Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Director: George Lucas (The Star Wars Guy)
Producer: George Lucas and Rick McCallum
Screenplay: George Lucas
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Frank Oz (The Muppets), Samuel L. Jackson, and Christopher Lee
Gross Revenue: $848,754,768
Rotten Tomatoes TomatoMeter: 80%
IMDB Rating: 7.8
Academy Awards: Nominated for Best Makeup  

     After almost 30 years of making movies, T.V. shows, video games, board games, and any kind of merchandise you can think of, the Star Wars saga would at last be completed.  Fans would finally be able to see the story come full circle, and find out how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.  Would it be worth the wait for fans?  Would it be an exciting and emotionally satisfying conclusion that gives closure to millions of Star Wars fans across the globe, or was George Lucas going to continue his string of terrible films and end a mediocre trilogy with a mediocre film.  Well, good news and bad news Star Wars fans.  The good news is that Revenge of the Sith is by far the best film in the prequel trilogy, and is as close as any of those films will get to being a good movie.  The bad news is that the film is still not that good, and is nowhere near as good as any of the Original Trilogy films, nor does it adequately wrap up the Star Wars saga.

     Revenge of the Sith takes place 3 years after the events of Attack of the Clones.  The Clone Wars have been raging all across the galaxy, and the Jedi Order has never been spread so thin.  Full-fledged Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker must lead a daring rescue mission to rescue Chancellor Palpatine, who has been captured by the evil droid general General Grievous.  Meanwhile, he has to deal with the news that his wife is pregnant, which could potentially ruin his dream life as a Jedi Knight.  He must also choose between the increasingly paranoid Jedi Order, who have done nothing but criticize and control him his entire life, and his lifelong friendship with his mentor Chancellor Palpatine.
     Of the Prequel Trilogy films, Revenge of the Sith has the most interesting story be far.  This really isn’t a hard contest, seeing as how Episode I was about trade disputes and Gungans, while Episode II featured the cheesiest romance ever put to cinema.  The movie is centered on various Clone Wars battles, which gives George Lucas a chance to show off how many CGI worlds and characters he can create with his vast reservoirs of cash, which albeit, are pretty awesome.  Seeing the Wookies fight the droids on Kashyyyk was pretty awesome, even though it lasted for about five minutes.  The best thing about the Prequel Trilogy is definitely the special effects.  The Original Trilogy took place on about five different planets: a desert planet, an icy planet, and a forest planet.  The Prequel Trilogy has shown off a far greater expanse of the galaxy, and really stimulates the imagination.
     This is supposed to be the “darkest” Star Wars film, and it definitely is.  It is the only Star Wars film to be rated PG-13 most likely for the numerous deaths that occur in the film, some of which are not wholesome.  As far as showing Anakin’s fall to the dark side, the film made it seem like it happened in five minutes, and was not a lifelong internal struggle, which it was supposed to be.  George Lucas almost cheapens the story be showing it happen so quickly, and the movie doesn’t give adequate time to the various factors that influenced Anakin’s downfall.  The movie is edited to make it seem like that the primary cause for Anakin’s downfall was his “love” for Padme (If you can call sniveling pretty-boy stalker obsession love).  While this makes Anakin more “noble”, and makes him seem more like a tragic hero than a villain, I think it kind of lessens the emotional impact of what could have been an awesome transition.

     I have spent a lot of time writing about how much I hate Hayden Christensen’s acting, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it.  All I want to say is that he was grossly miscast on Anakin Skywalker, and that I’ve seen a sock puppet give more heartfelt and less wooden performances.  And they deliver their lines better too.

     The rest of the acting ranges from not bad to excellent.  The unsung hero of the Prequel Trilogy is Ian McDiarmid, by far the best actor in the Trilogy.  He’s been sitting quietly in the background for the past two films, advising Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala on one side of the conflict, and orchestrating the Clone Wars on the other as the masterful Sith lord Darth Sidious.  Well in this film, his identity is finally revealed, and McDiarmid plays it so well.  What could have been a cheesy and overdramatic reveal was completely believable and even sent chills down my spine.  If only the rest of the actors in the movie were this good.

     Despite all my “bashing” of Revenge of the Sith, I almost truly enjoyed this film, and it’s certainly better than the last two films.  It’s actually interesting, and isn’t so boring that I fall asleep while watching it.  The special effects are better, the story is better, the acting is better (not that that really matters in a Star Wars film anyway), pretty much everything is better.  It’s easily the best film in the Prequel Trilogy.  Then, why don’t I like it more?   Well because frankly, it’s still not that great of a film.  The George Lucas who made the Original Trilogy is a different George Lucas than the one who made the Prequels.  He’s been corrupted by money, fame, and the seductive power of technology, and all the wonderful things that can be done by a computer.  He no longer places story over substance, and he has lost his touch.

     Revenge of the Sith is “supposedly” the last Star Wars film ever, and was supposed to wrap up what was “always” envisioned as 6-part series.  However, there are too many glaring inconsistencies that make me question that logic.  For one thing, if Padme died during childbirth, than how is it that Leia supposedly remembers her birth mother during Episode VI?   This is a major plot hole that George Lucas chose to ignore when writing the screenplay, probably because his ego is too big for him to care about the little things any more.  The movie just doesn’t match up with some of the things said in the Original Trilogy.  Obi-Wan says to Luke when he gives him his lightsaber in Episode IV that “he wanted you to have this”.  Either an outright lie from Obi-Wan or, far more likely, another in the large pule of plot holes between the Prequel and Original Trilogy.  If this truly is the end of all Star Wars films forever, it just doesn’t seem like a satisfying conclusion to the masterful films of the Original Trilogy.  I don’t know what will happen with Star Wars in the future, but if this is the end, I don’t like it.

     Revenge of the Sith will always hold a special place in my heart.  It was the first Star Wars film I ever saw.  I was invited to attend the movie during its opening weekend by some friends, and I fell in love.  I had never seen Star Wars before in my life, and I didn’t understand a lot of what happened in the movie, but I loved every minute of it.  For a long time, Revenge of the Sith was my favorite Star Wars film, and I can see why.  For an adolescent, this film is pretty awesome.  It’s got awesome lightsaber battles, exciting space battles, and some of the coolest imagery ever produced in a Star Wars film ever.  As I’ve gotten older and wiser, and understand the merits of a good film, I realize how wrong I was.  Yes, Revenge of the Sith is the best film of the Prequel Trilogy, and features dark themes and finals concludes the Star Wars saga.  While all these things are true, it’s just not as satisfying as It used to be.  In summary, the Prequel Trilogy was just one big fat disappointment.  Instead of bringing Star Wars into the 21^st century with an exciting origin story of one of cinema’s greatest villains of all time, the film was an exercise in boring melodrama, painfully bad dialogue, and one-dimensional characters performed by one-dimensional actors.  Though Revenge of the Sith is the best of the Prequel Trilogy by far, and is the darkest and most exciting of these films, it pales in comparison to the Original Trilogy, and fails to adequately wrap up the Star Wars saga.  3.5/5
"The saga is complete"