The Saga is Complete: A Review of Revenge of the Sith
Mood:  happy




Wow.

So this is the end.

I?ll start by saying I loved this movie and recommend it to anyone who has seen any combination of the other movies. It is not a perfect film by any means; it could have been better had Lucas collaborated with one such as Peter Jackson. It?s cheesy, of course, but the ratio of Cabot to Cheeze Whiz is quite palatable. It is enjoyable, engrossing, and well done and gives the fans most of what they want. It?s never, ever boring. It is also the only prequel that adds power to the original trilogy, both because of the nature of the story it tells and because of its quality. See it, people should.


Critical Breakdown:

Story: Somehow, this film has to connect the dots between the world of the prequels and the world of 1977?s Star Wars. In a way, one of the chief strengths of ROTS is the way it capitalizes on a potential weakness: we all know the ending. Yet it manages to maintain a certain level of suspense. It?s not what happens, but how they happen that intrigues. One of the great pleasures of ROTS is watching everything come together like prophecy.

Anakin Skywalker?s tragic fall from grace obviously constitutes the central dramatic arc, and Lucas pulls this challenge off quite well. He falls well short of Shakespeare (as most do), but the casual comparison has been fairly made. It is easy to understand the motivations (and there are several, not all equally stressed) behind our hero?s temptation, and yet the blindness of his decision is also painfully clear. We also understand, in the most quietly horrifying moment in all of Star Wars, how truly evil the Dark Side really is for all its alluring coolness.

Paralleling the rise of Vader is the creation of the Star Wars universe we all know and love, in which the infamous Galactic Empire rules, the Jedi Order is no more, and a young hero and heroine are waiting to take their first steps into a larger world. At the end of the day a few debatable plot inconsistencies remain, but most are sewn up. In a rare act of subtlety, Lucas resolves one dangling question from Episode 1 to chilling effect, though it might be lost on less-mindful viewers.

Action: Always Lucas' strength, the action in ROTS is constant and almost perfectly excecuted. The movie opens with a fantastic action sequence that begins as every Star Wars movie must: flying through space. For those of us with lightsaber fetishes, it gets no better than this. Everywhere you look, lightsabers! Love love love it.

Visual effects: Impressive?most impressive. Just by virtue of how far technology has come, this is the most visually stunning of the series. Compared with the earlier prequels, the physical environments felt less sterile and overdone this time around, and all the computer-generated creatures, machines and weapons were a notch more believable. There were a few exceptions, but they were minor and showed Lucas testing out some whimsical ideas, which I can't blame him for.

Acting: Not the strong suit of the series, especially the prequels, but this time around the cast seemed pretty much on par with that of the original trilogy. As Anakin/Vader, Hayden Christensen is usually adequate and occasionally wonderful, and certainly more convincing than in his last attempt. He seems to get more and more into the character as the film progresses, adding realism to his performance. Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan is probably the best actor of the bunch and sometimes appears to be channeling the late Alec Guinness. He gets some lighter moments as well as tragic ones and handles both quite well. I really wish Natalie Portman had more to do as Padme, but she suffices. "Chancellor"/Emperor Palpatine, played by Ian McDiarmid ever since Return of the Jedi, is downright scary. McDiarmid's performance is a true highlight, especially in the first half of the film, after which it comes dangerously close to overacting but nevertheless succeeds.





Oh, and R2-D2 gets his own category for seriously rocking. Is there anything this cute lil droid can't do? Forget Palapatine; if Anakin wanted to get some sweet new powers he should've gotten Artoo to train him.


Dialogue: Eeesh?pretty much universal agreement on this one. I know that the script is supposed to be campy, as it has been in every episode, and on the whole ROTS does show improvement over Eps. 1 and 2. Actually, some of it is very effective. I liked the much-hyped "politicized" lines a lot, even stripped of their contemporary relevance. However, there were a few lines that elicited laughs which Lucas might not have intended, and at least three cringeworthy exchanges marred what might have been very powerful scenes. See if you can spot them.

Music: John Williams, will you marry me?

The Downer Factor: So how depressing is this movie? Is it as violent and disturbing as some black-clad Gen-X males had hoped for? Well, it?s as dark as it needs to be to tell the story and no more. As for intensity, in the words of one reviewer, ?It?s comparable Return of the King, except Frodo turns into Gollum, Arwen dies, and the Fellowship is hunted down and killed.? This makes the film a little exhausting by the end, but it is by no means a drag. The mood of ROTS is saved by four things: (1) The first half includes some good old Star Warsian fun; (2) as evil guys go, we all know Vader kicks ass. Watching Anakin fall, as awful as it is, is damn exciting ? heck, it?s what we?ve been waiting all these years to see; (3) the movie ends on a hopeful note, foreshadowing the original film; (4) everyone already knows how the story really ends: with an Ewok party in 1983.

Sith's Place in the Saga:

This movie had so much riding on it. I remember coming out of the theater after seeing Episode 2 three years ago, thinking ?That was cool; MAN, EPISODE 3?s GONNA ROCK!? The first two prequels were important chiefly in that they allowed spine-tingling lines like ?Anakin Skywalker, meet Obi-Wan Kenobi? and the final scene of Attack of the Clones that so beautifully foreshadows the rise of the Empire.

I think this is why the problems bother me more this time around despite the fact that the movie is far better. This film had potential to be the best of the whole series, and it's not. That title still goes, in my opinion, to The Empire Strikes Back (the other depressing Star Wars movie...hmm). How does ROTS compare with ROTJ, the oft-maligned but emotionally resounding finale of the first trilogy, and Episode 3's titular counterpart? A surprising number of critics favor Sith, but I haven?t decided. It doesn't match the feel of the orignal films, which is a strike against it but not a fatal one. I plan on re-watching all three Classic films this month as well as going for at least another round of ROTS to find out. :D (Whee!)

But regardless of ?ranking,? there?s no question that this is an essential Star Wars film; in fact the essential film for those who care at all about integrating the two trilogies. And it works! We see the pieces come together and feel something beautifully satisfying happen in the process. We feel at last (CHEESE ALERT) the balance of the Force.

Don't say I didn't warn you.