"Anakin. Go to the Senate and ask Chancellor Palpatine to speak with her about this matter."

I'm still on about Attack of the Clones. What can I say? I have a lot of hate stored up.

So Mace Windu, instead of trying to convince Amidala himself or asking Anakin or Obi-Wan to speak with her, tells Anakin to go tell Palpatine to tell Amidala to get out of Dodge? What!? That sounds like the kind of railroading a dungeon master might do.

But my real problem is still with the thin string that connects all the steps that lead to the Clone Wars. I know what fanboys will say: that the Force meant all this to happen, and therefore the wildly unlikely crap that goes down is all part of a greater plan. But let's go through this one step at a time:

1. Count Dooku hires Jango Fett to kill Amidala.
2. Jango Fett doesn't bother, you know, just shooting Amidala or something. Instead, he hires an assassin. Because nothing says badass bounty hunter like hiring a subcontractor.
3. Instead of, you know, just shooting Amidala, the assassin sends bugs into Amidala's room, giving Obi-Wan and Anakin the time to save her. (Did Jango Fett tell the assassin he doesn't REALLY want Amidala dead? Did Dooku tell Jango this in the first place?)
4. Obi-Wan and Anakin run down the assassin. Instead of, you know, just shooting the assassin with a blaster, Jango Fett decides to use a poison dart that is traceable to one particular world. This is the only time we see Jango use equipment other than his standard loadout. (Again, did Dooku tell Jango to not do stuff the logical way? As far as we know, blasters just leave burns that aren't traceable.)
5. "What you got here is a Kamino saber-dart." Yeah, because some greasy spoon hash-slinger knows high-tech weapons. Well, maybe he was someone else in his old life, but note that the reference to the weapon wasn't in the databanks, so instead of checking some other research source like some other library, Obi-Wan goes straight to the burger joint.
6. Obi-Wan takes the dude's word for it without any other evidence than a guy with grease all over him and a mouth that could swallow a yak telling him so.
7. Obi-Wan decides to research Kamino further, since apparently the weapon used is clearly linked to the assassination. That's kind of like if my enemy used an AK-47, I decide to check out a bunch of books about Russia.
8. Dooku erased Kamino from the Jedi databanks, but didn't doctor the files to adjust for the gravity of the star, so it's still obvious it's there. (I can only assume he did this on purpose to make it that much more suspicious.)
9. Obi-Wan decides to go check this stuff out by going all the way to the planet. At this point, he's still just researching the assassination, since he's probably not going to find out on Kamino why someone wiped the databanks on Coruscant. He hasn't researched who the assassin was or who hired him. He hasn't researched any of Amidala's political enemies or anyone else who might profit by her death. Instead, he runs down the source of the ammunition used to kill the assassin. Nobody gives a damn about the bugs that were used to try to kill Amidala herself, which could well be just as rare or specific to one world. We never even find out what those bugs are called. (Now, I know what you're thinking; maybe they did all that, but they just didn't show it. Well, they show so much useless nonsense between Padme and Anakin, that they could have filled in a little more of the plot holes. Just one line: "Everything else connected with this case has been a dead end, so I thought I'd research this dart.")
10. So what exactly is Obi-Wan expecting to do on Kamino? This is only what I imagine would have happened if there wouldn't have been a clone army on Kamino, which of course no one knew there was.

Kaminoan: Hey, a Jedi. You could have just called, you know, but I guess you came all the way out here. That's cool. Whatever. So, what's up?
Obi-Wan: Yo. I found this dart in the neck of a dude who tried to kill someone. I need to know who you sold it to. Does it have barrel grooves or a serial number or something that we could nail down?
Kaminoan: Hell no, since it's never mentioned in the movie.
Obi-Wan: So you have no way of tracking down who you sold that to.
Kaminoan: Dude, we might not have even sold it. He could have stolen it or taken it from the body of someone he killed. We don't even know how recently he came by it. We'd have to go through years and years of sales data.
Obi-Wan: Well, shit. I guess I went through all that for nothing.
Kaminoan: Don't let the sliding door hit you in the ass on the way out.


And just where the HELL does the clone army come from? I'll tell you where. Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas apparently bought an entire army because he FORESAW that the Republic would need it through the Force. Because, you know, the logical solution to troubling premonitions of war is to buy an entire army. Because the Jedi are all about warfare and armies and stuff like that. As Yoda once said, "Wars not make one great. Wars make one BITCHIN' AWESOME!"

And who the hell is Sifo-Dyas? He was an old Jedi buddy of Dooku, which is why Dooku knew about the clones and could set up the whole sequence of events that would lead to the formation of the Grand Army of the Republic. Dooku killed him and incorporated his clone army into his long-term plans. But I've got a few questions:

1. Where did a Jedi come up with the cash for an entire clone army, not to mention weapons, equipment, and starships? He must have gone through a lot of couch cushions to come up with that kind of dough. Dex stresses in his conversation with Obi-Wan that the Kaminoans are a very mercenary lot, so I doubt they're doing it for charity and a tax writeoff.
2. Why didn't Sifo-Dyas tell anyone he was doing this? This isn't the kind of thing you just keep to yourself, is it? "Mace Windu, what are you up to these days?" "Oh, you know, meditating. Keeping the peace. You?" "Nothing, really." "You're not purchasing an entire clone army complete with warships and everything, are you?" "Erm... what makes you think that?" "Hell if I know! I just ask that sometimes for shits and giggles." "Oh... right."
3. And what about this presumed conversation on Kamino: "So, Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, who would you like to use as the basis for your clone army? A Jedi? An honorable soldier from a Jedi-aligned world, perhaps?" "Yeah, maybe something like that. I haven't really thought about it." "Well, if that's the case, we've got another option we thought you might like. How about an amoral bounty hunter who kills for money?" "Shit yeah! Even better. Let's get this assembly line moving!" Of course, it's possible the Kaminoans just came up with using a bounty hunter on their own, but is that really the kind of decision you just delegate to the long-necked weirdos and hope for the best?