October 3^rd, 2005

A review by Matt Kelly

Star Wars Episode III

Is it the best of the prequels? Hell yes. Is it better than Jedi? Definitely not. Is it better than the first two? It's certainly more watchable, but a wise person once said that no matter how hard you polish a turd, it's still going to be a hunk of crap.

There were plenty of groan inducing moments (the overly dramatic "noooooo!," Padme's naming of Luke and Leia, just to name a few). But these moments aren't really what stands out for me. What really bogs this film down from being wholly enjoyable is the same things that have plagued the previous two: bad writing/acting and bad pacing.

Lucas notoriously HATES the writing process, and has even admitted that the scripts for each prequel were either barely finished when shooting began, or in the case of Episode III, not finished at all! As we disect each film, the results of this practice become painfully apparent.

Revenge of the Sith is a film with a lot heart...the heart's just not in the same room as the viewer. We're left to peice things together on our own, and most of the peices we're given are mishapen and immature.

The major mishapen peice is our lead, Anakin Skywalker. There isn't much for us to like about him, which makes his eventual fall all the more shrug inducing. The love he claims for his wife is only exemplified by creepy leering, and her love for him shown only by way of plenty of tears. And what about Padme's devotion as a mother? All she seems to care about is how Anakin will react to her pregnancy, and never do we see her being truly joyful about the life with in her. This is also painfully clear when not even her own newborn twins are capable of giving her the will to live! Yup, her husband is an a-hole, so gosh darnit, she's gotta die! And someone please explain to me how Leia remembers her mother so well after being with her for only three minutes. Is this some unexplained force power?

The only character I really give a damn about is Obi-wan, but I put that blame soley on Ewan's shoulders. He rises above lame chase sequences and bad CGI, spouting off Lucas' wooden dialogue as if it were Shakespeare. Good on him, says I.

In addition to the dialogue and over all structure, there were a few bush-league mistakes I just didn't understand, like weird editing decisions and audio effects that were completely jarring. I'll have to see it a few more times to get really specific, but I considered these to be far from subtle.

I'll have to ruminate on this subject further, and I think one of the best ways of doing so is to keep a list of "good" and "bad" aspects. By writing them down, you keep your thoughts sorted and readily available for healthy digestion. Here's my list so far.

Things I didn't like:

• Artoo on speed (dude showed NO hustle on Bespin, why all of the sudden is he zipping around so much?)
• The limp opening action sequence that came SO CLOSE to setting the stage.
• Obi-wan riding a terrible thunder lizard.
• Chewbacca call back that makes ZERO sense.
• Yoda and Palpatine's fight, while cool, REALLY slowed down the film (and wtf- Yoda lost the fight, so now he has to go into exile???)
• The overly dramatic montage of Jedi deaths.
• Natalie Portman's eye brows.
• Anakin not being rational AT ALL.
• Building up this life-giving power and not following through on something potentially cool.
• Padme's groan-christening of Luke and Leia.
• The Vader suit being on screen for only about a minute.
• NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Stuff I DID like:

• Some of Palpatine's moments with Anakin were cool and near-good.
• Seeing the Tanative IV.
• No lame jokes!
• The Empire Strikes Back-ish moment where Padme and Anakin look out separate windows, seemingly communicating (though they should've gone the full monty and had them say each other's names).

Damn, is that all?

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