My Thoughts on "Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones"

Foreword:


This was originally written on Sunday September 18, 2022, and was posted on DeviantART the next day on Monday September 19, 2022. I saw this review again while I was scrolling through my old journals on DeviantART, and I decided to repost it here since I haven’t really posted any Star Wars related content on this blog. The closest I got to saying anything about Star Wars on this blog were my reviews of Knives Out šŸ—”️ and Glass Onion šŸ§…: A Knives Out Mystery šŸ—”️, and I only mentioned Star Wars there because the writer and director of those two movies, Rian Johnson directed the second movie in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.  

BTW, the title for the upcoming third Knives Out šŸ—”️ movie (or Benoit Blanc movie if you prefer) was revealed a few months back. It’s going to be called Wake Up Dead Man ♂︎: A Knives Out Mystery šŸ—”️, or simply, Wake Up Dead Man ♂︎. Rian Johnson sure likes giving these Benoit Blanc movies creative titles, like he’s the new Agatha Christie or something. Then again, all of the recent Hercule Poirot movies by Kenneth Branagh all had different titles. The first one was called Murder on the Orient Express, the second one was called Death on the Nile, and the third one from last year was called A Haunting in Venice. So, it isn’t that weird that Rian Johnson gave all the Benoit Blanc movies different titles. 

But, it is a weird that he felt the need to slap that A Knives Out Mystery šŸ—”️ subtitle at the end, when he said he was going to do that again after Glass Onion šŸ§…. Maybe, it was a mandate from Netflix, that he had to add that subtitle on there so that people will know that it’s a sequel to Knives Out šŸ—”️. But, the Kenneth Branagh Hercule Poirot movies never felt the need to do that. I mean, they didn’t call Death on the Nile, Death on the Nile: A Murder on the Orient Express Mystery, because that would just be stupid. 

I don’t know, there’s a lot of stupid people at Netflix making stupid decisions. I said this before, and I’ll said it again for the sake of this bit, but I hate Netflix. I think they’re an absolutely terrible company. They may not be the sole reason why the film and TV industries are in such dire straits, but they are a huge contributing factor, especially since they seem determined to both kill off movie theaters and traditional cable TV and satellite TV šŸ“”. DirecTV is set to acquire Dish Network from EchoStar ⭐️ for $1 šŸ’µ, yes, you read right, $1 šŸ’µ. That’s how much Dish Network has been devalued over the past decade that it's only worth $1 šŸ’µ or EchoStar ⭐️ has under valued it so much that they’re willing to sell it for $1 šŸ’µ. 

But, that insanely low $1 šŸ’µ price tag comes with an assumption of approximately $9.8 billion šŸ’µ in debt. So, it’s not the slam dunk killer deal that you might think when first hearing that DirecTV’s going to buy Dish Network for $1 šŸ’µ. But, once Dish is gone, DirecTV will be the only game in town when it comes to satellite television service šŸ“”. And they’re barely clinging on for dear life as it is right now, trying to stay relevant in the age of streaming that Netflix helped create. 

But, Netflix is where Rian Johnson decided to make the two Knives Out šŸ—”️ sequels, and we have to deal with their stupid decision making and cutthroat business practices, trying to monopolize the film and TV industry. We already know who’s going to be in the third movie and what some of their roles will be since they revealed the full cast as well as the title. Obviously, Daniel Craig’s going to be in it, reprising his now iconic role as Benoit Blanc, the only returning character from the previous two movies. Just as Rian Johnson said, “the mystery maybe different each movie, but the detective stays the same.” Then, we get into our other cast members. 

We got Josh O’Connor as an unnamed priest ✝️, Glenn Close in an yet undisclosed role, Josh Brolin as yet another priest ✝️ named Father Frank, Mila Kunis as a police chief šŸ‘®šŸ»‍♀️ named G. Scott, Jeremy Renner in an undisclosed role, Kerry Washington in an undisclosed role, Andrew Scott in an undisclosed role, Cailee Spaeny in an undisclosed role, Daryl McCormack in an undisclosed role, and Thomas Haden Church in an undisclosed role. 

They have no revealed any plot details about the movie, and we likely won’t know for sure what this movie’s about until we get our first trailer, but given that this movie has two priest characters ✝️ played by big name actors (or at least one of them is, I have no idea who Josh O’Connor is), and given the title, I thinking that this one might take place in and around a church ⛪️ or a cathedral or some sort. Maybe have some religious themes in it, maybe be a commentary or critique of religion, or at the very least, organized religion. I don’t know if Rian Johnson’s an atheist or an agnostic, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he is. 

But, even if he isn’t, even if he is Christian ✝️ and he does believe in God, he still clearly has left-leaning beliefs, and he does like to tackle real-life issues in these Benoit Blanc movies. Like, Knives Out šŸ—”️  tackled racism, discrimination, and immigration, since the main protagonist of that story was a Latin American immigrant of indeterminate origin. There’s this whole running joke in the movie that the Thrombey family doesn't know which country Marta Cabrera is from and keep naming different ones, because they’re racist and don’t actually take the time to actually ask her about her background and ask her where she’s from. 

They just assume where she’s from based on her ethnicity and her accent. They say that she’s from Uruguay šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡¾, then they say she’s from Brazil šŸ‡§šŸ‡·, then they say she’s from some other Latin American country, I don’t remember which one, but the point is they don’t know which country she’s from, and they just guess which one without asking her themselves. There’s also this class divide where the Thrombeys don't really see Marta as a true part of their family, despite how close she is with the patriarch, Harlan, and how much she hangs out with him and takes care of him, because she’s an immigrant and comes from a low-income background. 

And the whole meat of the story is that Marta gets Harlan’s inheritance over the other Thrombey family members. Basically, a story about a rich and affluent white family that loses all of their wealth and power to a person of color. All because their patriarch didn’t like any of them and preferred his nurse šŸ‘©‍⚕️ over any of them. He liked her and trusted her over any of them, and thus decided to give all of his inheritance to her. They even directly namedrop the term, SJW (social justice warrior), where Ransom insults Meg’s college major by calling it an “SJW degree.”

Then, the second movie, Glass Onion šŸ§… basically satirized Elon Musk with Edward Norton’s character, Miles Bron, and lambasted him and pretty much every other tech billionaires by saying that most of them are pretty dumb and are not the geniuses that they, their entourage, or their devoted fans claim that they are. Something that became very relevant once Elon Musk bought Twitter šŸ¦ and eventually renamed it to just X. Though, the movie was made and came out before Elon Musk officially bought Twitter šŸ¦, and became the new owner and CEO. And the movie has a similar ending where the rich white guy ♂︎ is undone by a woman of color ♀︎, this time a black woman šŸ‘©šŸ½, although Helen Brand is definitely not low-income or poor. 

Like, they say that she’s a school teacher and school teachers don’t get paid nearly as much as they should, but it doesn’t seem like she’s poor the same way Marta and her family were. Helen seems like she had a little bit of money šŸ’µ, and had a pretty nice place. Not as nice as Benoit Blanc’s place, but still better than Marta’s place before she got Harlan’s mansion. Maybe her twin sister, Andi helped her out a bit since Andi was the rich one šŸ¤‘ of the two. I mean, that's what I would do if I was rich šŸ¤‘. I would help out my family members, only in my case, grandma. And of course, the movie was set during the COVID-19 pandemic šŸ˜·šŸ¦ , and while they didn't touch on it that much, they did sort of commentate a little bit on that issue. 

So, it wouldn’t surprise me if this next movie, Wake Up Dead Man ♂︎ tackled organized religion and critiqued it, because even liberals and leftists who are religious and do believe in God are against organized religion or have serious issues with it due to how corrupt a lot of those institutions are. I mean, the Catholic Church ⛪️ is infamous for a reason. Maybe, it might even go full Haunting in Venice and imply supernatural elements, which then later turn out not to be supernatural and have perfectly naturalistic and rational explanations behind them. I even heard a rumor that the case in this movie might tie back into the case in Knives Out šŸ—”️. 

I don't know how true that is. None of the cast members that were listed in the cast that has been officially released were from the first movie. So, I doubt that this movie will tie back into Knives Out šŸ—”️, and that it will likely be yet another standalone story just like Glass Onion šŸ§… was. Either way, I hope that it’s good. I’m sure it will be. I liked both Knives Out šŸ—”️ and Glass Onion šŸ§…, in fact, I slightly preferred Glass Onion šŸ§… over Knives Out šŸ—”️. But, they both solid movies, and Rian Johnson hasn’t disappointed yet, at least as far as these movies go. His Star Wars movie’s a completely different story. So, I think Wake Up Dead Man ♂︎ will be good, and I can't wait to watch it, if I can. Netflix got rid of password sharing as I've said over and over, so watching on there is a bit difficult.

But anyway, enough about Knives Out šŸ—”️ and its sequel and Rian Johnson, let’s talk about Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, the second film in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. I wrote this review because it was the 20th anniversary of Attack of the Clones in 2022, and I made it a point to write about everything that was celebrating its 20th anniversary that year, or 30th anniversary in the case of Mortal Kombat. I also mentioned Treasure Planet, Spider-Man (2002), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I think I’ve mentioned The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Lilo & Stitch, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, and even a certain not safe-for-work website šŸ”ž that starts with an H and ends with an E that I can’t name on here otherwise it’ll get age restricted, in my journal talking about the 30th anniversary of the Mortal Kombat franchise in general. 

The 25th anniversary of Attack of the Clones, and all of those other things I mentioned will be coming real soon, in 3 years. 2027 will be the 25th anniversary of Attack of the Clones. I don’t know if Disney will do anything to celebrate like re-releasing it in theaters, or anything like that. So far, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is the only prequel film that’s been re-released in theaters multiple times. Neither Attack of the Clones nor Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith have ever been re-released in theaters. I don’t really know why. 

The Phantom Menace is considered one of the weaker prequel films, and yet it has had two theatrical re-releases, one in 3D, and one in conventional 2D for its 25th anniversary. Looking back at my review, I did mention the 1999 Mummy movie, which is kind of because that movie also get a theatrical re-release earlier this summer in celebration of its 25th anniversary since like The Phantom Menace, it was released in 1999. It’s called The Mummy (1999) after all. It’s also way more popular and well-liked now than it was when it originally came out, since it’s initial theatrical release, The Mummy (1999) has gone on to become a genuine cult classic, with even snobbish film essayists saying that it’s one of the best blockbuster movies ever made. 

It’s especially weird that Revenge of the Sith has never been re-released in theaters since it’s considered the best film in the Prequel Trilogy. Maybe they think it’s easier to just release the first film in the trilogy, since one has to watch any prior films to understand it. In fact, it’s better if you don’t watch the other Star Wars films before watching The Phantom Menace since it’s technically supposed to be the first chapter of the Skywalker Saga.  

Attack of the Clones is the middle chapter, or second chapter if consider the entire saga overall, and therefore needs more context to be more appreciated, or at the very least, understood. It would be weird to jump into Attack of the Clones without watching The Phantom Menace first. But, before the Disney acquisition, George Lucas actually did plan on re-releasing all three prequel films as well as the three originals year-by-year in the 2010s. But, those plans were scrapped after Lucas sold the company, Lucasfilm, and all of its assets (all of its IPs), to Disney, and The Phantom Menace ended up being the only film re-released in theaters in 3D in the year 2012.

But, I would love it if Attack of the Clones finally got some love ❤️, and got a theatrical re-release of its own, especially since The Phantom Menace had its second theatrical re-release earlier this year for its 25th anniversary. This is unironically my favorite Star Wars prequel film. I think I’ve rewatched this movie way more times as a kid than I ever did either The Phantom Menace or Revenge of the Sith. I think it's maybe because I liked the action scenes in Attack of the Clones the best, with the Speeder Chase and the Droid Factory fight being my favorites. Hell, I still like those action scenes today, though I also liked the hand-to-hand fight scene between Obi-Wan and Jango Fett and the gladiatorial fight in the Geonosian Colosseum. 

As an adult, I would say the thing that draws me to Attack of the Clones is the story of it. This is obviously the one where the Clone Wars are set up, and where we see the budding romance ❤️ between Anakin and PadmĆ© truly blossom into something more meaningful, as well as the true beginning of Anakin's descend into darkness. This is where Anakin truly begins his path to the Dark Side. You would not able to have Darth Vader if it weren't for the things that Anakin goes through in this movie, the loss he experiences, and the conflicting emotions he feels about his duties as a Jedi, and how it restricts him from doing the things he wants to do, namely be with PadmĆ© in a romantic sense ❤️. I know a lot of people hate the romance aspect ❤️ of this movie, but without it, you not have Luke and Leia. 

I’m not one of these people who hates the romance ❤️ between Anakin and PadmĆ©, I think the romance ❤️ is fine, it works, and it’s even kind of cute at points. Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman definitely have a lot of on-screen chemistry with each other as those two characters. I don’t really have a problem with some of the more infamous lines such as the “I don’t like sand” line. I know people make fun of that line, but Anakin definitely has a point. Sand kind of sucks, for all the reasons he said. 

I like Anakin’s character in general in this movie. I know, a lot of people say that hated Anakin in this movie because he was too whiny, or he was too creepy, but I think it makes sense Anakin does have a bit of darkness in him, and you can tell by the way he acts, and the things he says that this is a man ♂︎ who is susceptible to the Dark Side, and could be corrupted into becoming a Sith. And his so-called “whininess” never got so bad to where he was annoying, at least to me. I mean, you have to remember that in this film, Anakin’s 19 years old, he’s a legal adult yes, but he is still technically a teenager. And we all know that teenagers are angsty, and this is definitely an angsty Anakin. 

If you look it like that, some of Anakin’s behavior is perfectly understandable. Not all of it is justifiable, but it is understandable. I actually thought Anakin was really cool as a kid, he was probably my favorite character and I wanted to be just like him. Of course, I don’t exactly feel the same way, but I still like Anakin as a character, especially in this movie, but even in Revenge of the Sith, where he’s a bit more mature and a little bit less angsty than he is in the movie. Fighting in the Clone Wars toughened him up and made him grow up a bit. Plus, I like his look in this movie. I like his brown and black robes, I like how some of which are leather, mainly ones that go over his shoulders and cover his chest. 

