4 reasons why Attack of the Clones is the worst Star Wars movie

Horrible Animation

One glaring issue with Attack of the Clones that doesn’t hold up over the years is the poor animation and special effects. There are two scenes that stick out like a sore pulsating thumb. The first is on Naboo where Anakin rides the weird-looking giant anteater-like beast. The second is the scene where some of the senators and Palpatine overlook the clones.

Let’s journey back to Naboo first. Anakin and Padme are having one of their usual awkward conversations. The scene ends and we cut to something else. We go back to the young picnickers and suddenly Anakin is surfing on top of a wild Nubian beast.

The animation is poor and it looks completely fake, and it takes the viewer out of the scene and movie altogether. Thankfully, it doesn’t last too long and Anakin falls off the critter and fakes being hurt so Padme can come to his rescue. I know George Lucas really wanted to incorporate as much CGI as possible in the Prequels but this scene just didn’t turn out and it was unnecessary, so it should’ve been cut.

The second case of horrible animation is the introduction of the Grand Army of the Republic. Maybe it’s not fair to say the animation is bad, it’s just that it looks like animation! We are at the end of a live-action film and suddenly we get a scene that looks like it came out of the Clone Wars cartoon.

The movie suddenly flips from being live-action to a cartoon and it is very jarring to see. It would’ve made more sense to actually have an actor in a suit and then replicate him over and over instead of going straight up anime style. I get what George was trying to do, but the end result didn’t look real at the time of the film’s release and it looks even worse 20 years later.