Revenge of the Sith

I saw it. I liked it. I also didn't like it. Hear are my thoughts regarding the final installment in the Star Wars saga. I intend to spoil like crazy, so don't read if you want surprises...



To my surprise, I've seen that many reputable film critics are praising Episode 3. In these reviews I've read many of the same phrases over and over: "the darkest of the films," "the most adult Star Wars picture," "as good as Empire Strikes Back." I often think that film critics are part of a giant collective brain, and if ONE says something strong about a picture, the rest follow suit and bite all the talking points. Truth is...this IS the darkest Star Wars and it is a bit more adult than the rest of the batch, but a comparison to Empire is simply not warranted. Please keep in mind that that's coming from a hardcore Star Wars geek who's been counting down the days for this film's release for 3 years.

The BEST things about Episode 3:

1.) Bad guys win. Always a gutsy move for a guy making summer epics for kids.

2.) Palpatine. In my opinion, this IS Ian McDiarmid's picture. Chancellor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious aka the Emperor is the most believable character in the film. Sir McDiarmid EASILY gives the film's best performance.

3.) Vader. You've waited 22 years to see this monster on screen again. The first wheezing Vader breath will give you chills.

4.) The creation of the Empire. Creating parallels to the modern day empire of America, Lucas has accidently leaked political commentary into a Star Wars movie. It's nice...and it's nice to see the characters of his world follow blindly into the creation of the empire. It's as creepy as watching my liberal friends throw flags on their cars after 9/11.

5.) The lightsaber battles. The saber moments in this picture are better than anything ever seen in the other 5 episodes. Anakin vs. Dooku. Mace vs. Palpatine. Palpatine vs. Yoda. Anakin vs. Obi-Wan. Heads, hands, arms and legs roll!

6.) Genuinely scary themes fill this film...spousal abuse, genocide, child murder. Shocking to see in a Star Wars movie, they were.



The WORST things about Episode 3.

1.) So many people have complained about the bad dialogue and stiff acting that have plagued the prequel trilogy. I've defended the new movies' faults by saying that those qualities are standard elements of ALL the Star Wars films. Although "Sith" is way better than "Phantom" or "Clones," it's worst moments of acting and dialogue are JUST as bad as the worst moments from those films. The bandwagon film critics out there probably won't tell you that. Love scenes between Padme and Anakin are absolutely tortuous to endure, and scenes where Palpatine reitierates information to Anakin over and over and over and over and over are equally painful. I feel like Lucas underestimates the minds of children. The old movies didn't have such heavy info dumps all over the place, and as a 9-year-old, I followed the story with very little trouble...even the subtleties of Lando's double-cross. Today's kids will learn that, to cheat death and protect Padme, Anakin must learn the ways of the Dark Side from Palpatine. Kids will know this because they will hear Palps tell Annie this about 12 times.

2.) Visual overload. I think the worlds of the new episodes are beautiful, but enough already. This film has so many planets, spaceships and aliens that it's impossible to absorb them all. The Lucasfilm marketing darklords can release action figures and vehicles from this movie for YEARS, and that's annoying. Also, why did he even bother putting wookies in the movie? I mean, you see the wookies in action for about 2 minutes compared to the painful 15 minute Gungan battle in Phantom Menace or the 40 minute Ewok orgy in Jedi. They looked cool...why didn't he let us watch them more? Dammit. Also, I got very tired of watching spaceships land. EVERY TIME a character travels to a new world there's a shot of his/her spacecraft landing slowly on the planet. EVERY TIME! I get it...your CGI time is a bunch of geniuses. Tell the goddamn story already!

3.) General Greivous. The leader of the droid army and the galaxy's most feared Jedi killer is TERRIBLY disappointing. He doesn't look very good, he doesn't get any good lines, and he just feels like a pathetic attempt to introduce a cult peripheral villain a la Boba Fett. The only thing I liked about this fucker was the coughing and wheezing that led this viewer to believe that he was intended to represent a failed Vader prototype...part creature, part machine, all evil. More wasted opportunity from Mr. Lucas.

4.) Mace Windu. George Lucas is famous for getting shitty performances from great actors. He apparently can't write or direct dialogue very well, so he ends up with actors behaving stiffly as they speak to invisible characters in front of a green screen. I know that this must be terribly difficult for an actor...but c'mon...they ARE actors. Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor make lemonaide with their lemons...why couldn't Sam Jackson? It's heartbreaking watching such a talented actor perform so terribly. I wanted to applaud when Palpatine wasted his monotone ass.

5.) The Jedi ideals are inconsistent and just seem to be made up as they go. I'm pretty much sick to death of their pseudo-hippie, half-baked spiritual beliefs that are littered with contradictions. Hearing Palpatine discuss the Dark Side (over and over and over and over) was nice, because at least the Sith ideals are easy to follow. Fuck you, space hippies. The clone trooper Jedi slaughter was wonderful, and it was also one of the film's best assembled sequences.

6.) The spoiling of Vader's "birth." Yes, Vader ruled...but Lucas STILL fucked it up. His mad rage was awkward and not scary enough. (Why didn't we get to see the Emperor hand him his first red lightsaber?) The single WORST part of it was his dramatic cry of "NO!" to the sky. I'll go on record and call it the most embarassing moment of dialogue in ALL of the Star Wars movies. Vader's end-of-Sith cry is 1,000 times harder to swallow than any of Luke's "I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power convertors" or Jar Jar's "okee-day's." Goddamn you, George Lucas. Why? Why? NOOOO!!!!


I'll likely see Revenge of the Sith another 3-4 times before summer is over. (Perhaps I'll just try to sneak into the film at the moment when Darth Sidious sends the command to the clone troopers to initiate "order 66." That's the moment when the films starts cooking. Vader's cry of "NO!!!!" is when it stops cooking.) Although the film's flaws are gigantic, I am still in love with the Star Wars universe. Revenge of the Sith is EASILY the best of the prequels. However, the critics' proclamations that it's as good as Empire is nothing but hype.