An outfit that they stick with in Revenge of the Sith, and in the two Clone Wars shows, both the 2D one by Genndy Tartakovsky and the CGI one that brought Dave Filoni into the fold, that brought him into the Star Wars family. Only it gets darker in Revenge of the Sith, like he retains his black leather shoulder robes and the brown robes underneath are even darker shade of brown, almost looking completely black in certain lighting. Of course, that's not the only thing that gets darker in Revenge of the Sith, it is one of them, and shows how Anakin is even closer to the Dark Side than ever before, even just by the way he dresses. 

I also like his short hair. He had that same hairdo that Obi-Wan had in The Phantom Menace, the hairstyle that every Padawan has, where it's mostly short on top, but there’s a long thin braid behind the ear that extends all the way to the shoulder. A braid that eventually gets cut by the time a Padawan ascends to the rank of Jedi Knight, which is the level that Obi-Wan is at in this movie, which is why he has a mullet in this movie. I guess if you’re a Jedi, and you become a Jedi Knight, you grow your hair out and develop a mullet because Anakin also kind of has a mullet in Revenge of the Sith since he’s a Jedi Knight in that movie too. A Jedi Knight that wants to become a Jedi Master, but is not granted the rank of Master by the Jedi Council despite ascending to the Jedi Council and having his own seat on the Council, much to his dismay. 

Speaking of Obi-Wan, probably my favorite aspect of the movie, especially nowadays as an adult is the Obi-Wan subplot, and indeed you'll probably hear a lot of people say that they look Obi-Wan’s part of the story the best. Unlike The Phantom Menace, this movie has two parallel storylines that occur at the same time as each other, with Anakin and PadmĆ© going off to her home planet of Naboo from the previous movie to hide from the people who are trying to assassinate her, while Obi-Wan launches an investigation into both of the assassination attempts on PadmĆ©’s life at the beginning of the movie. 

An investigation that ultimately leads to him under a greater conspiracy involving a Clone Army that was created in secret on behalf of the Republic, and was apparently ordered by a Jedi named Sifo Dyas. A character that was more elaborated on more in the Expanded Universe, now called “Legends,” due to none of it being considered canon. We did eventually see him in “Canon,” in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, where he looked way different than he did in Legends. 

Not only that, but the people who are responsible for both assassination attempts on PadmĆ© are tied to the Clone Army in some mysterious ways, such as the bounty hunter Jango Fett, who is the genetic template šŸ§¬ of the entire Clone Army, and is the father of the famous Boba Fett, who is also a clone himself albeit an “unaltered one.” Unaltered basically meaning that he was a near exact copy of the original, and has not being modified in any way like they did in the other clones. 

They didn’t use growth acceleration on him, so he ages like a normal person, whereas the other clones, the Clone Troopers, age rapidly and have shortened lifespans as a result. They were also modified in other ways to make them more effective soldiers (some of them were modified to be special ops soldiers like the Republic Commandos or the Bad Batch), and ultimately carry out Order 66 to kill the Jedi and begin the Great Jedi Purge, the name given to the genocide against the Jedi Order.

Jango is the template for the entire army, and yet is being employed by Count Dooku and the Separatist Council, who hired him to try to kill PadmĆ© in order to prevent her from voting against the Military Creation Act, as well as get revenge for what she did in The Phantom Menace, thwarting the Trade Federation’s plan to force the Senate into repealing the new tax law that made previously tax-exempt corporations like the Trade Federation eligible for taxation. That was why the character, Nute Gunray wanted to get rid of her, but Count Dooku wanted her out of the way so that nothing would stand in the way of the Military Creation Act being passed since he’s the real source of the Clone Army. 

Despite the fact that he’s the leader of the Separatist faction, or the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) as it would come to be known, he was the one that manipulated Sifo Dyas into placing an order for a Clone Army on the planet of Kamino, and then he was the one who convinced Jango to be the genetic template šŸ§¬ for the army. He’s Palpatine’s apprentice, his second one after Darth Maul, and he’s playing his part in making sure the Sith Grand Plan of destroying the Jedi Order, dismantling the Galactic Republic, and bring the entire galaxy under Sith control works out completely, and creating the clone army and creating the CIS was an important step in that plan since the CIS is supposed to be controlled opposition. 

Both Palpatine and Dooku are trying to start a galactic war by taking advantage of the grievances of the Mid Rim and Outer Rim worlds, and then using the crisis that they helped exasperate to turn the Republic into a dictatorship run by them, or by Palpatine to be more specific since he's the one that becomes emperor. They’re controlling both sides of this war, with Palpatine controlling one side and Dooku controlling the opposing side, but they’re both working towards the same goal of exterminating the Jedi Order and bring the galaxy under Sith domination.

Boba Fett being a clone and being tied to the Clone Wars, and in turn, being an integral part of the Skywalker Saga by way of his father, was something that was a bit controversial amongst the Star Wars fandom when the movie was initially released, though it wasn’t anywhere near as controversial as the introduction of the Midi-chlorians in The Phantom Menace. And since then, people have gotten over it and have accepted the fact that Boba Fett is a clone, and that his father, Jango Fett was not only the genetic template šŸ§¬ for the entire clone army, but was the real badass of the two. 

I love Jango Fett, he’s a great character. He’s pretty much everything people said Boba Fett was, but ultimately turned out not to be. His personality is better, his mannerisms are better, his story is better, and his suit looks cool. I like the silver, blue, and purple colors on Jango’s suit as opposed to the green on Boba’s suit. Temuera Morrison knocked it out of the park with this one, his performance as Jango Fett was fantastic. He took this role and made his own. 

It was through his performance as Jango and the Clone Troopers that he completely changed the character of Boba Fett. It changed the way people looked at the character, and it motivated George Lucas to go back, and re-edit both Star Wars: Episode V – Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi so that Boba would have Temuera Morrison’s voice. It’s the reason why Temuera Morrison plays Boba in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. 

Attack of the Clones is generally considered to be the worst of the Prequel Trilogy, and considered the worst of the entire Star Wars series, or at least the Skywalker Saga specifically. Or at least, it used to be until The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker came along. It’s kind of a tossup between this movie, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker when it comes to people figuring out which one is the worst mainline Star Wars movie. The biggest complaints of this movie of course being the dialogue, the runtime, the pacing, the romance ❤️ between Anakin and PadmĆ©, the CGI effects, and Anakin's character overall. Oh, and Jar Jar Binks too. 

They brought back Jar Jar Binks from The Phantom Menace, and made him be the one responsible for giving Palpatine emergency powers, which he would eventually use to consolidate his power within the government, and make himself emperor and transform the Republic into an Empire. A lot of fans and critics were unhappy that they brought Jar Jar back, even though he has way less screen time and has a much more reduced role compared to The Phantom Menace. That’s the thing about Attack of the Clones. 

The movie actually does address a lot of the criticisms that people levied at The Phantom Menace, and corrected them. A lot of people complained that The Phantom Menace was “too boring,” and was too dry and political, and didn't have enough action. Well, this movie addressed that problem by increasing the amount of actions ten fold. This movie is way more action packed than The Phantom Menace, and has a much greater variety of action compared to The Phantom Menace. People complained that Jar Jar Binks was an annoying and useless character who didn’t really contribute anything to the plot and only existed to appeal to kids. 

Well, they addressed that by not only reducing his role and giving him less screen time, but also making him responsible for why the Clone Wars start, and why Palpatine is able to become emperor. And despite how much people complain about this movie and complain about the dialogue, this is the only one of the trilogy that George Lucas didn’t write himself. He had a co-writer on this movie, named Jonathan Hales. So, if you’re one of the people who hates the writing of this movie, and hates the dialogue, you can’t place the blame squarely on Lucas’s shoulders. Some of it has to go to Hales as well.

But I never hated this movie. I’ve always liked Attack of the Clones, and I've always like the Prequel Trilogy as a whole, though Attack of the Clones is definitely my favorite. I don’t even like it in an ironic way, or like it as a “guilty pleasure” where I know it's a bad movie but I still like it anyway, no, I genuinely unironically like this movie. I like the story, I like the characters, I like the action, I like the music, I like the additions to the lore, I like the sound design, I even like the special effects. 

I know everyone complains about the special effects, like “Oh, Boo-woo, they used CGI instead of practical effects! šŸ˜­,” first of all that's not even true, they used a lot of practical effects on this movie, and second of all, the CGI isn’t anywhere near as bad as people often make it out to be, and actually holds up pretty well even to this day. This movie has some of the best creature designs I’ve ever seen in any science fiction movie, or space opera since this is a space opera movie and not a straight up sci-fi movie. It has a lot of fantasy elements in addition to sci-fi elements. 

But, the alien species they introduce in this movie look great. Like, they introduce the Besalisk race in the form of the character, Dexter Jettster, they introduce the Kaminoans, who are the cloners who created the clone army, and they introduce the Geonosians, one of the main species that’s apart of the CIS, and the species that built the Death Star. They all look great and have cool designs, and were never really utilized outside of prequel-related media. The Geonosians were pretty much wiped out and declared extinction by the time the events of the Original Trilogy take place. That's why they haven’t appeared in the Sequel Trilogy or in any Star Wars media around the Sequel Trilogy. 

The three creatures inside the Petranaki Arena at the end of the film, the Reek, the Acklay, and the Nexu look really cool, especially the Acklay. It’s a shame none of them have appeared outside of the Prequel era, in any of the ancillary media set in-between the Prequel Trilogy and the Original Trilogy and set in-between the Original Trilogy and the Sequel Trilogy and set after the Sequel Trilogy. Oh, the droid designs look great too, I especially like that one droid used by Zam at the beginning that was like a messenger droid, or a courier droid I guess, like it delivered messages, but Zam used to deliver the venomous insects that she dropped into PadmĆ©'s bedroom to try to kill her. 

But, the battle droids in the Droid Army created and used by the CIS and its corporate sponsors, look cool too like the B-2 Super Battle Droid, the droidekas of course which were introduced in The Phantom Menace, and other ones like the IG-227 Hailfire-class droids, which are those droids with the big wheels that fire missiles with purple trails. Those things are pretty cool, and never really appeared in that much Prequel material besides this movie and a few of the video games like Battlefront II (both the original and the remake) and the Clone Wars game on XBox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube. My cousin had the XBox version of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, no relation to the CGI TV series by the same name that would premiere on Cartoon Network years later. 

I don’t really consider myself to the biggest Star Wars fan in the world. I would say that my dad is more into Star Wars than I am. My fandom and interest in Star Wars overall mostly begins and ends with the Prequels. Like, I grew up with the Prequels, I like the Prequels, I have a lot of nostalgia, but beyond the Prequels, my interest in the Star Wars franchise kind of drops off. That’s why I appreciate it when the Disney era of Star Wars acknowledges anything from the Prequels, that's when my interest is peaked. And I have George Lucas to thank for it. 

It’s because of him, and this movie as well as Revenge of the Sith and Jurassic Park (which is a Spielberg movie, but whatever) that I became interested in filmmaking, and wanted to be a director. I’m not sure if I still want to be a director now, but I definitely want to be a screenwriter, and I wouldn’t have begun my path towards screenwriting if it weren't for watching that one behind-the-scenes documentary for Revenge of the Sith called Within a Minute, which details the making of a single shot within the lightsaber duel on Mustafar between Anakin and Obi-Wan. 

The Prequels do become way more impressive when you realize that they are all independent movies. They are studio movies, they are not Twentieth Century Fox movies, Lucasfilm up until the Disney acquisition was an independent company, and they funded each of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies (as well as their other properties like Willow) themselves without having to go to a studio like Fox foot the bill, and risk them claiming the rights to their work and making all of the money šŸ’µ off of it. Lucas himself used a lot of his own money šŸ’µ to fund each of these movies, and he was able to do it because he was pretty rich man šŸ¤‘♂︎ by the time he made The Phantom Menace. 

Like, he was already a multimillionaire, and would eventually become a billionaire as result of him and his company owning Star Wars and accumulating all of the revenue from ticket sales, overall box office grosses, and of course merchandising, or other royalties. Lucas prides himself by the fact that he was essentially able to create this massive empire outside of the Hollywood system, and that he and his team were able to do it entirely on their own.

It certainly worked out better for him funding his own movies independently out of his pocket than it did his friend, Francis Ford Coppola. His new movie, Megalopolis bombed at the box office šŸ’£. No surprise there. I don’t think anyone thought that movie was going to make money šŸ’µ, not even Francis Ford Coppola himself, and I doubt he even cares at this point. 

He poured over $120 million šŸ’µ of his own money šŸ’µ into this thing, and he’s an old man ♂︎ with no stake in the business side of things. It’s not like his entire financial future is riding on this movie or anything, he’s a pretty rich man šŸ¤‘, a multimillionaire, he’s got nothing to worry about. Or at least, not as much to worry about as he did in his younger days. This isn’t him making The Godfather Part III, trying to make ends meet or save his dying production company or whatever. This was just a passion project of his that he really wanted to make, and he was willing and able to to fund it with his own money šŸ’µ without having to go to a major studio to do it because at this point in his life, he’s got nothing to lose. 

And I’m pretty sure that this is his last movie. He’s in his 90s, or at the very least his 80s, and he was already retirement before he made this movie, and he came out of retirement to make this one movie, and then he went back into retirement once he was doing making his statement about the world and the current state of America šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø and the throes of living in a urban metropolis that doesn’t care for the common man or whatever the fuck Megalopolis is actually about and whatever it’s message is. 

All I know is that Coppola said in an interview before the movie came out that he thinks that the United States šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø is going to collapse like the Roman Empire (even though the Roman Empire was around for a thousand of years whereas the US šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø has only been around for a few hundred), and he named the city in his movie, New Rome. So, you already kind of know where he stands on that particular issue, and you can probably guess what kind of message his movie is going for. I have no interest in watching Megalopolis. 

