Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

There's not a lot that can be said about this movie. It's probably the best of the prequels, but that's not saying much. In fact, the best thing that can be said about this movie is that it doesn't suck. I enjoyed most of it, although some moments were severely wince-inducing. The lightsaber battles were a minor disappointment, with camera tricks and plot events being used to "explain" the outcome rather than actual skill, but they weren't awful. The central drama of the story was handled fairly well, albeit the acting could have been better.

Overall, I went in with low expectations, and came out without being disappointed. It's about on the same level as a B+ or A- action movie: the plot is simple, with maybe one or two attempted subtleties and a number of minor gaps, the writing has a few wincers and a few good lines but is generally mediocre, there's a romantic angle thrown in for no other reason than to allow the fairer sex an excuse to say yes to date invitations, and the movie generally rests on its above-average action and special effects without reaching true excellence in either.

The first three movies spoke to something mythic, and deliberately so. The prequels are just action movies set in the same universe.

Posted on 2005-06-19 23:52:33.0 by matthew@infodancer.org

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a few additional points - very very minor spoilers

From a pacing standpoint, the first 30 minutes, maybe 45, were dead. Sure, we have action sequences - but they screamed 'video game' about as much as the pod race from I and the factory floor scene from II. They also screamed 'no knowledge of physics' on the part of some writer, who decided that droids who lost their grip on a ship in space should get 'blown' off. I don't know what John Williams was thinking, but the music in this first section is pretty dead, too.

Lucas still seems to think that droid humor is funny. R2D2 and C3P-O are a classic pair, but they're split up for almost the entire movie, and instead Lucas spent money having droids say 'excuse me'.

There is one cool thing in the first section: Anakin and Dooku fighting in front of Palpatine sitting in a big chair is a visual reference to Luke and Vader fighting in front of Palpatine on the throne in Return of the Jedi.

Then we have a turning point. The music changes drastically, and improves from here on out. The stark image of Anakin alone in the Council Chamber suddenly stands out from the visual overload that preceeded it. The rest of the movie is still awkward in several places, but at this point we're past the majority of the poorly-written dialogue (barely). The lightsabre battles range from crappy, to energetic if not especially well-shot.

RotS is worth seeing for Ewan McGregor's performance alone. He really stands out among the cast, about as much as Sir Alec Guinness stood out in A New Hope. Ewan does a fantastic job matching the speech patterns and mannerisms of Guiness.

Some of the most over-the-top acting comes from Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine, who stoops to Shatner-esque dramatic pauses between words at some points. Palpatine was so overdone that he seemed fake. I was thoroughly dissapointed that the character of Boba Fett saw no additional development, and Chewbacca seemed to be an afterthought, as did all the activities on the Wookee planet.

RotS actually has the capacity to emotionally move the viewer, unlike Episodes I and II. Unfortunately it still suffers from horrible writing and/or directing in so many places that it can't hope to compare to the original Trilogy, Ewoks and all.

Posted by tsarren from 63.246.172.183 on 2005-06-07 01:58:10.0

Agreed, Mediocre the Movie Was

Yes, even Yoda's dialogue seemed forced (no pun intended) at times. The action sequences were good, but not enough to carry the film. Anakin's internal conflict, which was the focus of the whole movie, seemed ludicrous, and fell rather flat. The Emperor was overdone, and seemed more comical than genuinely evil. The droids, who were supposed to be the comic relief, ended up annoyingly JarJaresque. I agree that Ewan McGregor did an outstanding job. He is the only consistant bright spot of Episodes I-III. I think that the animated collection Star Wars - Clone Wars is actually a lot deeper than Episode III, and those are being done 5-12 minutes at a time.

Posted by Wade Kimberlin from 68.47.30.31 on 2005-06-10 22:51:05.0