Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Eight: We Snatch Defeat From The Jaws of Victory Several Times

1:45:01 – 2:00:00 As this chapter of the 15-Minute Force opens, Anakin and Padme are being led to giant columns in the Geonosian arena to be chained up for execution alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin tells Obi-Wan that they transmitted his message to Coruscant (while we notice Padme removing some sort of lock-picking tool from the […]

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Seven: Count Dooku Makes A Few Good Points. Or, Padme Continues to Die a Little Each Day.

1:30:01 – 1:45:00 This chapter of the movie begins with everyone’s favorite pasttime: Political maneuvering. Chancellor Palpatine is meeting with a group that includes Mace Windu, Senator Bail Organa, and Jar Jar Binks. The consensus seems to be that they are in a crisis. It’s obvious that Count Dooku and the Trade Federation, […]

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Six: Not Just the Men, But Women and Children, Too.

1:15:01 – 1:30:00 On Tatooine, Anakin Skywalker continues rocketing across the desert on his sand chopper. We see him questioning a Jawa beside a sand crawler in a long shot, no dialogue. The Jawa points him in a specific direction, presumably towards the Tusken Raiders who kidnapped his mother. We cut to […]

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Five: Obi-Wan Follows the Fetts, While Anakin Visits the Lars Moisture Farm

!:00:01 – 1:15:00 After 30 minutes of relative peace and reflection, we finally get a little action. This chapter of the 15-Minute Force begins with Anakin telling the senator that he knows his mother is in trouble and that, even though it means ignoring his mandate to protect Padme, he must go help her. Padme […]

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Four: Senator Amidala is a Lightsaber-Tease

45:01 – 1:00:00 This 15-Minute Force installment is another quiet one. The first thirty minutes of the movie are balls-out action-packed. The thirty minutes that follow are more sedate, even leisurely, although players are moved to new locations and the plot is pushed incrementally forward. This chapter begins where the other left off, with Anakin […]

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Three: Kamino Saberdart/Romantic Lake House

30:01 – 45;00 The brisk opening 30 minutes of this movie have adeptly set up a central story question: Will the Republic establish an army to oppose Count Dooku’s Separatist Movement? It also gave two of our main characters—Obi-Wan Kenobi and his young Padawan Anakin Skywalker—immediate character goals. Obi-Wan will continue the investigation into the […]

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Two: Toxic Darts and Emo Ani

15:01 – 30:00 When we last saw our stalwart Jedi Knights, Obi-Wan Kenobi, in his Jesus Christ disguise, was hanging from the drone that tried to assassinate Senator Amidala with poison millipedes. He was zipping through air traffic high above Coruscant while Anakin Skywalker boosted a yellow skycar to chase after him. In the quick […]

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter One: An Assassination-Attempt Sandwich

00:00 – 15:00 A Star Wars movie definitely wouldn’t be the same without the 20th Century Fox fanfare and logo at the start of it. . . Then the Lucasfilm logo. . .and then. . . A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… I had been disappointed by Phantom Menace when I […]

Star Wars:The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Nine: There Are Always Two: No More; No Less. Well…More or Less.

2:00:01 – The End Qui-Gon Jinn has just been skewered by Darth Maul’s wicked-looking double lightsaber as we begin this, the final segment of our movie. Obi-Wan remains separated from his master by one of those random red force screens that seem to exist only for dramatic purposes. Qui-Gon didn’t vanish when the Sith […]

Star Wars:The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Eight: Executing A 14-Year-Old Queen’s 3-Pronged Battle Plan

1:45:01 – 2:00:00 The Gungans come out of the fog and march towards battle while one of them blows on a didgeridoo, as if this were a television commercial for Outback restaurant. They surround themselves with some sort of energy shield as they approach the droid army. You see, I wanted to say “force […]

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Seven: A Lot More Meetings and General Jar Jar

1:30:01 – 1:45:00 As this 15-Minute Force segment begins, Anakin is still being tested by the Jedi Council. Master Yoda asks Anakin how he feels and Anakin says he feels cold. At this point, it seems Yoda interprets that as fear, although this is a callback to his earlier conversation with Padmé; he’s cold because […]

Star Wars:The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Six: Face Tattoos and Inconceivable Vergences

1:15:01 – 1:30:00 We begin where we left off. Anakin runs back to his mother, Shmi, hugs her and says, “I just can’t do it.” It would be a more effective scene if Jake Lloyd had been a better actor. Shmi tells him to be brave and not to look back. Anakin vows that he […]

Star Wars:The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Five: And the Winner Is…

1:00:01 – 1:15:00 Anakin starts the race already in the hole. That’s the rule for writers, isn’t it? Get your protagonist up a tree, and then throw rocks at him. We’re making things difficult for Lil’ Anakin at the beginning of the race, because there would be little tension if he led the race the […]

Star Wars:The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Four: The Results are in…Your Midichlorian Count says…You Have No Father

45:01 – 60:00 You know, it’s come to my attention that I didn’t say anything about Jake Lloyd’s acting during our last segment. Here’s the thing, I don’t really like criticizing child actors too harshly. When a child is an excellent actor, as Natalie Portman was long before this movie, I don’t mind saying […]

Star Wars:The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Three: Chekhov’s Pod Racer (or, Mack Daddy Ani)

30:01 – 45:00 Qui-Gon and Jar Jar are beginning their trek to the spaceport across the all-too-familiar desert terrain of Tatooine when Captain Panaka comes after them with the handmaiden Padmé in tow (we’re still pretending that she’s not Queen Amidala). Panaka tells Qui-Gon that the queen commands that he take her handmaiden with him. […]

Star Wars Vs. Star Trek

You’ve seen versions of this debate before. It’s doubtful that I offer anything new to the conversation. It’s also doubtful that this fact will keep me from offering anything, though. I am a fan of both franchises. We exist. We are out here. I know that it is not fashionable to be open-minded about competing […]

Star Wars:The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter Two: New Weesong and Bigger Fish

15:01 – 30:00 Yousa cannot bees hair. Dis army of mackineeks up dare tis new weesong. This is the first line of dialogue from the character Boss Nass. I am not fluent in Gungan but I get the gist. You cannot be here. Then something about an army of machines, maybe. You’re on your own […]

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (a 15-Minute Force production): Chapter One: I Have a Bad Feeling About This

This post represents my deep-dive into the first fifteen minutes of The Phantom Menace, which in the Star Wars story line chronology is the first of the Star Wars movies. Why would anyone do this to himself? That’s a question I hope to be able to answer before too long. As I embark on this […]

Star Wars Minute podcast (and things it has inspired)

As a card-carrying nerd (perhaps dork and geek as well, with some tendencies towards dweeb and freak), I am a fan of the Star Wars universe. Of course you are, I can imagine you saying to yourself, shaking your head slowly. I don’t deny it. I can’t deny it. The movie that, since around 1981, […]

Star Wars: The Clones Wars movie (2008)

Here’s what movie critic Owen Gleiberman had to say about Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie when it came out: It’s hard to tell the droids from the Jedi drones in this robotic animated dud, in which the George Lucas Empire Strikes Back—at the audience. What wears you out is Lucas’ immersion in a Star […]

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