I’ve been pretty unimpressed by what I’ve heard and seen of this movie so far. To me, this just seems like a movie made by a bitter out-of-touch old man ♂︎ who’s lost his touch a long time ago, talking about how bad America šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø is, or how bad capitalism is. Like, we haven’t seen that a thousand times šŸ™„. All while he tries to be super artsy-fartsy with it, being all abstract and surreal with it, trying to seem more profound than he actually is. 

On top of that, despite how expensive it is, it looks really cheap. Like, it doesn’t really look like a movie that costed $120 million šŸ’µ to make, it looks more like a movie that cost $20 million šŸ’µ to make. It looks like that movie, MirrorMask at times, from what I’ve seen from the trailers and from movie reviews that use clips from the movie. Compare to the Star Wars Prequels, which each had a budget of $115 million šŸ’µ and $113 million šŸ’µ with The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones both costing $115 million šŸ’µ and Revenge of the Sith costed two million dollars šŸ’µ less at about $113 million šŸ’µ. 

Those budgets are way less than what Megalopolis cost, and those are in 1999, 2002, and 2005 dollars šŸ’µ mind you. They’d probably cost even more if you adjusted those budgets for inflation. But, despite costing less to make than Megalopolis, all three of the Star Wars look way more expensive than that movie does. Like, with them, all of the money šŸ’µ’s all on screen, whereas Megalopolis, it doesn’t, or at least not all of the time. A lot of times, it kind of likes like a stage play, and not like a motion picture to use an old fashioned term.

I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand Francis Ford Coppola. He kind of annoys the fuck out of me, especially with how snobbish he is, and how he looks down on blockbuster movies. Not just superhero movies, but blockbusters in general. He only respects prestige movies that he deems as “important,” and sees blockbusters or anything that’s appealing the majority of moviegoers and tries to be fun and entertaining rather artsy and profound beneath him. Like, he once asked George Lucas why he kept making Star Wars movies, or he bemoaned George Lucas making more Star Wars movies after the original one from 1977, when in his mind, he should’ve been making something avant-garde and more “important.” 

Megalopolis, at least on the surface, seems like a movie that’s about how the millionaire and billionaire classes abuse and look down upon the common man, and he himself is a millionaire who looks down on entertainment that appeals to the common man. Dismissing it all as “amusement park rides” like Martin Scorsese did with superhero movies. This is why I respect George Lucas way more than Francis Ford Coppola because Lucas doesn’t look down on blockbusters or blockbuster filmmaking. In fact, he loves it, and he sees value in it. 

He sees value in doing something that’s just pure fun and isn’t really trying to saying profound or trying really hard to seem important, or at least, not doing it in a way that makes you seem pretentious. Lucas could actually make movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, whereas Coppola never could and never would. The closest he came to making something that had wider appeal was Bram Stroker’s Dracula, but even then, it was still a much artsier take on Dracula than others before and after, and there’s a hint of pretension even with that movie. So, I do not like Francis Ford Coppola for that reason, and I just find him kind of annoying. And he’s only gotten worse with age, as now, he just comes across as an “old man yelling at a cloud ☁️.” 

I certainly don’t agree at all with his political views, or he views America šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø and where it’s going. Plus, he’s also apparently a huge asshole who’s difficult to work with, at least on this movie, as there have been some allegations made against Coppola and other people who worked on this film, or “picture” as he would probably call it. That’s how you know a filmmaker’s really old fashioned if they say “picture” instead of film or movie. I know I used an old fashioned term by saying, “motion picture,” still.

I don’t know if any of these allegations are of a sexual nature, but given that this is Hollywood, and Coppola is an old fashioned Hollywood mogul, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were, or if Coppola really was guilty of doing horrible things to women ♀︎ on his set. He comes from a generation where men ♂︎, especially men ♂︎ like him, were held way less accountable for that kind of shitty behavior. So, it wouldn’t be shocking to me if he was doing that kind of stuff and abusing his position of power like that, given that he’s much more powerful now than he was when he made the original Godfather, or The Godfather Part II, or even Apocalypse Now. 

Megalopolis was not a movie that was designed to have mass appeal, in fact, Coppola purposefully made it so that it wouldn’t have mass appeal and would only have limited appeal. Pretty much the only people who like this movie or went out to see it at all were film snobs and film festival bros, who like any movie that’s played at a film festival simply because they get to meet and mingle with celebrities. They just like being there, and that bleeds into their opinion about the movie they’re supposed to be reviewing, when they’re clearly not capable of being unbiased or impartial. 

I’m pretty sure that this movie will probably be pulled from theaters pretty soon due to how little money šŸ’µ it has made, and how few people have actually seen it. I mean, if Moonfall šŸŒ• could be pulled from theaters after just a few weeks of it being in theaters due to how little money šŸ’µ it was making and few people were going to see it, I don’t see why Megalopolis shouldn’t? Why because Moonfall šŸŒ• was directed by Roland Emmerich and Megalopolis was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and Coppola is a much more respected filmmaker than Emmerich? That doesn’t seem very fair to me. I’d say both filmmakers are about as irrelevant as each other. 

But, either way, it won’t be a huge loss for me since I was never going to watch this movie in the first place since it wasn’t something that would appeal to me at all. A movie that’s too self-important for its own good, and was probably not worth the money šŸ’µ it cost and the pain it caused for nearly all involved. I mean, they used AI-generated quotes in the trailer to try to convince people that it’s good and that it’s worth watching, and that’s a huge dealbreaker for me. I refuse to watch Megalopolis just for that reason alone, the fact that they stooped that low to use a tactic like that to deceive people into watching the movie by using fake critic quotes and making it seem like it was more critically acclaimed than it really was. That’s just really scummy, and makes me lose even more respect for Coppola. 

I’m sure there will still be a bunch of film snobs and film essayists defending this movie and saying that it’s good, and that it’s a masterpiece, and one of the best movies that that Francis Ford Coppola has ever done because it’s the kind of movie that was made specifically for them and them alone, since those are clearly the kind of people Coppola respects the most, and makes his movies for. He doesn’t at all respect your average moviegoer who just wants to go see a movie for fun, rather than contemplate about the merits of capitalism, socialism, or urbanization, or contemptible about their place in the world or whatever. He probably sees them all as idiots who don’t appreciate “true art” šŸ˜’. 

I’ve seen one YouTuber say that he was not only excited for the movie, but also that he thinks that it’ll become a cult classic. Eh, I don’t know about that šŸ˜¬, but I am confident that there always be a section of who will always defend it and argue it’s merits as a film and it’s place within film history or within Coppola’s filmography, while there will always be people who hate this movie because there are people who hate it or at least dislike it and don’t think it’s very good. In fact, they think it’s kind of a mess, like JoBlo. Their review of the movie was pretty negative, but they did receive a lot of backlash for their review because it wasn’t positive enough and the person who made it didn’t kiss Coppola’s ass enough. If you’ve seen Megalopolis and you like it, then you do you because it’s definitely not a movie for me.

In other news, ever since I wrote that post last week about whether or not the Mario Kart šŸŽ️ game should have a story mode or not, which you can go read by clicking here, I’ve been delving more into the game, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. I mentioned that game in the section talking about Nintendo really doesn’t release a lot of M rated games on their consoles, and I mentioned Eternal Darkness as one that they released for the GameCube, along with Geist. I had no idea that game even existed by the time that I did the research for that bit, and I was curious about it afterwards and wanted to learn more about it, just based on what I had read on Wikipedia and saw on the cover art that I used in that post. 

I watched a longplay of the game on YouTube, posted by the channel, LongplayArchive, which you can go watch by clicking here, and it's a really cool game. It's a really interesting game, I don’t know if I would’ve been brave enough to even play it or if I would be able to get past the first chapter or not, since it is a pretty scary game. I mean, I wasn’t a kid who was scared easily, I was exposed to a lot of things that I probably shouldn't have at a young age. 

I watched a lot of R rated movies, a lot of monster movies who people got eaten alive by different creatures, usually killer animals, dinosaurs (yes, I know that dinosaurs were animals too, but I’m categorizing them separately from modern-day animals for the sake of brevity), or aliens, or even robots. So, I was bit desensitized, and it did take a lot to scare me, but this game definitely looks like one that would've scared me. And I wasn’t that good at playing video games back then. Hell, I’m still not that great at playing video games. I just know enough to get by and finish the game. I don’t know any of these fancy tricks on how to progress the game faster or how to get to a certain area that’s difficult to access, I’m not like that. I consider myself a casual gamer at best. 

This game was really nothing like what I was expecting it to be, based on the title, based on the cover art, and based on what I had read on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia page labeled the game as an “action-adventure game,” and I figured that it was some kind of fantasy RPG game like the kind Nintendo often releases on their consoles. Like, I expected something maybe like Final Fantasy, but with a little bit more edge since it was rated M for Mature. But, that’s not really what the game is. It’s not an RPG game, or an open world game of any kind, it’s a much more of a linear story told in chapters. Similar to a Resident Evil game. 

Speaking of Resident Evil, this game is a lot more horror than I was expecting it to be. In fact, it pretty much is a horror game with some action-adventure elements. Wikipedia should’ve labeled this as a horror game instead. Hell, it's more horror than Geist is. Geist has a lot more action-adventure elements, and is much more of an action game than Eternal Darkness is. Most of the action-adventure elements play out during boss fights, which are few and far between. You only get two boss battles during each playthrough, for each alignment, and you have to play the game multiple times, and play all of the alignments, to get all of the boss battles the game has to offer. However, unlike Resident Evil or even Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness is not survival horror. 

In fact, the dev team behind the game, specifically went out of their way to make sure that Eternal Darkness couldn’t be labeled as a survival horror game and instead be labeled as either a psychological thriller or a psychological horror game. And indeed, that is what it is, it’s a gritty psychological horror thriller game, chronicling characters who often lose their minds and even their humanity, and go completely insane…or at least, become undead. 

It’s a game that tries to mess with the player’s mind just as much as the characters’ minds get messed with, by doing these “Sanity Effects,” where some sort of random Fourth Wall breaking moment or crazy or weird thing happens if the player lets their Sanity Meter run completely dry. It’s implied that the characters are hallucinating when this happens because they always freak out and say something like, “This can't be happening,” or “This isn't real.” This makes sense in some Sanity Effects where the character sees themselves dead inside of a bath tub šŸ› full of blood šŸ©ø or they’ll see a body without a head and without any arms walking around a room. 

But, there are other Sanity Effects are the more targeted at the player specifically than the characters in the game. Like, if you let your Sanity Meter go all the way down, you might have a Sanity Effect where the game tells you that your GameCube’s about to delete all of your save data, or there will be a fake error message, or it’ll make you think something’s wrong with the TV and the screen will go completely black except for text that says “Video” at the top or something. There are also Fourth Wall breaking moment such as these fake “To Be Continued” screens and fake promotions for a fake sequel called Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Redemption. It’s like an April Fool’s prank, only it’s one that the game is playing on you if you fail to keep your Sanity Meter high. 

And the only way to keep your Sanity Meter high to cast spell using the game’s unique and apparently easy-to-understand and master magic system. You can cast magic spell using these alignment runes that you collect throughout the game. There are four different types of runes — Red, Green, Blue, and Purple. Each of these runes correspond with one of the three main Ancients, with red representing Chattur’gha, green representing Xel’lotath, blue representing Ulyaoth, and purple representing Mantorok. 

And you hear one of their voices when your casting your spells using whichever rune and color your chose. More of them later. The magic system works in a sort of rock-paper-scissors šŸŖØšŸ“„✂️ manner, and it can be freely experimented with by the player. You can use magic spells to enchant your weapons, kill enemies, open doors and secret passages, and of course refill your Health Meter and your Sanity Meter as well as a Blue Meter that I’m sure what it does exactly.

I’m kind of glad that I didn’t play this game as a kid, otherwise I would’ve thought these Sanity Effects were real and that something really was wrong with the game or with the console. I might’ve even returned the game, believing that it really was broken. But, this is a really unique and cool idea, and it’s a shame that no other game has attempted doing something like that. Likely because Nintendo owns the patent on the Sanity Effects, and therefore no other game can legally have anything closely resembling them. So, the only way we’ll ever be able to see Sanity Effects in a modern game is if Nintendo and Silicon Knights ever make a real sequel to Eternal Darkness, or they if they remake or remaster it. Every other game from the 2000s is getting remade or remastered, so why the hell not? 

I also learned that this is a Lovecraftian horror game, or cosmic horror game if you prefer, as it was heavily influenced by the works of HP Lovecraft, as well as the works of Edger Allen Poe, and the works of Michael Moorcock, especially his Eternal Champion character. The plot of the game deals with these gods called the Ancients. The three main Ancients are named Chattur’gha, Ulyaoth, and Xel’lotath. 

They all have have different personalities, motives, and abilities, with Chattur’gha sort of being like a god of war. He’s called the Being of Matter, and his abilities mainly have to do with physical strength and resilience. All of his minions rely mainly brute strength to attack the player, and are pretty resilient, like it takes a lot more effort to take his minions than it does any of the other Ancients’ minions. 

However, his brawn came at the cost of his brain as he is the least intelligent or least foreword thinking than any of the other Ancients, including Mantorok. Because of this, Pious ends up doing most of the planning and scheming for him, kind of leading him in the direction that he wants him to go in. Chattur’gha doesn’t really care about plunging the Earth šŸŒŽ into eternal darkness, or even ending human civilization, all he really wants to do is destroy Xel’lotath, his natural rival and counter. 

The rest of his plan actually came from Pious, including weakening Mantorok, which was the first step in his plan in bringing about eternal darkness during the next planetary alignment, and freeing Chattur’gha from his confines. Chattur’gha can’t exactly get free, become all powerful, and overtake the other Ancients without the crucial step of casting that spell on Mantorok to weaken him and bound him to an underground tomb or sanctum underneath Angkor Thom, so that he can slowly die over the course of 2,000 years. Chattur’gha would never think that far ahead, or even think to do something like that. 

