The Force Awakens duel is a play by play of the Attack of the Clones duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan versus Dooku. The imagery and beats are nearly identical. It feels like a massive copy and paste except more choppy and less fluid in movement.

Cadavra, I agree for the most part about Attack of the Clones. It was probably the one I watched most as a kid along with Return of the Jedi. I’ve been revisiting Clones the most lately when I rewatch the films and am finding I love it just as much now. It’s not perfect but I like the romance. It’s interesting exploring two characters who come from repressed environments of being a Jedi and Senator to finding comfort and love. Padme in particular I find comes into her own and slowly begins to allow herself to feel something. Anakin struggles with it too but is more emotionally charged and struggles with lust and pleasure versus real love. We know he loves her though but ultimately as we know she choses the wrong guy.

I do wish we had seen Owen be more hesitant for Anakin to go but I do think it works well enough that we don’t need it. In Clones we see Ki-Adi-Mundi refer to Dooku as a “political idealist” and years later we have Obi-Wan refer to the Clone Wars as an “idealistic crusade” but we also see R2 show up at the end of Shimi’s funeral with a message from him. Owen was present and heard his name. So years later there’s wiggle room I think for him to blame Obi-Wan for taking Anakin away for the war. He did have a bit of an irrational streak to his personality that Beru helped him with. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility he didn’t have full context. Obi-Wan implied as much.

The one thing I wish we had seen on screen is the Lars letting C-3PO leave Tatooine. It’s probably my biggest nitpick with the film that I can think of off hand.