Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
19 May 2005, terribly early in the morning
Star Wars III was everything I had hoped for and more. I’ll write more in the morning.
Update: I wanted to watch Star Wars III opening night. I didn’t know there were midnight showings till I read it on Ahilan’s site Wednesday (yesterday) morning. I should have known there would be shows that night; this has been the case for all the other films. My friend Howard was the only one willing to watch it so we both headed off to a theatre out in the boonies. (Woodbridge to be exact.) We arrived at the cinema at 10:30 or so. I wasn’t sure if we could get tickets that late; this was Star Wars after all. Thankfully, going out to the middle of nowhere paid off. There was no line up for tickets, and more so, the theatre was basically empty. We had perfect seats for the film.
An hour and a half later, the movie begins. Lucas has really redeemed himself. The plastic, artificial, look of the first few films is gone (in my opinion). The special effects are amazing. It really feels like Lucas pushed his people to the very limits of what can be done on the big screen. The movie opens with a space fight which looks stunning. The light saber fights, the computer animated characters, the sets, basically everything looks great. This is what I had expected in all the other films. I thought the special effects in Star War II were good, but nothing exceptional. This movie really impressed me in this regard. It is very hard in this day and age to really dazzle people with spectacular special effects, since they have become such common place now. However, I think Lucas will succeed in really impressing people with the visuals of this film.
The movie does suffer from some bad dialog at times; though nothing as horrific as what was witnessed in Episode II. Other than this, the plot is pretty good. All the loose ends are neatly tied up. The movies conclusion basically paves the way for the earlier films. As has been said in reviews I’ve read, the film is pretty gruesome at times. The way they explain how Darth Vader ends up the way he is, all mangled and robotic, was awesome. Palpatine taking control of everything is explained well.
So, yeah, it was good. It feels really good to be able to say, “watch this film.”
Yeah man, Star Wars was great…I had some punk ass kids in the theater…they went up on stage and did a lightsaber fight..it was so horribly gay…but the movie made up for all the stupidity…Sad to see the trilogy end…now we don’t have other Star Wars movies to look fwd to…I don’t think he’s planning on doing 7, 8,and 9…
by ahilan on May 19 2005, 3:07 pm #
First of all: there is little doubt that Lucas is a first-rate visionary, one who weaves such dramatic and awe-inspiring visual tapestries as that final battle between Anakin and Obi-wan. But as a director he leaves much to be desired. The only thing that marred the brilliance of EIII was the cheesy dialogue. I mean seriously “another happy landing”? Well something like “shit, that was close” would have been equally bad but comeon, at least try!
And that’s not even the beginning of it. The lack of nuance, wit in the acting also hurts it. All the words uttered are predictable and obvious. Maybe its because all the actors are always talking to the green screens instead of people. Why doesn’t he just have computers talking—who needs actors?!
And why Padme had to be absolutely murdered? All she was left to do was cry, cry, be sad, cry and die. She had one great line “this is how liberty dies” but by that time I was thinking of how Lucas killed her character (and the man snoring next to me). Natalie Portman’s best perfomance of the trilogy remains in EI.
The Anakin, Obi-wan deathmatch has to be one of the glorious cinematic moments but the words that start it off basically throw the whole vision of Star Wars aside. It was that line that Obi-wan says, “Jedi don’t deal in absolutes”. Oh no? Come again? Everything about the Jedi is absolute like the life of a catholic priest; the whole of Star Wars is black and white. About the only character who is nuanced, subtle (and this is because he is flawed) is Anakin.
And that’s what makes the story tick. Anakin. While everybody else is either good or evil, Ani is the one who sways between the extremes. He may not be the chosen one, but he is the quintessential flawed HERO—the stuff legends are made of. And I absolutely loved how Lucas shows him as a good boy who changes because he doesn’t want to lose his family. Its not that he is a power hungry maniac, he only wants the power to help his wife. And if this is somehow sacrilegious to the Jedi, well they can be stuffed. The Dark side looks pretty good.