He actually needed someone like Pious to help him along with achieving his goal, which is mainly to destroy his enemies, including Xel’lotath, Ulyaoth, and of course, Mantorok. Though, his hatred for both Xel’lotath and Ulyaoth is stronger than his hatred for Mantorok. His opposition mostly comes as a necessity to achieve his goal of destroying the other two Ancients, and it was Pious who planted the idea in his head of weakening the Mantorok, and making that the key to making their plan succeed. In the end, his brute strength was no match for Ulyaoth’s reality-bending magic.

Ulyaoth has more magical abilities and the ability to manipulate spacetime and travel across dimensions. He also resembles a jellyfish šŸŖ¼, and all of his minions resemble various sea creatures or have some association with water šŸ’¦. Like, his zombies are drowned, his Horrors and Bonethieves have gel-like bodies or have body parts that are gel-like, his Guardians resemble krill and other shellfish, and his Black Guardian also resembles a jellyfish šŸŖ¼ similar to Ulyaoth himself, only it has legs whereas Ulyaoth doesn’t. It actually has three legs, making it a tripod, and has tentacles at the bottom of its bottom similar to that of a jellyfish šŸŖ¼ and of course of Ulyaoth himself who looks very jellyfish-like šŸŖ¼.  

According to the wiki for the game, Ulyaoth exists in multiple universes at a time and can fade in and out of reality as he pleases. Hence why he’s called “the Absent Horror” and why his existence is described as “never existing, but never really not.” Because he exists in multiple universes simultaneously, and can enter and exit any one of them as he pleases, his knowledge is pretty vast, and he is a bit full of himself and self-assured intellect. 

Believing that he is smarter than everyone else, certainly smarter than any humans, which is why his hold over Pious seems to be the most tight compared to the Ancients, like he has more control over him than the other Ancients do in the other two scenarios. He also does all of the planning and scheming himself, and just expects Pious to follow it exactly. The only being in the multiverse that Ulyaoth is smarter than him, or is more knowledgeable than him is Mantorok, as he’s willing to admit that Mantorok’s knowledge and intellect is greater than even his. Which might explain why Ulyaoth hates Mantorok and wants him destroyed and weakened at all costs.

Yes, Eternal Darkness does take place in a multiverse, but this was way before the multiverse concept got overblown and was ran into the ground šŸ˜’. The only real mainstream multiverse thing at that time was The One, that Jet Li movie that people claim is a Matrix rip-off, but really isn’t. Plus, from what I understand, Eternal Dakness’s approach to the multiverse is different from others, where there aren't parallel universe per se. There aren’t multiple versions of the same person. Each of the universes within the multiverse are separate entities that unique and different from another. Meaning they have different people entirely from our universe, or they might not any people at all. But, that’s just my interpretation, take it with a grain of salt šŸ§‚. 

Finally, you have Xel’lotath, who has mind-based abilities as she is the Goddess of Insanity, and can use her powers to drive people insane. She can drive the other Ancients insane, which is why she defeats Ulyaoth in the Ulyaoth scenario. She literally drives him insane, and makes him kill himself just to make the psychological torment stop and make the pain go away. She’s considered the strangest of three main Ancients with her having four arms, one eye šŸ‘️, and a slim, slender, stem-like body with no legs that is vaguely feminine-looking showing that she is indeed female ♀︎, and having two distinct voices that sometimes conflict with each other. 

She’s also considered the evilest one of the three Ancients with her goal being, upon being released, to basically kill all life on Earth šŸŒŽ, and then make her own minions (and possibly even some revived humans) fight amongst themselves, killing and torturing each other, for all eternity. She wants to inflict as much pain and suffering on the human race, and her own minions, as she possibly can. She is violent an sadistic to the max, truly conniving. 

Her relationship with Pious is a bit more equal than the two Ancients, as unlike with them, her and Pious are true co-conspirators, true partners in crime, planning and scheming together to achieve the same goal. Though there is still a power imbalance between them, the power dynamic is still somewhat unequal, and Xel’lotath does somewhat distrust Pious because she can see the other timelines (the other universes I guess) where he’s working with the other Ancients instead of her. 

And she fully believes that he will betray her in the end. Despite him showing time after time just how loyal he truly is, and showing no sign that his loyalty was wavering at any period during that 2,000 year period. But, even without her knowledge of the multiverse and the other two timelines (or universes), I feel like Xel’lotath would still stab Pious in the back in the end, because that’s just who she is. She is pure evil, evil that is unmatched by either Chattur’gha or Ulyaoth. She is only defeated by Chattur’gha’s sheer power and brute strength. 

They’re pretty much where the Lovecraftian elements come in, as they’re all loosely based on characters from Lovecraft’s stories, and they all tap into that Lovecraftian idea of the fear of the unknown and otherworldly beings that beyond human comprehension, and are indifferent. Lovecraft’s work taps into this notion of “cosmic indifference,” that the cosmos and the universe are indifferent to us humans. It’s this idea that we don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, that we are so small and insignificant that the universe is indifferent to us, and doesn’t give us a second thought. 

A lot of the monsters in Lovecraft’s stories are cosmic beings that so are beyond us that they look upon on us with indifference and cruelty. They could easily destroy humanity with little effort but don’t because we’re so small and insignificant compared to them that they don’t even perceive us or give us a second thought. They ignore us or they’re unaware of our existence due to how big and powerful they are compared to us, just like how we humans walk past ant hills šŸœ and don’t give them a single thought. 

That’s what’s at the heart of Lovecraftian horror and cosmic horror in general, and that’s how the Ancients in the story are. They’re cosmic-level beings, gods that are indifferent and cruel towards humanity, very similar to the Old Ones (or “Great Old Ones” as they’re also called) from the Cthulhu Mythos created by Lovecraft. In fact, the fact that they’re called the Ancients shows that they were directly inspired by the deities from the Cthulhu Mythos, such as Cthulhu, Azathoth, and Yog-Sothoth. The Ancients want to destroy humanity by plunging the Earth šŸŒŽ into an eternal darkness, hence the title of the game.

I guess, if we were to used to use the ant analogy šŸœ again, it’s kind of like how we humans try to kill ants šŸœ because we see them as pests or as inconveniences or obstacles that need to be overcome, despite how small and comparatively insignificant they are to us. They can only do this during a planetary alignment, where the planets of the Solar System line up in a straight line. And the next of these planetary alignments is set to happen in the year 2000, and they spend the next 2,000 years working towards the goal of plunging the Earth šŸŒŽ into eternal darkness by the time the next planetary alignment in the year 2000 takes place. 

The Ancients even employ a human to do their dirty work, and bring about their apocalyptic plan, a Roman Centurion by name of Pious Augustus. They lure him into their lair in the Forbidden City inside Persia and Mesopotamia during the 1st Century BCE (Before Common Era), in the year, 26 BCE, and depending on which of their artifacts he touches, he becomes their humble servant for all eternity. Sure, Pious is an undead corpse while doing it, hey, at least he’s immortal and at least he has a purpose, even if that purpose is pure evil. He seeks to not only release the Ancient he serves from their tomb, but also make their plan a reality, of bringing about eternal darkness on the next planetary alignment and destroying the fourth Ancient known as Mantorok for good. 

He’s their main rival and is kind of like a guardian of humanity, and maybe even the creator of humanity, though they never explicitly say in the game if he is or not. But, he could very well be the creator of all life on Earth šŸŒŽ, not just humans, but all life, including every other animal, plant, and microorganism (bacteria, archaea, and protists) that exists alongside humanity and existed before humanity. 

If he is the creator of all life on Earth šŸŒŽ, then that would explain why the other Ancients hate him so much, and why they want to destroy him and destroy all life on Earth šŸŒŽ, including, but not limited to humanity. They want to destroy him, and destroy the things he created and holds most dear as one last slight against him. Though, if he is the creator of humanity (and all other life on Earth šŸŒŽ), it’s not clear if he cherishes us in that way, if he loves us in that way as I’ll elaborate on in a moment. 

He was worshipped by the ancient Khmer people as a “God of Fertility,” and is the one who set in motion the 2,000 year plan to stop Pious and the Ancient he works for from achieving in their goal, after Pious weakened him and sealed him away inside Angkor Thom by casting a spell on him. Pious did that because Mantorok was apparently the “Keeper of the Ancients,” and helped maintain a balance of power between himself and the other three Ancients. And Pious was instructed by the Ancient he aligned himself with (or did it under his own volition, depending on which Ancient you chose in the first chapter) to upset that balance and weaken Mantorok, so they could become more powerful and be released to bring about eternal darkness on Earth šŸŒŽ.

But, Mantorok had an ace in the hole, and set his own plan in motion to stop them before they could succeed in their plan to destroy the world, even his weakened state inside a tomb deep inside Angkor Thom. That’s where all of the human characters we play as throughout the game come in. They’re all apart of Mantorok’s plan, knowingly or unknowingly, to foil Pious and the Ancients’ evil plan to plunge the Earth šŸŒŽ into eternal darkness. So for the time being, he’s on our side, and trying to stop Pious and the Ancient he serves from achieving their evil plan.  

Though, Mantorok apparently has his own ulterior, less benevolent motives for wanting to stop Pious and the Ancients and is not purely good, as implied by Edward Rovias. For one thing, Mantorok’s referred to as the “Corpse God” or the “God of Chaos.” So, even if he opposes Pious and the other three Ancients, and is therefore working in humanity’s benefit, that doesn’t necessary make him good. He’s bad news himself šŸ˜°. 

Though, the game doesn’t explicitly says whether Mantorok is evil or not. It’s just an implication by Edward based on his own suspicions after researching the Ancients by reading through the Tome of Eternal Darkness, and learning the history of everything that had occurred since Pious discovered the Forbidden City, and discovered the essences of the Ancients and became slave to one of them by exposing himself to their essence. More on that later. 

And it’s presented as a positive thing, through Edward’s narration that Mantorok is still sealed and trapped inside Angkor Thom, slowly dying, not able to reconstitute himself and restore his full strength. Edward’s goal it seems, based on his narration in the game’s true ending, was to bring about the destruction of all of the Ancients. Not just the one that Pious was worshiping and working for, or the two that opposed them, but all of them, including Mantorok. Because to him, they’re all evil, and they shouldn’t be allowed to roam free in our world, our universe, our reality, our plane of existence, doing as they please.

The rest of the game jumps across time, and into lives of various different characters throughout the two millennia, who are all effected by the machinations of Pious and the Ancients’ plan of eternal darkness in some way, and try to stop it in their own way. The game’s timeline starts 26 BCE and ends in 2000 CE (Common Era). This is what I meant when I said in my previous post that the game spans two millennia. It’s also set in four locations, Angkor Thom in Cambodia šŸ‡°šŸ‡­, the Forbidden City in Persia and parts of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡·, Iraq šŸ‡®šŸ‡¶, and Kuwait šŸ‡°šŸ‡¼), OubliĆ© Cathedral in France šŸ‡«šŸ‡·, and the Rovias Estate in Rhode Island, USA šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø, we return to these locations multiple times throughout the game, though in vastly different eras. Though the story is told non-linearly, and not even the time periods are not presented in a linear fashion. 

Like, the game will jump from the 9th century to the 12th century to the 6th century to 15th century to the 18th century to the 20th century, and then back to the 15th century again. I think we have at least two or three different chapter set during the 15th century. I guess, the devs really liked the 15th century, they decided to visit it twice. To be fair, we do get four chapters set in the 20th century, with one set in the 1910s, one set in the 1950s, one set in the 1980s, and one set in the 1990s. Though, obviously, they’re not presented in that order. But, when it comes to the 20th century chapters, those were the necessity for the plot. We didn’t really need to return to the 15th century a second time for the sake of the story. Especially since the second story set in the 15th century, the Paul Luther story, ends up being pretty superfluous.

This was an aspect of the story and the game that I didn't know about until I watched the longplay. I didn’t know that it jumped around to different characters like that. I thought it was going to have one playable character throughout. Like, I thought maybe Alex Rovias was going to be the solo playable character or some other character would. But no, you play as multiple characters, and each one varies wildly in background, personality, gender, and likeability. Like one character’s a Khmer slave girl ♀︎, another one’s a Franciscan monk, another one’s an archeologist, another one’s a field reporter, another one’s an architect, one’s a doctor, and one’s a firefighter šŸ‘ØšŸ¾‍šŸš’, just to name a few. Some characters are more likeable and more sympathetic than others, as there are characters who you play as in this game that are genuinely not good people and are pretty unlikable. 

The entire story is conveyed through flashback, by Alex writing the chapters inside of this ancient book bound in human skin created by Mantorok himself called the Tome of Eternal Darkness, which details the accounts of each of these people's run-ins and dealing with Pious and the Ancient he’s working for. And there’s like a little intermission in-between each chapter where you play as Alex, and go around her grandfather’s mansion, the Rovias Estate, finding missing pages from the Tome to fill in the blanks and complete the story of this two millennia long conflict against Pious and the Ancient he’s aligned with. 

Of course, this approach to storytelling means that we really don’t spend a lot of time with these characters, and get the chance to learn much about them, and get attached to them, especially since a lot of them either die at the end of their chapters, or suffer horrible fates. Like, Maximillian Rovias gets thrown in an insane asylum because no one believed him when he told them about the Tome, the Ancients, and Pious, and they all thought he was crazy. 

Though, to be fair, he did kind of lose his mind as a result of his encounter with the Ancient’s minions, those awful creatures that you have to fight and kill throughout the game, and finding the ancient lost city known as Ehn’gha underneath the mansion. So, he kind of did deserve to be in an insane asylum by the end of it. Though insane asylums in the 18th century weren’t very good and were pretty hellish places to be in since there was pretty much no real understanding of mental health back then. 

