation is good enough to keep your interest. Take care and for those in the states have a Happy Thanksgiving!

-NJCuenca