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Star Wars Episode 3: The Revenge of the Sith
**SPOILER WARNING** - details of plot revealed, do not read if you want to be suprised.
Saw it two night ago. My take:
- As always, great story telling. All of the pieces transition into Ep 4 pretty nicely.
- To say the film is visually impressive is probably an understatement. As with all the films the costumes and landscapes and FX are continually redefining the genre.
- As with the other films, the script is not good. I believe the one line out of the whole movie that epitomizes this is when it finally becomes clear to Padme that Anakin has become the antichrist: "You're breaking my heart!" I laughed out loud at that one. Loudly, to the embarrassment of my daughter.
- The film was characterized by a couple of very good performances (Ewan McGregor, Chris Lee), one very over-the-top performance (Ian
McDiarmid), and some very undeveloped performances (Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman). Don't get me wrong, I'm a big, big Natalie Portman fan. Not of her acting or anything, just her. I think she's neat.
I was surprised to learn something about McGregor in this film. You don't expect to see someone go to a new level in a blockbuster action film, but I think he did in this one.
Maybe it's an optical illusion caused by the juxtaposition of his very solid, even slightly three-dimensional portrayal next to some rather superficial ones.
Also, Peter Mayhew seems to not have aged a day, nor does Kenny Baker or Anthony Daniels (ahem).
- Anakin's descent into the dark side was handled very clumsily, I thought, via Christensen
ping-ponging back and forth between the Jedi council and Palpatine in what seemed like a dozen scenes. It felt like the writers themselves couldn't understand why Anakin could go over to the dark side. Lucas should really have hired Republicans to write the script (political claptrap allowed here).
Seriously. It's like the whole Lucas machine is incapable of identifying with characters that are good guys, but
corrupt as hell. Irony seems lost on the franchise. Just when I thought a seemingly-corrupt but OK Palpatine was going to add an ironic character to the mix in Ep 1, turns out no, he's the devil himself.
I don't see how all of Lucas' horses and all of Lucas' men couldn't even find one person who could handle Anakin's moral journey with one tenth the aplomb that, say, characterized Gene Hackman's role in the 1993 adaptation of Grisham's, "The Firm".
- I still do not understand why Padme died. Yes, I know her death was foretold, and I know she got choked by her boy toy. But it seems like they could have figured out a real cause for her death. I mean, Anakin loses loses two legs, an arm, five gallons of blood, and burns to a crisp, and they slap him in a gimp suit and he's ready to rock and roll, but a perfectly healthy Padme can't even even survive birth in a hospital? Come on.
All in all, I characterize this movie as a "must see", as much so for the visual spectacle as for the fact that the Star Wars story is part of our human culture; a 20-year epic that is interwoven in the very fabric of our existence. Or something.
What can I say. I'm a dork. I dug it, a lot.
©2003, Joe Jackson. All rights reserved.