So, maybe it wasn’t good that he was in there šŸ˜Ø. Part of me does kind of wish that he somehow escaped at the end. I don’t know how that would've happened, maybe there's a riot at the asylum, and Maximillian is able to take advantage of the chaos and the situation, and use it as his chance to escape. But, there probably wasn't enough in his chapter to do that, and it goes beyond the bounds of the story.

Given that the story takes place in vastly different timelines in four distinct locations, none of the characters you play as throughout the game really interact with each other or cross paths at any point. There are only a few times throughout the story, at least at the point where I’m at, where a character from a previous chapter will cross paths with a character from the current chapter you’re playing (or watching in my case), and when they do, they’re already dead. They either show up as a ghost šŸ‘» or as an undead corpse. Like, the character, Anthony gets turned into a zombie šŸ§Ÿ‍♂️ in his chapter before he gets killed, and then he pops up again in another chapter later on as an undead corpse that springs back to life and tries to kill you, and you have to kill him. 

Speaking of which, some chapters end pretty abruptly, or don’t have very satisfying conclusions. Like, Anthony’s a messenger who’s trying to warn Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, about an assassination plot against him, but the time he gets to Charlemagne, he’s already dead, and he gets killed himself by none other than Pious himself, who was in disguise. And that was despite everything he went through, traveling through the catacombs underneath the cathedral, slowly decaying and becoming more and more undead, only for his one mission to end in complete failure. Anthony’s chapter is probably is my least favorite of the bunch so far. 

The character I feel the most sorry for is probably Karim, a Persian warrior from the 6th century, who got stuck guarding this artifact relating to one of the Ancients inside the Forbidden City for hundreds of years, all because he was downbad and wanted to impress a lady ♀︎ by finding this treasure she wanted. This was one instance where being a simp didn’t pay, and was a death sentence, but at least, he got to be his woman ♀︎ while being a ghost šŸ‘» protecting this artifact inside the Forbidden City that has essence of the Ancient that’s weak against Pious’s Ancient inside of it, and at least he was freed and relieved of his duties once the Venetian artist and architect named Roberto Bianchi showed up in 1460 and agreed to take the artifact off his hands and guard it with his life, which didn’t last for very long after mind you since Bianchi’s was immediately killed in an execution ordered by Pious in disguise as a warlord named Tamerlaine. 

Pious kidnapped Bianchi and took him in as a prisoner of war (POW), and forced him to build a tower called the Pillar of Flesh leading directly down to the Forbidden City. But, once Bianchi snooped where he shouldn’t have and discovered the Forbidden City, and met the ghost šŸ‘» of Karim and took that artifact from him, Pious decided to kill him by executing him on top of the tower. Why he decided to have him executed in a much a public and theatrical way? Maybe it was to keep up the charade of being a warlord, or maybe it was to make an example out of Bianchi while keeping the true nature of the Forbidden City and himself a secret, or maybe it was a little bit of both. 

Either way, I guess I sort of feel bad for Bianchi too. He was an innocent artist and architect who was kidnapped and taken prisoner by this warlord who was really a lich from classical antiquity working for an eldritch god that wants to destroy the world in disguise, and forced him to construct a tower leading directly into a secret ancient underground dungeon (the Forbidden City’s actually a dungeon despite its name according to the Eternal Darkness Wiki) that has those eldritch gods stored in there, as well as their undead and monstrous minions roaming around the hallways and rooms of the dungeon. 

Then he met a ghost šŸ‘» of a Persian warrior from centuries prior who gifted him an artifact relating to one of those gods to protect so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, and for that, he was publicly executed by that undead warrior in disguise as a warlord on top of the very tower was forced to survey and construct in the first place. The only other characters have it more rough than him are Anthony, Paul, Maximillian, Ellia, and of course, Karim, the man ♂︎ who became the ghost šŸ‘» that Bianchi met in his chapter.

If the game just focused on one protagonist the entire time, instead of jumping around, focusing on a new character every chapter, then we might've had time to get used to them, and really get to know them, and get attached to them. But, I get it, they wanted to tell this really sprawling story about a sinister plot by these malevolent gods and their undead servant to plunge the Earth šŸŒŽ into eternal darkness during a planetary alignment that plays out across two millennia in four separate locations and involves multiple characters who are all impacted by this evil plot, and each try to stop it in their own way (knowingly or unknowingly). There's almost something romantic about that. It’s an ambitious game with an equally ambitious story, but that ambition comes at the cost of character development as a lot of the characters in the game are underdeveloped and poorly explored, and even poorly thought out in a few cases. 

My favorite chapter by far is the World War I chapter, entitled “A War to End All Wars,” in fact, that's what they refer to World War I for most of that chapter, and probably for the entire game, the War to End All Wars. They never refer to it as World War I once, not even as the Great War, which is actually what the war was called while it was happening and what it was called in the years after it ended…until World War II happened. Then people started calling it World War I, or the First World War, since it was the first truly global war that claimed the lives of millions of people, rather than simply hundreds of people or thousands of people, and was no longer the only war of that kind. Though people still call World War I, the Great War for shits and giggles, because it sounds neat, just like Hank Marlow in Kong: Skull Island said when he was explaining why he named the Skullcrawlers, Skullcrawlers.

But, I really like World War I. It’s one of the most fascinating conflicts of the 20th century, and it's one of the ones that I'm the most interested in it. Even if it doesn't involve my favorite region of the world, Asia, that much. I mean, the First World War did extend to Asia. There was an Asian and Pacific theater of the war, where Japan šŸ‡ÆšŸ‡µ joined the side of the Allies, just so that they could snatch up as many German colonies in China and the Pacific as they could. But, it wasn’t a big part of it. The majority of the action was in places like Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. 

Yes, the Caucasus is considered a part of Europe, which is why I’m not categorizing it as a separate region from Europe like I did Africa and the Middle East. Yet, strangely enough, the Caucasus campaign is not considered apart of the European theater, but apart of the Middle Eastern theater. I guess because it's closer in proximity to Anatolia and the Arabian peninsula, and mostly involved the Ottoman Empire šŸ‡¹šŸ‡· going up against the Russian Empire šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ, trying to take back territory they lost to them centuries prior. 

So, having a chapter in this game be set in World War I (as opposed to World War II) was definitely a treat. Keep in mind, this game came out in 2002, a time where World War I got way less coverage and love than it does nowadays. Most historical war movies, video games, TV shows, and books šŸ“– were still mostly focused on World War II, and by World War II, I mostly mean the European theater involving the Nazis. Barely any World War II media focused on the Pacific War, despite it being the thing that got the US šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø involved in the war. 

There’s a been a bit of reckoning to give World War I more of the attention it deserves in the recent years, starting in the 2010s, since that was the 100th anniversary of the conflict. A lot of the big World War I centric media was made in either the 2010s or the 2020s, such as 1917, They Shall Not Grow Old, The King’s Man, and All Quiet on the Western Front. Even some of the big World War I centric horror games were made more recently in either the 2010s and 2020s. 

So, having a game from the 2002 feature World War I is a pretty big deal and is pretty cool. Since it is a 2002 game, it means that 2022 was also the 20th anniversary for it, and 2027 will be its 25th anniversary also. Even if, yes, it does focus on the Western Front as the majority of World War I centric media does. When people talk about World War I, and write books šŸ“– or make movies, video games, and TV shows about World War I, they usually only really focus on the Western Front in Europe since that was where all of the trench warfare was taking place. And trench warfare is the thing people most associate with the First World War.

The Eastern Front, the front that involved Russia šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ, Romania šŸ‡·šŸ‡“, Bulgaria šŸ‡§šŸ‡¬, and the Ottoman Empire šŸ‡¹šŸ‡· was much more dynamic by comparison, then there's the Balkans theater which gets less focus than either the Western or Eastern Fronts, then there’s the Caucasus campaign which is considered apart of the Middle Eastern theater, then there’s the Middle Eastern theater which gets way less focus than either the Western Front or the Eastern Front but is really important since it lead to the creation of Saudi Arabia šŸ‡øšŸ‡¦, Iraq šŸ‡®šŸ‡¶, Syria šŸ‡øšŸ‡¾, Jordan šŸ‡ÆšŸ‡“ (Transjordan as it was known back then), Lebanon šŸ‡±šŸ‡§, Yemen šŸ‡¾šŸ‡Ŗ, and Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡±, and started the Israeli-Palestinian conflict šŸ‡®šŸ‡±šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø. 

Though, with the exception of Saudi Arabia šŸ‡øšŸ‡¦, all of those places were placed under the control or protection of either the United Kingdom šŸ‡¬šŸ‡§ or France šŸ‡«šŸ‡· after the war, and wouldn’t be granted full independence until after World War II. Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± was called Mandatory Palestine šŸ‡¬šŸ‡§ since it was a British Mandate šŸ‡¬šŸ‡§, and it hadn’t become either a Jewish state ✡️ or an Arab state yet. 

The British šŸ‡¬šŸ‡§ made promises to the Jews ✡️ and the Arabs to grant their own states, but they failed to fulfill either promise, which is how we got the Israeli-Palestinian conflict šŸ‡®šŸ‡±šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø that we see today with Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± trying to claim all Palestinian lands šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø for itself, and Palestinians šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø trying to cling onto the hope of a Palestinian state šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø, and on to dear life as Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± tries to ethnically cleanse their own territory, and repopulate with it with Israeli Jews šŸ‡®šŸ‡±. 

Then you have the African theater, which gets even less attention than the Western Front, the Eastern Front, the Balkans theater, the Caucasus campaign, and the Middle Eastern theater, and then you have the Asian and Pacific theater which gets way less focus than even the African theater does. The Asian and Pacific theater of World War I was much smaller than the Pacific Theater of World War II, and way less happened in it than that theater, which explains why it doesn't get as much focus as the Pacific Theater of World War II does. 

The chapter is set during the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles šŸ©ø of the Western Front and of the entire war overall, as the OubliĆ© Cathedral had converted into a field hospital šŸ„ for the sick and wounded šŸ¤• coming from the frontlines. That places this chapter in 1916, which is cool šŸ‘. I’m so used to World War I media being set in either 1914, when the war begins with Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, or 1917 when the Americans šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø get involved and turn the war in the Allies’ favor, that it's kind of refreshing to have one that's set in one of the in-between years of the war. 

However, you don’t play as a soldier in this chapter, you play as a journalist, a field reporter named Peter Jacob, who’s covering the war, and happens to stumble upon all the crazy stuff involving Pious and the Ancients while visiting the field hospital šŸ„ in OubliĆ© Cathedral. Though, unlike many of the other characters in the game, Jacob actually survives his ordeal and his bush with Pious and the Ancients, though he doesn’t actually encounter Pious during his chapter if I’m remembering it correctly. But, he does defeat the Black Guardian and retrieves the essence of the dominant Ancient that you chose at the beginning of the game, and gives it to Edward. The Black Guardian is different depending on which Ancient you chose at the beginning for Pious to become subservient to, and cinematics involving the Black Guardian will differ depending on which Ancient you chose. 

Between this, Amnesia: The Bunker, and Conscript, World War I it seems is a conflict that uniquely lends itself to the horror genre. Even more than other conflicts like World War II, the Korean War šŸ‡°šŸ‡µšŸ‡°šŸ‡·, the Vietnam War šŸ‡»šŸ‡³, or even more recent conflicts like the War in Afghanistan šŸ‡¦šŸ‡«, the Iraq War šŸ‡®šŸ‡¶, the Syrian Civil War šŸ‡øšŸ‡¾, and the Russo-Ukrainian War šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ŗšŸ‡¦. To name but a few of course. I guess because World War I is a uniquely tragic, depressing, and horrific war that it's easier to make a horror game out of that conflict than it is for any of the ones I just mentioned. 

Plus, it’s far enough in the past that you could conceivably get away with having supernatural elements without it seeming cheesy or out of place. But, I’d argue that you could include supernatural elements in any war in any fictional story you write that's in the horror genre. Even Vietnam šŸ‡»šŸ‡³, which is a war that I'm surprised more don’t make horror games out of, given how tragic and horrific that war was. 

It’s a war that you could even weave in supernatural elements too since the Americans šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø and South Vietnamese tried to use local superstition to intimidate the Viį»‡t Cį»™ng insurgents as well as North Vietnamese forces šŸ‡»šŸ‡³ that infiltrated South Vietnam and convince them to surrender with some psychological warfare. With those infamous Wandering Souls recordings. 

Those weren’t real recordings of ghosts or spirits or anything, they were staged and made up by the Americans šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø and South Vietnamese. But in a horror game, you could have there be real ghosts and spirits, real wandering souls. I’d also argue that you could make a solid horror game out of the Syrian Civil War šŸ‡øšŸ‡¾ as well as the Russo-Ukrainian War šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ŗšŸ‡¦. Or hell, you could even make a solid horror game out of the Yugoslav Wars, like the Bosnian War šŸ‡§šŸ‡¦ or the Kosovo War šŸ‡½šŸ‡°, but especially the Bosnian War šŸ‡§šŸ‡¦, that war was especially horrific.

Or the Russian Civil War šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ, and that’s a war pretty close in timeline to World War I as it started in 1917 as soon as the Russian Empire šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ fell after their defeat on the Eastern Front, the Russian Republic šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ tried and failed to take its place, even trying to rejoin the war and continue fighting it in its place, and the Bolsheviks took power and establishing a communist regime ☭ in its place. 

They took the country out of the war for good by signing a peace treaty with the Germans that gave up territory to them called the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Only for the Bolsheviks to start a war back home, on Russian soil šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ, with a White Russian faction šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ emerging to oppose them and overthrow them, and establish or re-establish a non-communist or anti-communist government as they had before. 

As well as separatist factions emerging to try to break away from Russia šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ, and establish or re-establish their own independent states, as was the case with the Ukrainians šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡¦, the Belarusians, the Polish šŸ‡µšŸ‡±, the Finnish šŸ‡«šŸ‡®, Estonians šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡Ŗ, Latvians šŸ‡±šŸ‡», and Lithuanians šŸ‡±šŸ‡¹, as well as many other such as the Georgians, the Armenians šŸ‡¦šŸ‡², Azerbaijanis šŸ‡¦šŸ‡æ, and the peoples of the Northern Caucasus. They established their own breakaway state called the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus (MRNC). There was even an anti-Bolshevik leftist faction in the war, comprised of the Makhnovshchina, the Green Army, and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, or Left SRs for short.