I actually feel this would have been a perfect EII (with EI and EII combined). I would have loved to see some major ass-kicking by Darth Vader in the next episode. But alas! Well now I can actually go an watch IV, V and VI for the first time. And Ahilan don’t give up hope that VII, VIII or IX will never get made. Sure Lucas may not do it, but I am sure his padawans will. And that may not be a bad move after all.
The characters I loved the most in the trilogy were Obi-Wan Kenobi, Palpatine / Darth Sidious, Anakin in EIII. And of course Padme. Best moments were definitely the pod race and saber fight with Darth Maul in EI, the battle between Dooku and Yoda in EII. In EIII it has to be the Anakin’s battle with Obi-wan and his eventual transformation into Darth Vader. That was awesome!
by Sunny on May 19 2005, 10:16 pm #
Interesting analysis over at Marginial Revolution.
by Sunny on May 19 2005, 10:26 pm #
You haven’t seen the old ones before? Weird. I think it’s actually better to watch them in order. There is a lot of foreshadowing and in-jokes in these new movies that you might have missed out on.
And I’m the biggest Bobba Fett fan on the planet. He’s my favourite character in the whole series.
by ramanan on May 19 2005, 11:40 pm #
Yeah, I just haven’t. Looking forward to it though.
Although I haven’t seen the sequels, so I don’t know what he does. But where was he in EIII? Since he is a clone of his father, he should be a major badass right?! He sees his father get killed in EII and vanishes?
Its funny, we seem to like the villains the most!
BTW, join the fan club.
by Sunny on May 20 2005, 12:12 am #
who is bobba fett?
by sh!ma on May 20 2005, 12:52 am #
He’s a gangster.
by rishi on May 20 2005, 11:56 am #
Bobba is a bounty hunter. Maybe you are thinking of Jabba the Hutt? He’s the gangster.
Sunny, there’s quite a bit to the Starwars universe and a lot of it is fleshed out in the licenced stuff. The Jedi do become a lot more complex and grey when we look at characters other then obi-wan.
by Victor on May 20 2005, 1:06 pm #
Victor, yes that is probably true. There is so much more than just the movies. I will keep that in mind.
I shouldn’t have made those sweeping comments since my reference point is only the second trilogy.
by Sunny on May 20 2005, 9:31 pm #
Had to ask this. So which was the best one out of the six? Of course ‘Revenge of the Sith’ was the best of the new trilogy but how does it compare to the sequels?
by Sunny on May 21 2005, 2:21 am #
I didn’t mean he was literally a gangster. I was alluding to his bad-assness.
by rishi on May 21 2005, 12:32 pm #
It’s hard to say. Three is actually quite good, but I think The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best one. I’d need to watch them all again before I could decide.
by ramanan on May 21 2005, 5:26 pm #
It’s a tough call to say which of the three is the best because all are very good, but also good for difference reasons.
I’ve always been partial to Return Of The Jedi. (But I must agree that The Empire Strikes Back is absolutely brillant).
by Ryan on May 22 2005, 2:06 am #
just trying to catch up with the old news…but isn’t anyone shocked that they named the babies? now the twist of luke & leia being siblings is completely lost;
granted I know we already knew the answer, but if these were truly prequels then it seems like a huge spoiler
by haran on June 2 2005, 5:41 pm #
There are plenty of twists that are lost if you watch the movies in sequence. I don’t think that is how they are meant to be seen. I’m sure he would have written the stories differently had they been shot in order.
by ramanan on June 2 2005, 5:49 pm #
The major “shocks” in 4-6 are Darth Vader being Luke’s father and Leia being his sister. (But you know these facts if you watch 1-3 first).
The major “shocks” in 1-3 are Anakin turning to the Dark Side and the Chancellor being Lord Sidious. (But you know these facts if you watch 4-6 first).
So there are tradeoffs regardless of what order you watch them – chronological order or (the other) choronological order.
by Ryan on June 3 2005, 5:18 am #
There were extremely excellent and the best scenes in the movie “Revenge of the Sith”.
Good originality and great imagination, great story in this movie!
Here’s Photo gallery for Hayden Christensen(Anakin) of this movie. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0159789/photogallery-ss-0
I love Star Wars series the most!
by Creford on July 7 2005, 10:02 am #