Warning: STAR WARS babbling ahead. Commence primary ignition.

I watched Attack of the Clones the other night, and no, I have not come round to the prevailing opinion that it's a giant suckfest. In fact, I am more resolute than ever in my belief that I'm right, that it's a good movie, and that the rest of the world is a giant....well, I think I've covered that in the past.

Anyway, I noticed something in the visuals of the film that I had also noticed before, but hadn't really given much thought. When The Phantom Menace came out, some of the more astute commenters out there complained that in that film the Star Wars universe looked too clean. One of the charms about A New Hope was the way the technology looked used: no sterile 2001-style interiors, but ships and vehicles with dents and dirt and scuffed floors that looked like people used them. By contrast, TPM is a lot cleaner (with the exception of the Tatooine scenes, which makes sense given that world's backwater status).

Which brings me to AOTC: the dirt is starting to show up in this film, and not just on Tatooine but elsewhere. In the nightclub scene, just after the big Coruscant chase, Obi Wan and Anakin apprehend their assassin ("Jedi business, go back to your drinks" is one of my favorite moments in Star Wars -- Hayden Christensen channeling Detective Sipowicz there) and drag her into the alley...where we can see garbage and dirt accumulating in the corners. I'm interested to see if this trend continues in Episode III: The Last Shoe Drops.

(EDIT: Upon re-reading of this post, I discovered a mind-numbingly bad sentence that I had written. That sentence has been recast.)