And the Allies of World War I intervened in the civil war, trying to help the White Russians šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ defeat and overthrow the Bolsheviks, so that they could prevent them from consolidating their power and firmly establishing their regime. As well as support separatist factions gain and secure their independence. They failed of course, and the White Russians šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ and most other oppositional forces were defeated, with the Bolsheviks managing to stay in power and eventually establish the Soviet Union ☭. 

The only thing they succeeded at doing was helping some of the separatists gain their independence, such as the Baltic states šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡ŖšŸ‡±šŸ‡»šŸ‡±šŸ‡¹, Poland šŸ‡µšŸ‡±, Belarus, Ukraine šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡¦, and Finland šŸ‡«šŸ‡®. They didn't directly support the Georgians, the Armenians šŸ‡¦šŸ‡², or the Azerbaijanis šŸ‡¦šŸ‡æ, nor did they recognize their states, so I’m not counting them in the list of separatists the Allies supported during their intervention. 

But, even for some of these, their independence didn't last long as the Soviets ☭ would eventually regain control over all of these breakaway states, except for Finland šŸ‡«šŸ‡®, which managed to stay independent after it was liberated from the Russians šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ during the civil war. Although there was a hot war between the Finnish šŸ‡«šŸ‡® and the Soviets ☭ (not pun intended) called the Winter War ❄️, where the Soviets ☭ tried to retake the entire country, but ultimately settled for a little sliver of territory in the southern half of the country in a peace treaty after it proved too difficult for them to take the entire country. Sound familiar šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡¦? 

Poland šŸ‡µšŸ‡± is a little different in that, while it was never reconquered by the Soviets ☭ (even managing to defeat the Soviets ☭ in a war called the Polish-Soviet War šŸ‡µšŸ‡±☭), it would end up being jointly invaded and partitioned by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union ☭, kicking off World War II in Europe. This resulted in Poland šŸ‡µšŸ‡± losing pretty much all of the territory that it had during the Interwar Period, and its borders had to be completely redrawn after World War II was over. 

But, to make matters worse for the Polish šŸ‡µšŸ‡±, it would end up being occupied by the Soviets ☭, who used their occupation as an opportunity to establish a communist regime ☭ that was sympathetic and subservient to them (as apart of the Eastern Bloc), which the Polish šŸ‡µšŸ‡± would be stuck with until 1989, when they managed to overthrow that pro-Soviet regime ☭ in a relatively peaceful revolution. 

The Russian Civil War šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ was so bad that it caused an equally horrific famine called the Russian famine of 1921-1922 šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ, where people often resorted to cannibalism to survive šŸ˜°. There’s a video about the famine that you can watch by the channel called Disturban History. I’ll link it here. This is why I think the Russian Civil War šŸ‡·šŸ‡ŗ lends itself to the horror genre, in much the same way World War I does.

You could also make a solid horror game out of the Second Sino-Japanese War šŸ‡ÆšŸ‡µšŸ‡¹šŸ‡¼, though that war kind of bleeds into and extends into World War II, so I can see why it’s not sought after for horror games. A horror game set during the Chinese Civil War šŸ‡ØšŸ‡³šŸ‡¹šŸ‡¼ or the Chinese War Lord era could also potentially work too.

I do kind of wish that this game had a chapter that was set in the Vietnam War šŸ‡»šŸ‡³ because Cambodia šŸ‡°šŸ‡­ was a big part of the conflict, with the Cambodian Civil War šŸ‡°šŸ‡­, and it would’ve a great time to return to Angkor Thom after the chapter with Edwin Lindsey, the archeologist who retrieves Mantorok’s essence from the undead Ellia, the Khmer slave girl ♀︎ from the second chapter of the game, which is set in the 1980s after the Vietnam War šŸ‡»šŸ‡³, the Cambodian Civil War šŸ‡°šŸ‡­, the Khmer Rouge rule, the Cambodian-Vietnamese War šŸ‡»šŸ‡³, and the Sino-Vietnamese War šŸ‡ØšŸ‡³šŸ‡»šŸ‡³, which was over Cambodia, but didn’t take place in Cambodia, instead taking place in northern Vietnam šŸ‡»šŸ‡³. 

At the very least, a chapter set during the Khmer Rouge’s rule and the Cambodian Genocide, which was truly a horrific period of Cambodian history šŸ‡°šŸ‡­. It would've a great time to have a chapter set in since it’s a period of Cambodian history šŸ‡°šŸ‡­ that lends itself to horror. Maybe you could've had it be someone trying to guard Angkor Thom and protect Mantorok from the Khmer Rouge after they take control over Cambodia. 

Or maybe it’s a Cambodian citizen trying to hide from the Khmer Rouge after fleeing from one of the labor camps and they just happen to choose Angkor Thom as a hiding place and they stumble upon Mantorok’s tomb, and having to deal with Pious in disguise. Perhaps Pious takes the form of a Khmer Rouge fighter, or anti-Khmer Rouge insurgent, likely from the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation (FUNSK), in order to get to this person inside Angkor Thom, and kill them so they won’t interfere with his and the Ancient’s plan. Or maybe switch the decade Edwin visits Cambodia, and have him instead go there in the 1970s. 

You could have him explain that he wants to explore Angkor Thom there before the Khmer Rouge completely take over and they seal off the country to outsiders, which is something they did. They outlawed any travel in and outside the country during their 4 year long rule. It would’ve been great to see since this is underexplored part of history, and not many Westerners know about it, or knew it about back then in 2002 when this game came out. The only major movies that have been about this period of time are The Killing Fields in 1984 and First They Killed My Father in 2017. I wrote a review of First They Killed My Father, as well as a companion piece where I compared and contrasted it with the World War II anime film, Rail of the Star ☆, which you can go read by clicking here and here. 

We only return to Angkor Thom about two times in the entire game, once in the Angkor period, during the time of the Khmer Empire in the 12th century with Ellia, in the year 1150 CE, and once in modern times, during the time of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea in the 20th century with Edwin, in the year 1983 CE. Whereas we visit OubliĆ© Cathedral at least three or four different times throughout the story, and we visit the Forbidden City about three times in the story, four if you count the first chapter where you play as Pious prior to him being cursed and becoming undead and evil. 

Since we got a chapter set during the Gulf War, I think it’s only fair that we got a chapter set during the Vietnam War šŸ‡»šŸ‡³, or in the Cambodian Civil War šŸ‡°šŸ‡­ specifically (though it was apart of the Vietnam War šŸ‡»šŸ‡³), that way we could've had three 20th century wars represented. And if not that, then maybe the aftermath of the Vietnam War šŸ‡»šŸ‡³ with the Khmer Rouge coming to power in Cambodia and establishing the Democratic Kampuchea, and perpetrating a genocide that took 1.5 to 2 million lives, about a quarter of the total population of the country at the time.

There was going to be another chapter set in the Forbidden City, during the Crusades (the Wikipedia page didn’t specify which Crusade it was going to be since there were multiple Crusades throughout history) that would focus on a Templar knight named Joseph De Molay. But, after the events of Tuesday September 11, 2001, they decided to remove the chapter and the character from the game, and replace them with the Michael Edwards chapter set during the Gulf War, as well as remove any reference to Islam ☪️ and remove any Arab text. 

They didn’t want to stir any controversy during a religiously and racially charged time in America šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø when the 9/11 attacks were still pretty fresh in people's minds, and everyone was so paranoid about terrorism, specifically Islamic terrorism ☪️, by having a chapter set during the Crusades and having a playable character who specifically traveled to the Middle East to try to spread Christianity ✝️ there. The main goal of the Crusades, at least, the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Alexandrian Crusades.

It's funny that Michael’s chapter was a replacement for another chapter because his chapter is one of the more popular and well-liked chapters in the game. People seem to really like his chapter a lot, every review I’ve seen has said they like Michael’s chapter the best. Probably because Michael is one of the stronger characters in the game with the best stamina, health, sanity, magic, and weapons. He gets to use an assault rifle, a weapon that is unavailable to any other character in the game, and is considered to be the best ranged weapon in the game. 

He’s one of the more relatable characters in the game as he’s a modern era character from the 1990s as opposed to a Persian swordsman from the 6th century, or a Frankish messenger from the 9th century, or a Khmer slave girl ♀︎ from the 12th century, or a Franciscan monk from the 15th century. He’s also one of the more explicitly heroic characters in the game, as he’s a firefighter šŸ‘ØšŸ¾‍šŸš’, a Canadian firefighter šŸ‡ØšŸ‡¦šŸ‘ØšŸ¾‍šŸš’ no less, who was deployed to Kuwait šŸ‡°šŸ‡¼ to put out the oil fires šŸ”„ there that were set off by retreating Iraqi forces šŸ‡®šŸ‡¶ during the Gulf War. Everybody likes firefighters šŸš’, while no body likes Crusader knights except for far-right white supremacist and Christian nationalist ✝️ weirdos. He was originally going to be a soldier, but that was one of the things they decided to change after 9/11, and they made him a firefighter šŸ‘ØšŸ¾‍šŸš’ instead.

Had they stuck with Joseph and stuck with the Crusades, they would’ve had a character who was staunchly unheroic, and was evil (at least my modern standards), since most people know that the Crusades were bad and did way more harm than good, and killed a lot of innocent people who didn’t deserve to die. But, in a game like this, I don’t really see that as much of an issue since he was probably going to die horribly by the end of his chapter anyway. I mean, they already included characters who were apart of the Spanish Inquisition, so why not? None of them were playable and one of them was just Pious in disguise, but still.

But, probably my favorite aspect of the game by far is the music. The music in this game is fantastic, one of the best scores for any video game that I know of. It manages to create a pretty unique and eerie atmosphere throughout the game, as well as represent the various exotic places throughout the game. I especially like the track called “The Chosen,” which uses some creepy chore chants, and drums, the track called “Ram Dao,” which uses a lot of flutes and other Middle Eastern instruments, “Snake Princess šŸšŸ‘ø” which has a more Southeast Asian flare to it due to the use of flutes and gongs and other instruments associated with that part of the world as well as the jungle ambience, and the track called “The Somme,” which is suitably melancholic in nature given that it's the main track used in the World War I chapter, and World War I is seen as one of the most tragic wars in history. It really sells the tragic. I’ll provide links so you can listen each of the songs I mentioned for your own listening pleasure if you want to. Here, here, here, and here. 

Another detail I like is that depending on which location you’re current in, in any given chapter, the sound that's used when you collect an item is different. Each location in the game has an item retrieval sound specific to it. I really like that. Most other games would’ve probably just used the same item retrieval sound for all four locations. But, they went the extra mile in this game and came with four distinct item retrieval sound for each location featured.

The fact that I had never heard of this game before until last week is understandable since it was a major commercial failure šŸ˜ž, only managing to sell 500,000 copies, despite how critically acclaimed it was, and despite how many awards it won. That’s the main reason why there’s never been a sequel to the game, as well as other factors such as lack of funding, failed film and TV deals, and one of the top crew members on the original dev team being arrested and charged with position of child pornography šŸ˜¬. I bet a lot of people are wishing that fake sequel was real right about now. Maybe one there will be a sequel to this game, or maybe even a remaster or a remake of this game. 

I would love a remaster or remake of this game since I never got the chance to play it when I was a kid. If Nintendo announced that they were doing a remaster or remake of this game for their next console, I would be pretty excited. Nintendo has been sitting on this property, renewing the trademark ™ every few years, but doing absolutely nothing with it. This would be their chance to actually do something with after all this time. It's either this or reference it in a Mario game or something. 

If they do a remake, it would give them the opportunity to do some of the abandoned concepts in the original, such as finally doing the Crusader chapter with Joseph De Molay. I think that enough time has past since 9/11 that no one would be offended if there was a Crusader character in a remake the game. Maybe do completely new chapters that weren't in the original or even conceived for the original like a chapter set in the Vietnam War šŸ‡»šŸ‡³ or the Cambodian Genocide like I was saying earlier. 

I know, that when they were trying to get funding for a spiritual successor called Shadow of the Eternals, they talked about having a chapter in that game set in Egypt šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡¬, likely in Ancient Egypt, most media set in Egypt šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡¬ is centered around Ancient Egypt as opposed to modern Egypt šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡¬. It would be something worth considering for a remake, or in a sequel to that remake. It would give people who never played the original the chance, like me, to play it, and give people who have played the original something new to play with. Their favorite horror game from the early 2000s be revamped and reinvented for the current decade. 

I couldn't have picked a better time to start watching a longplay of Eternal Darkness since it's the second day of October and Halloween šŸŽƒ is around the corner. I still, I wanted to review The Wolfman šŸŗ (2010) for the blog (it's on my list of things to review), but I don't know if I'll be able to get to it this year since I don't have the money or means to purchase a Blu-Ray copy šŸ’æ from Amazon or any other online retailer, and I don't have access to Peacock šŸ¦š due to an account and password issue. I actually don't know if it is on Peacock šŸ¦š or not, it is a Universal movie, and Peacock šŸ¦š is Universal's premier streaming service. But, because Peacock šŸ¦š is so unpopular, not all of Universal's movies are on Peacock šŸ¦š are instead on other streaming platforms like Netflix or Max. 

I also haven’t been able to watch The Killer’s Game, that new action movie starring Dave Bautista as an assassin who thinks he has brain cancer šŸ§  and puts a hit on himself so that he can go out with bang, dying in the heat of battle rather than dying peacefully in a bed šŸ›Œ. But then it turns out that he didn’t have brain cancer šŸ§  after all and that his doctor has mixed up his results with someone else’s. So, he basically ordered a hit on himself for nothing, and he can’t put that genie back in the bottle šŸ§ž‍♂️ and call off the bounty because his former employer hates him and wants to see him dead. 

