John Reviews Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (7 out of 10)

“I would have been fine seeing them kick some elderly war vets asses around…”

Hey asshole, if it werent for those elderly war vets, you wouldnt have the luxury of sitting on your fucking ass rating star wars movies all day/

For those who are in a mood to see Episode 3 get bashed,
here is a more highly critical review that is interesting:
http://www.montrealmirror.com/2005/051905/film2.html

We should print it out, and staple-gun it onto Lucas’ front door.
I still believe that what Lucas helped bring about (special
effects via the empty blue room, no more props required) is what
makes 1-2-3 so boring compared to 4-5-6. In the original trio
of films, they had to BUILD every set, every costume, and every
model. The surroudnings inspired the actors, and the actors
were then natural.

Now they are in empty rooms, but told “you are on the bridge of
a mighty star destroyer, so act impressed”.

They have saved some money on set-building, but they have wrecked
the movie as a consequence. Hope that James Bond corp. doesn’t
do the same thing, they spent more than anybody creating sets that
fueled their films.

One last concern to bring up: This latest episode 3 is a dangerous
regurgitation of the greatness of 4-5-6. Vader’s “NOOOO” oh yes,
that is a regurgitation of Episode 5, with the unnerving statement
of Vader being Luke’s father. The appearance of the evil dark Lord
of the Sith? A regurgitation of the appearance of Vader’s boss.

What we have here is a disappointing corporate calculation, figuring
that the prior moments sold tickets before (“Noooo!”) so surely
they can string them together and sell even more tickets now.
They do not understand that movies are supposed to be about
breaking new territory. This episode 3 was by, and for,
the bean-counters in the accounting department, NOT for the filmmakers
and audiences who caused the 1-2-3 phenomenon. Revenge of the Sith
is no more exciting (and is highly equivalent to) one of those
“Charlie’s Angels” remakes.
(hey it sold tickets before, so it should sell them again…)

If the bean-counters were in charge back in ’77, Star Wars wouldn’t
have even gotten a rejection letter, the proposal would have been
tossed out without a 2nd thought !! Later dudes.

I remember seeing the original trilogy on the big screen many, many years ago and they no doubt rank as some of my favourite movies of all time.

So when they announced they’d make Ep’s 1-3 in the late 90’s I was excited. Then I watched them…

Don’t get me wrong, they were good. But they weren’t Ep’s 4-6 good.

For me personally, what I felt Ep’s 1 and 2 lacked was the fast paced adventure of the originals. What made Ep’s like TESB so good was the slicing of the larger ‘episode’ into smaller chapters… ie Luke and the Wampa, the Battle of Hoth, the Falcon in the Asteroids, so on and so on.

Ep’s 1 and 2 lacked this. And having a good knowledge of the expanded universe and the prequel stories (and the stories long, long before the prequels), I understand that politics played an enormous role in the first two Ep’s. But I always felt unsatisfied by them. As is they were just a warm up.

Having seen ROTS last night, I know what they were warming up to.

Finally, this film recaptures the structure that made the original trilogy such memorable movies. It was less politics, and more traditional character development (the choice between good and evil, friendships falling apart etc). Sure, the characters are a little wooden, but they are more in line with the original trilogy which had characters based on traditional storytelling heroes which is what made them compelling.

I was impressed (and dismayed, but I’ll get to that) by the handling of Anakin’s decent into evil. I felt sad for him. You realise he only made his choices to protect those he loves, albeit misguided and poor choices at that. Although I felt his actual acceptance of the Sith following Mace’s death was a little too fast (as in “sure, I’ll give myself to the Sith) and you didn’t really get the impression that it was a difficult decision that he had to wrestle with (although this was implied when he was looking out the window of the Jedi Council, contemplating stopping Mace).

Once he accepted the darkside, Hayden Christensen handled it well. The dialogue between Anakin and Obi Wan was poignent (even though it was essentially comic book scripting) and you really got a sense of his hate.

Then there was the “Vader becomes machine” sequence. I thought it was handled well through the operating table, attaching the legs, and the clostrophobic POV of the mask being fitted.

I was even impressed with the silence before the first “breath”. I was still impressed with the Frankenstein step of the table (clearly he’s not used these legs before) and I had the distinct feeling he had a case of “what have I become”. But then the moment was shattered with the “Noooooo” which I felt was the worst part of the movie, sadly, at the worst possible time. 20 something years of waiting for this moment, and it winds up sounding like a high school production of Macbeth.

I mean you could tell they’d adapted James Earl Jones dialogue to suit Hayden Christensen’s delivery style but come on. Why he couldn’t have bellowed or screamed or even said nothing at all I don’t know. When I saw it, everything I felt in that scene dropped and I though “George, what are you DOING?” I meandid no one in editing that scene go “hey, do you think this is a little hammy?”.

Sure, Vader never was the most articulate person, but he still managed a pained grunt when Luke cuts his hand off down the track.

Maybe it was just bad timing, in such an important scene, and right near the end (as you always remember the last parts more clearly). I can only hope it’s fixed for the DVD (which I doubt).

Overall it’s by far the best of the new films, and it’s close to the original ones. But I think a few basic flaws (mostly dialogue) could have been averted.

It’s just a shame that a good movie was let down by 1.5 seconds on bad dialogue.