Review of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) by Chris J — 28 Nov 2015

To most peoples surprise I actually love Episode III and will defend it as one of the best Star Wars movies. I even rank it higher than one of the original trilogy movies. This is by far the darkest Star Wars movie ever made and we get to see the transition of Anakin to Darth Vader. Its not perfect but man are they some truly amazing moments in this film.

The movie starts off 3 years after the last film and you can tell Anakin has seen some stuff. If you watched the Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network it fills in the gaps between Episode II and III nicely. You get to see a lot of character growth for Anakin and it helps the relationship between Anakin and Padme seem real. This is a must watch for Star Wars fans and actually makes the prequels better. We start off with Chancellor Palpatine being kidnapped by Count Dooku and the rescue attempt by Obi-wan and Anakin. The first scene opens up with awesome space combat and the infiltration of the droid federation ship. Its freakin epic and sets the tone immediately. Anakin ends up killing Count Dooku and this leaves only General Grevious in command of the droids. Paplatine realizes the war is coming to end and plans the endgame to take on his new apprentice Anakin. I love the scene where Palpatine tells Anakin the story of Plagues the Wise. Such are awesome moment. We also find out Padme is pregnant and Anakin begins having dreams about Padme dieing during childbirth. This is pretty much the last straw for Anakin after everything that has happened in the previous movies and Clone Wars. He will not lose Padme and Palpatine uses this to convince Anakin to join the dark side.

Obi-wan goes to where they think Grevious is hiding and kills Grevious and Yoda heads to the Wookie planet to help with an attack by droids. Once Palpatine tells Anakin that he is the Sith Lord Darth SIdius and he can save Padme, Anakin begins to break down. Conflicted he goes to turn in Palapatine to Mace Windu. Even though he is told not to interfere he doesn't want Palpatine to die because he wants him to save Padme so during the arrest of Palpatine he steps end and kills Mace Windu. This scenes is okay but I agree with many that it feels a little rushed and feels like Anaking goes from good to dark way to quick. You have to under stand though Anakin has been conflicted about this for over 4 years and tons of things have built to this moment.

Darth Sidius then takes Anakin as his apprentice and names him Darth Vader. Never really explains why which is kind of weird. He sends Vader to the Jedi Temple to wipe out the Jedi including the children. He then initiates Order 66 which cause the clones to turn on the remaining Jedi in the field. Vader is then sent to where the remaining separatists are to wipe them out. This is pretty epic and only Obiwan and Yoda survive. They return to Coriscant and after finding out what Anakin has done Yoda tells Obiwan he must find Anakin and kill him. Palpatine tells the senate that the Jedi have betrayed them and decades and new Republic empire. Yoda goes to find the new Emperor to kill him.

The two battles between Obiwan & Vader and the Emperor & Yoda are freaking amazing. I don't care what anyone says. Sure they are choreographed. All great fight scenes are. These are some of my favorite moments and after Obiwan defeats Vader his lines are epic. Yoda and the Emperor and pretty evenly matched and Yoda fails to kill him. The emperor goes to rescue whats left of Anakin's burnt body and we get to see droid put Darth Vader back together. He becomes mostly machine. When he takes his first new breath ... wow! We end with one of the more stupid scenes where Padme seems to die from a broken heart and give birth to twins ... Luke and Leia. Luke is sent to live on Tatooine with his family with Obiwan watching over him from afar. Leia is given to Senator Organa.

Overall there is very little to gripe about for this film. I find myself enjoying it more and more after every watch. We still get a few corny lines of dialogue between Anakin and Padme, and Padme diving of a broken heart is pretty stupid but overall I really enjoyed this movie.