So now, he has to fight a bunch of assassins who want to collect the bounty. I was hoping to watch that movie by the end of September, but since it's the first week of October, that obviously didn’t happen. I hope that by the time we do have the money šŸ’µ and the free time to go the theater, and this movie is still playing. Otherwise, I’ll have to watch it on digital like I did with Twisters šŸŒŖ️. I wrote a review of that movie if you’re interested in what I had to say about it.

Oh, and before I close out this foreword, I should mention that the conflict between Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± and Hezbollah has been escalating and ramping up in recent weeks ever since Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± killed a bunch of Hezbollah operatives by detonating pager bombs šŸ“Ÿ, yeah you heard me right, pager bombs šŸ“Ÿ, in the middle of the streets of Beirut, Damascus, and other cities, towns, villages, and valleys throughout Lebanon šŸ‡±šŸ‡§ and Syria šŸ‡øšŸ‡¾. Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± conducted two waves of these attacks, resulting in 42 deaths and 3,500 injuries, including civilians. 

The attacks were praised by those in US intelligence and law enforcement agencies šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø for the apparent tactical brilliance of what Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡±, but they were condemned by pretty much everyone else, including the UN šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡³, the EU šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡ŗ, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other international organizations. 

After the page explosions šŸ“Ÿ, Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± began conducting airstrikes in Lebanon šŸ‡±šŸ‡§, targeting Hezbollah militants, with one of the managing to kill Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah last week on Friday September 27, 2024. And now, earlier today, Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± has invaded Lebanon šŸ‡±šŸ‡§, making this the fourth time that Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± has invaded that country since the 2006 Lebanon War šŸ‡±šŸ‡§. 

On top of that Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· launched another missile and drone attack on Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± similar to the one back in April, only this one on Tuesday October 1, 2024 was in retaliation for Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± assassinating the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh as well as assassinating the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and assassination of an IRGC general šŸ‡®šŸ‡· named Abbas Nilforoushan. The assassinations of both Nasrallah and Nilforoushan were a much bigger blow to Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· and their geostrategic interests in the region than the assassination of Haniyeh was. Yes, Hamas is technically an Iranian proxy šŸ‡®šŸ‡·, but they aren’t as important to Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡·’s interests in the Middle East as Hezbollah is. They’re a lot lower in the pecking order. They’re a lower priority. Hezbollah’s the big dog, the real big prize, the thing that Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· relies on the most to try to establish hegemonic dominance over the entire Middle East.

In addition, Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· lost one of their own generals from their own paramilitary organization. So, Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· felt that they had to respond to Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡±’s aggression with some aggression of their own. Similar to the missile attack in April, most of the missiles did not hit their targets and were successfully intercepted by Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡±’s missile defenses. Though, they did manage to cause some minor damage and injuries and one death. They damaged an airbase in Negev, they damaged a school in Gedera, and they damaged a restaurant in Tel Aviv. 

As for the casualties inflicted by this attack, two Israelis šŸ‡®šŸ‡± are reported to have received minor injuries, several Palestinians šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø were injured by rocket debris in Jericho, and one Palestinian man šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø♂︎ has been confirmed dead. Meaning that Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡·’s missile attack from a day ago has killed at least one person so far, but not an Israeli šŸ‡®šŸ‡±, but a Palestinian šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø. 

Two Jordanian civilians šŸ‡ÆšŸ‡“ were also injured during the attack, as they were injured by shrapnel. Meaning that this attack not only injured Israelis šŸ‡®šŸ‡± and Palestinians šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø inside of Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± and the occupied Palestinian territories šŸ‡µšŸ‡ø, but injured two civilians in a completely different country with shrapnel. According to Al Jezeera, there were reports of shrapnel from this missile attack throughout Jordan šŸ‡ÆšŸ‡“, in various provinces, including the capital, Amman, Balqa, Zarqa, Madaba, and Karak. 

Iraq šŸ‡®šŸ‡¶ and Jordan šŸ‡ÆšŸ‡“ both closed their airspace in response to these missile attacks, the US šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø condemned them as you would expect, and so did most US allies šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø including Australia šŸ‡¦šŸ‡ŗ, the UK šŸ‡¬šŸ‡§, Japan šŸ‡ÆšŸ‡µ, France šŸ‡«šŸ‡·, and Germany šŸ‡©šŸ‡Ŗ. The UN šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡³ and the EU šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡ŗ also condemned the attacks as they are a violation of international law. China šŸ‡ØšŸ‡³ gave a pretty weak response, saying that it’s because there’s no ceasefire in Gaza that tensions in the Middle East are ratcheting up. 

But, what you do expect? They’re an Iranian ally šŸ‡®šŸ‡·, they’re sympathetic to Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· and their position. Of course they’re not going to condemn them for their actions, and instead blame the general lack of a ceasefire for why everything bad in Middle East right now is going on šŸ˜’. And in turn, blame the US šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø because it’s apparently our sole responsible for ensuring there’s a ceasefire in Gaza, China šŸ‡ØšŸ‡³ has no responsibility in this, they don’t want to play any constructive role in this. They rather just let the Americans šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø do all the work, do all the heave lifting, while they just sit back and twiddle their thumbs, and then blame the Americans šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø if it goes wrong. The Chinese government šŸ‡ØšŸ‡³ is so fake, they’re so insincere, and shifty, they just annoy me so much šŸ˜¤. 

Of course, Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± had so choice words to say about Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡·’s second missile attack on their country, saying that it was a big mistake and Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· will regret this, and one former prime minister suggested they take more decisive and kinetic action against Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡·’s nuclear program ☢️ in retaliation for this second attack. I’m sure it played some role in motivating Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± to invade Lebanon šŸ‡±šŸ‡§ the next day since Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· claims the attack was all about Hezbollah and what Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± has been doing to them. And also because they killed one of their generals. So, since Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· launched missiles at Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± apparently in Hezbollah’s name, Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± decided to attack Lebanon šŸ‡±šŸ‡§, the heartland and birth place of Hezbollah, in response.

All of those fears that war between Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± and Hamas that started on Saturday October 7, 2023 with Hamas’s devastating incursion into Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± would spark a much wider war throughout the Middle East by bringing in Hezbollah and Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· into the conflict are coming true. I mean, you could argue that it already did expand into a wider conflict when the Houthis in Yemen šŸ‡¾šŸ‡Ŗ got involved, but this is a little different as it land war that directly involves Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± sending its ground forces and invading another country. 

An internationally recognized sovereign country with full UN membership šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡³ and everything. This is not Houthis launching rockets and ballistic missiles and drones at cargo ships in the Red Sea and forcing them to bypass the Suez Canal and travel all the way around Africa and into the Atlantic. Nor is Iran šŸ‡®šŸ‡· simply firing missiles and drones at Israeli cities šŸ‡®šŸ‡±, only for most of them to get shot before they can even reach their targets. It’s beyond that now. This is now a real war, a ground invasion of another country. We’re in completely new territory now. Or I guess, old territory since Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡± has invaded Lebanon šŸ‡±šŸ‡§ multiple times before.

But, I won’t talk too much about the recent developments in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict šŸ‡®šŸ‡±. I’m saving my full thoughts and opinions for when I post this thing that I wrote about the Lebanese Civil War šŸ‡±šŸ‡§. I don’t know if I should consider it a journal since I never posted it to DeviantART, nor do I know if I should consider an article since it wasn’t written for any particular website or publication. Whatever it is, I wrote about the Lebanese Civil War šŸ‡±šŸ‡§, a conflict more relevant now than when I originally wrote that piece. Case in point, Israel šŸ‡®šŸ‡±’s invasion of Lebanon šŸ‡±šŸ‡§ that happened earlier today. Plus, this foreword has gone on long enough, and I don’t want to bore if I already haven’t or if you haven’t already scrolled past this entire section and gone straight into the review. So, without further ado, let’s get into it. 

—


(This is a wallpaper image for Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, featuring Anakin and PadmĆ© standing together with a row of Jedi standing behind them in the background.) 

 

It's the 20th anniversary of Star Wars, Episode II—Attack of the Clones, and I haven't done anything to celebrate it as of yet. That's mostly because my interest of Star Wars was low by the time 2022 came around, so I wasn't interest into revisiting Attack of the Clones, as my interests were elsewhere. But, now my interest in Star Wars, or at least, Attack of the Clones in particular has increased, so I was willing to revisit it and do a journal on it before the year is up; even if it isn't on the movie's original theatrical release date. I don't feel like waiting until the 30th anniversary in 2032 to do anything about this movie.

Released on May 16, 2002, Star Wars, Episode II—Attack of the Clones was the second film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and the fifth Star Wars film overall, if you exclude all the spin-offs and just include the main Skywalker saga. It had a budget of $115 million, which was a pretty big budget for an independently produced film at the time, which all of the Star Wars films were up until the Disney acquisition.

But, it certainly wasn't the biggest budget of all time, and other movies had bigger budgets than it, even by that time. Titanic came out 5 years before, and it had a budget of $200 million, which is why more than all of the prequel trilogy movies cost. It was also one of the first movies to be shot entirely with digital cameras instead of film cameras. It was shot with a high definition digital 24-frame system, which was pretty revolutionary at the time.

George Lucas's decision to shoot the movie on digital instead of on film was pretty controversial at the time among filmmakers and film aficionados, as many of them considered film to be a superior format to digital, and quite a few still do to this day. Why do you think Christopher Nolan shoots all of his movies on film instead of digital? Or why Quentin Tarantino shoots all of his movies on film instead of digital? But, George Lucas was one of the first filmmakers to champion digital cameras, and many other filmmakers use it on their movies today, such as Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron, just to name a few.

The movie was a commercial success, grossing over $653.8 million against its $115 million budget. But it didn't make nearly as much money šŸ’µ as its predecessor, Star Wars, Episode I—The Phantom Menace, and it was the first Star Wars movie to be outgrossed by other movies. 2002 was a pretty stacked year for big budget blockbusters. Not only did you have this movie, but you also had the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. They all made way more money šŸ’µ than Attack of the Clones did. But, Revenge of the Sith would redeem Star Wars 3 years later by grossing over $868.4 million šŸ¤‘.

To be perfectly fair though, Attack of the Clones wasn't the only sci-fi/fantasy space movie that was outgrossed by those other movies I mentioned. Treasure Planet, another childhood favorite of mine, also came out the same year and was a major box office bomb. It didn't help that it was released the same month as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and was given very little advertising. So, that means that Attack of the Clones was technically more successful than Treasure Planet.

It was also the last Star Wars movie to be rated PG, as all other subsequent Star Wars movies (including the Disney ones) would be rated PG-13. And the movie kind of represents what PG movies used to be like before the MPA (formally known as the MPAA) just slapped the rating onto any and every kid's movie released now that would've been rated G if they were released in the same time period as this movie. Like people always ask, "What happened to the PG rating?" When a better question would be, "What happened to the G rating?" That rating has almost completely disappeared, and hardly any family movies made nowadays have that rating, at least the big high profile ones.

Like, Frozen, Frozen 2, Tangled, Wreck It Ralph, Wreck It Ralph 2: Ralph Takes the Internet, Zootopia, Encanto, Coco, Finding Dory, Soul, Moana, or even Big Hero 6 have no reason at all to be rated PG, no reason at all. Those should all be G rated movies in my opinion, and they likely would've been if they came out in the 2000s instead of the 2010s and early 2020s. The only recent big budget family movie that I could find that has a G rating is Toy Story 4, a completely unnecessary sequel that really didn't need to exist at all, and exists purely so that Disney could capitalize on the Toy Story IP šŸ¤‘, now that they fully own Pixar.

As far as PG movies go, some of the MCU movies should've been rated PG and would've been if they were released decades prior. There's nothing in them that goes the extra mile that would warrant a PG-13 rating, which was originally meant to be a step above PG, but not quite R; close but not too close. Like remember in PG-13 movies when you could actually show nudity? Yeah, like Titanic was rated PG-13, but it was 90s PG-13, so it was able to show full frontal nudity in one scene!

Even the 1999 Mummy movie had nudity in it, although you couldn't really tell since Patricia VelƔsquez was mostly covered in body paint the whole time. But, bringing it back to Star Wars, with the exception of maybe Revenge of the Sith, all of the other Star Wars made after Attack of the Clones should've probably been rated PG since none of them go that extra mile and do things that would actually warrant that higher rating.

With all the preamble out of the way, what is this movie about? Well, set 10 years after the events of The Phantom Menace, the political tensions and turmoil in the Galactic Republic have only increased. Many star systems are announcing their intentions to secede from the Republic and join the ever-growing Separatist movement. This is bringing the galaxy ever closer to the brink of civil war, as the Separatists want to leave the Republic and form their own government called the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS), and the Republic desperately wants to keep these systems within its fold.

Discussions and debates about creating a "Grand Army of the Republic" to defend the Republic and defeat the Separatists increase, with Senator PadmƩ Amidala leading the opposition to the creation of an army. However, while all of this is going on, PadmƩ is targeted for assassination by a then unknown group. This leads to her being put under the personal protection of the two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, the prophesied Chosen One who is believed to be the one who will bring balance to the Force.

From there, the movie splits off into two main subplots, both of which do eventually come together by the end. There's the Anakin and PadmƩ subplot, which is where this movie draws most of its criticism from, and there's the Obi-Wan subplot, which is the part of the movie that people actually seem to like and agree on. It's certainly my favorite part of the movie.

The thing that I like about it, and about this whole movie really is that it's more a noir detective story. There's this air of mystery around who's trying to kill PadmƩ, who ordered the Clone Army, and what Count Dooku and the Separatists are planning. And it's really up to Obi-Wan to try to get to bottom of all of it, and he does in due time.

This wasn't really something that Star Wars had really done before, and it gives the movie a unique feel and sets it apart from the others. I think that if the movie didn't have the romance stuff with Anakin and PadmĆ© šŸ„°, and it was just focused on Obi-Wan's investigation into the attempted assassinations of PadmĆ©, and uncovering the mystery behind the Clone Army and behind Dooku and the Separatists, it would've gotten more praise than it did when it was first released, and wouldn't have been viewed as the "worst one."

But, after watching the movie again, I actually don't mind the romance stuff šŸ„° all that much. Sure, some of the dialogue was clunky or a little bit cheesy, but I think for the most part, it works. Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman do have pretty good chemistry together as Anakin and PadmĆ©, and you definitely buy that these two are in love, but know that if they pursue their true feelings for one another, it hurt both of their careers. It would hurt Anakin's Jedi training, and it would hurt PadmĆ©'s career as a politician. Eventually, they do give into their feelings, and as George Lucas said himself, they would face the consequence of their decision to start a relationship and get married in secret.

Speaking of Lucas, I think a lot of people unfairly pin all of the blame for the movie's dialogue and script solely on him, when he wasn't even the sole writer on the movie. Unlike The Phantom Menace or Revenge of the Sith, Lucas had a co-writer on this movie, Jonathan Hale. While the story was certainly all Lucas, the actual screenplay was written by both him and Hale. So, maybe some of the romantic dialogue šŸ„° that people had an issue with, and has been memed to death, was the result of Hale, not Lucas.

But, I think part of people's aversion to the romance šŸ„° initially was due to people expecting it to be like the romance šŸ„° between Han Solo and Leia Organa, when that was completely unfair. Anakin and PadmĆ© are two completely different characters from Han and Leia, even though PadmĆ© is her biological mother and there are bits of her personality in her. They're not going to express their love in the same exact way, and I like that Lucas and Hale took a different approach with them than was done with Han and Leia.

I also like how in this movie, we start to see Anakin's transition towards the Dark Side. A lot of people complained, and still complain that Anakin was too whiny, but I never really had that complaint. I mean, Anakin is 19 years old in this movie, he's a Padawan, not knight or a master, so of course he's going to be pretty angsty and whiny, a lot of teenagers are like that. And we do see him mature quite a bit in Revenge of the Sith.

Plus, people forget that Anakin's life experience as a slave on Tattooine contributed significantly to why he is the way he is. That, and the Prophecy as well as him having the highest Midiclorian count out of any Force sensitive the Jedi had ever come across, put an enormous expectation and burden on him, that has made him a bit arrogant.

Being the most powerful Jedi in the order has inflated his ego tremendously, and he feels that he's being held back and prevented from reaching his full potential. And the death of his mother, Shmi Skywalker, was the real turning point even Anakin began his descent into the Dark Side. He's quite to the point of becoming a Sith yet, but he is getting there, and losing his mother (in the way that he did) laid the groundwork for that.

The movie definitely has way more action than the previous film. A lot of people complained that there were too many "slow" talkie scenes in The Phantom Menace and not enough action, and clearly, George Lucas heard those criticisms and did improve on that by making Attack of the Clones one of the most action-packed Star Wars movies ever made. The next movie, Revenge of the Sith is actually even more action-packed than this one. But, at the time, this was the most action-packed Star Wars movie. And the action scenes are all pretty long.

Like, that speeder chase in Coruscant at the beginning goes on for 12 minutes all together, especially if you include the part where Anakin and Obi-Wan pursue Zam Wessell in the nightclub/sport's bar. Then of course, there's the Battle of Geonosis, which pretty much takes up the entire third act of the movie. It starts with the gladiator match in that arena between Anakin, Obi-Wan, and PadmƩ and those three creatures, the Reek, the Acklay, and the Nexu, then the other Jedi show up and start fighting all the droids sent by Count Dooku inside the arena, then Yoda and the Clones show up and start battling the droids.

Then they take battle outside of the arena and the Clone army starts fighting the massive Droid army that the Separatists have deployed to counter them, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and and PadmƩ chase after Count Dooku who retrieves to a cliff-side hangar with his solar sail ship inside, Anakin and Obi-Wan fight Count Dooku in a two-on-one lightsaber dual and lose, then Yoda fights Count Dooku for a bit, fighting with him with Force abilities and then fighting him with a lightsaber, and then finally it ends after Count Dooku escapes.

The shortest action scenes in the movie I think are the fight scene between Obi-Wan and Jango Fett on Kamino, the space battle between Obi-Wan and Jango in the asteroid field around Geonosis, and the droid factory scene on Geonosis where Anakin and PadmƩ get captured by Jango and the Geonosians, and C-3PO gets his head switched with a B-1 battle droid.

Some people have complained about how long these action scenes are, and how dense and cluttered they are at times, and they criticized George Lucas for being too self-indulgent with these scenes. The loudest voice that expressed this opinion is obviously RedLetterMedia, with the Plinkett reviews, which I have grown to dislike over the years. They're ones that made the film's producer, Rick McCallum a meme in the Star Wars fandom by playing that clip from the making of documentary of him saying "It's so dense, every single image has a thousand things going on." But, I've never had a problem with the action sequences in this movie.

I love how crazy and chaotic they are, and while some many not like the denseness of the shots, I don't mind them at all. I do think that the denseness of each shot and the amount of things going on and the amount of things that are in the background helps make the world feel alive and feel populated. One of the worst things that a CGI special effect movie can feel is to feel empty and small, and this movie definitely doesn't feel small or empty.

It's big, it's grandiose, and it's full of life, and death, since a lot of things get killed in this movie. I mean, the First Battle of Geonosis wouldn't have been as good, if it wasn't super dense and full of all kinds of stuff happening at once, the denseness and the amount of stuff on screen made it feel like a real battle, and real battles in real war tend to be very chaotic, especially big giant battles like this one. It's still pretty impressive even to this day, like not even some of the modern Star Wars movies have managed to reach the level of grand, epic scale that this movie, and its successor Revenge of the Sith managed to reach.

Like, even though the sequel trilogy movies all had bigger budgets than any of the prequels, nothing in them was as impressive as the Battle of Geonosis or the Coruscant chase, or later on in Revenge of the Sith, the opening space battle and rescue mission to save Chancellor Palpatine, or the Battle of Kashyyyk, the Battle of Utapau, or the final lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan.

Even some other modern non-Star Wars sci-fi or space opera type movies haven't matched the grand scale of this movie or Revenge of the Sith. Like, as much as I like Jupiter Ascending (I know that's not a popular opinion, but it's the truth), it didn't really match the grand epic scale of this movie or Revenge of the Sith, despite having several times the budget. But, Jupiter Ascending wasn't really trying to be a giant grand space war epic, it was going for something else; it was trying to be more like Cinderella mixed with The Wizard of Oz mixed with Homer's Odyssey with a dash of Brazil šŸ‡§šŸ‡·, and even the Wachowskis' own movie, The Matrix.

But, one space sci-fi movie that was trying to be as grand and epic in scale as this movie and Revenge of the Sith was Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. That movie had a huge space battle in it and it was quite meant to start some type of franchise akin to Star Wars, and yet, it was no near as exciting or grandiose as anything in the prequel trilogy, and it too had a budget several times what any of the prequels cost individually.

James Cameron's Avatar is also another sci-fi movie that tried to be just as epic and grandiose as any of the Star Wars movies, including the prequels, even going as far as to attempt to start a franchise (a saga if you will), and yet fell short, despite costing way more, having way more advanced CGI special effects, and making way more money šŸ’µ at the worldwide box office.

The droid factory scene wouldn't have been any good either if it wasn't dense either because the denseness helped it feel like an actual factory, with all these machines working, building and assembling stuff all once. Speaking of the droid factory scene, that is the one action scene that people tend to say that they don't like. Even if they like the movie, even if they like the action scenes, they'll say that they didn't like the droid factory. But, I never understood this, I like the droid factory scene. It's a very exciting and energetic sequence, and the sound design in that scene is excellent, some of the best in the entire film. I also like the designs of all the factory machines themselves, that doesn't really get talked about.

The only action scene that I would say is disappointing in this movie or lackluster is the final lightsaber fight between Count Dooku and Anakin and Obi-Wan. That's one of my least favorite lightsaber fights in the whole saga, and it completely pales in comparison to the lightsaber fight with Darth Maul, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace or the lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith. Hell, even the lightsaber fight between Count Dooku, Anakin, and Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith is better than this one, and that's one of the lesser lightsaber fights in that movie.

The lightsaber fight between Count Dooku and Yoda does make up for the lackluster fight with Anakin and Obi-Wan, but not by a whole lot. It was mostly just cool to see Yoda pull out a lightsaber and kick some ass. Like, Lucas said himself in the behind-the-scenes documentary, no body had ever seen Yoda fight before and this was the first time. According to many people who saw this in this theaters when it came out, the moment when Yoda did pull out his lightsaber got one of the biggest reactions from the audience, like everyone erupted in loud cheering and applause šŸ‘.

This movie is 20 years old, so some of the special effects are dated by today's standards, and some of them haven't aged particularly well. But, I would say for the most part, the special effects in this movie still look pretty good, even to this day. This has partially to do with the extensive use of practical effects. Yes, they did use practical effects on this movie, as well as the other two prequels.

A lot of people (whether they're Star Wars fans or just film critics) think that these movies were all CGI, but that isn't true at all. That statement is especially ludicrous with The Phantom Menace, where the practical effects are the most obvious, but that statement is untrue with this movie too. A lot of locations that people thought were CG, were actually practical. Like, Kamino is a good example of a place that people think was 100% CGI, but actually wasn't.

Sure, the exterior shots of the planet itself are mainly CG as far as I can tell. But, the interiors of the cloning facility, those are mainly miniatures. Even that hallway that Obi-Wan walks through with the Kaminoan prime minister and that female Kaminoan guide. Same story with Coruscant, many of the buildings on Coruscant are miniatures, as well as many other locations in the movie.

Tattooine and Naboo are two locations in the film that are most obviously practical as they not only have an extensive use of miniature work, but also on-location shooting. Many of the Tattooine scenes were filmed in Tunisia šŸ‡¹šŸ‡³, which is the same place where the Tattooine scenes in The Phantom Menace were filmed, as well as where most of the Tattooine scenes in the original 1977 Star Wars film (known to my generation as A New Hope) were filmed. Nearly all of the Naboo scenes in this movie were filmed in Italy šŸ‡®šŸ‡¹ and Spain šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡ø.

Some of the Naboo scenes in The Phantom Menace were filmed in the United Kingdom šŸ‡¬šŸ‡§ as well, but in this movie, all of the Naboo scenes either filmed in Italy šŸ‡®šŸ‡¹, Spain šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡ø, or on sets and soundstages. That's not even to mention all the practical effects on the alien and droid characters, like there were a lot of aliens in this movie portrayed with makeup, prosthetics, and animatronics. And while there are a lot of droids portrayed with CGI in this movie, a few were guys in suits or animatronics, like R2-D2 and C-3PO are the most part portrayed with practical effects.

The only part where they're portrayed with CGI is in the droid factory scene and the arena scene, where R2-D2 is flying through the factory and C-3PO gets his head switched with a B-1 battle droid while falling into the factory (thanks to R2, who literally pushes him in), and then ends up on the battlefield in the arena, fighting the Jedi with the other battle droids.

But, as far as the CGI stuff goes, I would say it holds up for the most part. There some things that look pretty dated and haven't aged that well, but the majority of the CGI shots are good, and that's down to the artistry and talent of the CGI effects team at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), as well as blending the CGI with practical effects. The best looking CG characters in this movie are definitely Yoda, the Kaminoans, Watto, and the Geonosians, especially Poggle the Lesser. Dexter Jettster looks good too, but as good as those characters.

The CG Yoda is especially an improvement over the puppet Yoda that they used in The Phantom Menace, which is probably why they digitally replaced the puppet Yoda with the CG Yoda in later remasters and re-releases. Not just so that it would mesh better with the other two prequel movies, since they both use CG Yoda, but also because the CG Yoda just looks better than the puppet. Hell, the CG Yoda looks better than the puppet used in The Last Jedi, which makes me wish that they just used a CG Yoda in that movie too. Not that I really want to contribute to that movie's monumental, outrageous, and probably unjustified hate online, I haven't seen it.

As far as listening to the criticisms of The Phantom Menace and improving upon them in Attack of the Clones, Lucas also significantly reduced Jar Jar Binks's screen time. Jar Jar Binks, for those of you who don't know, was a Gungan character that was introduced in The Phantom Menace and was meant to be comic relief sidekick of sorts, similar to R2 and 3PO. But, a lot of people, including fans and critics, hated him, and wanted him to be either removed or have his role decreased.

Lucas opted for the latter, and so Jar Jar only appears a few times in this movie. Though, he did make him a contributing factor in the rise of the Empire by having been the one to suggest giving emergency powers to Chancellor Palpatine. So, for all the hate levied at this character, he did leave a lasting impact on the overall story of the Skywalker saga, and Star Wars a s whole. Lucas was quite bold for making Jar Jar an important and integral part of the story and having him one of the main factors that led to Palpatine's rise of power by laying the groundwork for him to become Emperor of the Galaxy, when he was so disliked by the fandom and by the critics at the time. Some people have mixed feelings about that, and about the character overall because of that. Though, the hatred for Jar Jar has significantly decreased over the years, especially since opinions on the prequels have softened overtime. So, make of that what you will.

Overall, I would say that Attack of the Clones is a pretty good Star Wars movie. I don't think it deserves as much hate as it has gotten over the years, and I think it has way more merit than people give it credit for. It definitely does a good job at laying the groundwork for what comes next in Revenge of the Sith. I am glad now that it's finally getting some love after all these years, as well as the other two prequel films. Regardless of what you personally think of the Disney acquisition and the Star Wars content made under Disney, one thing they did do was help the prequel trilogy gain a much deserved fan reappraisal.

 

(This is a textless version of the poster for Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones.)

 

—

 


 
(These are two trailers for Star Wars, Episode II—Attack of the Clones. The first one is the first teaser trailer for the film, referred as the “Breath” teaser because of the presence of Darth Vader breaths. The second one is the second main theatrical trailer for the movie. I picked that one because I think it does a good job at representing what this movie is like and it does a good job at getting you pumping to watch it.)

Location: New Mexico, USA

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