Review of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) by Jim C — 03 Jan 2016

People will clap for just about anything these days.

The fact that some fans laud this movie as a return to the greatness of the original trilogy is disturbing to me. The emperor is truly not wearing any clothes, which, incidentally, would be more interesting than the plot of Revenge of the Sith.

This movie is not an improvement over Attack of the Clones. The dialogue is still terrible. The characters are still flat. The action is still lost in a dense CGI landscape. The audience is still told what to feel. There is no honest friendship or passion or betrayal or temptation. Let's face it: Jar Jar wasn't the problem.

Let's start at the beginning. No one should be proud of a continuous tracking shot DONE ON COMPUTERS. There is no craft at play here, let's not kid ourselves.

Second, this entire space battle has no point and doesn't advance the plot in any way. Anakin is never punished for beheading Dooku. There is no motivation given to go after Greivous again. It serves no purpose.

Which brings me to General Greivous, a cartoon robot, literally and artistically. What's his motivation? What makes him so bad? Does he know that he's just a pawn for Emperor Palpatine? No one cares, least of all George. This character is here to sell video games and action figures.

But I digress, onto Padme and Anakin's secret romance. I will give Hayden Christensen some credit here. There is a moment after Padme says that she is pregnant, when Anakin appears pissed off and uncomfortable with the news that he's suddenly going to be a father. LIKE A REAL PERSON! However, he quickly gets over this honest reaction one second later and goes back to being a one-dimensional character.

Both Portman and Christensen are given lines that no one, not even Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis, could save. Everything is shown to us via words: "We are in love." What does Padme like about Anakin? Seriously. What is there to like? What does Anakin like about Padme? Is she smart? Brave? Funny? We may never know.

Moving on. One of my biggest problems with the prequels is how Anakin turns to the Dark Side. In a movie like The Godfather, Michael Corleone turns to the Dark Side. This happens slowly without him even knowing. It happens decision by decision until we get to the final scene in the movie, and we, the audience, and Kay, his wife, realize that he's a completely different person than he used to be. That's what happens in real life, after all. No one sets out to be a bad guy.

After I saw the first movie, I assumed that Anakin's motivation for turning to the Dark Side would be helping his mother. In Phantom Menace, Shmi mentions that the Republic doesn't exist on Tatooine, which is why there is slavery. In Attack of the Clones, Anakin even hints that he supports a dictatorship over a democracy. If the writers were smart, they would have slowly transformed him into an agent for the Republic and then an agent of the Empire.

Instead, they throw in this ridiculous plot device with the dream of Padme's death and Anakin wanting to save her. Not only does this not make sense, but it flies in the face of all the subtle seduction the Emperor has been doing all along. This ain't the Godfather. It ain't even Godfather Part III.

To this point, the deleted scenes with Padme forming the Alliance should have been (re-written) and included in the final film. They could have provided a logical explanation for why Anakin and Padme parted ways. Instead, Anakin never even finds out about Padme's links to the resistance movement, and Padme never leaves Anakin, as any smart woman would do after she finds out that her husband is a murderer of children.

Younglings. Enough said.

The fight between Yoda and the Emperor is creative in some minor aspects. I like that the Emperor is literally destroying the building blocks of democracy by throwing the discs at Yoda. However, this scene tells us nothing new about the Force. No new powers are revealed. Instead, we get more meaningless lightsaber nonsense. Is Yoda's cane just for show?

Couple more small things: 1. Dying of a broken heart is fine, but a medical robot shouldn't be involved in that diagnosis. 2. Leia remembered her mom. 3. This movie didn't need to be PG-13 to be dark. 4. How does lightning make someone's face old? Couldn't the Emperor in ROTJ just been really old? Did we need an explanation for that? 5. Mace Windu's dialogue is so cliche-ridden, it hurts. 6. Jimmy Smits looks ridiculous driving that space Corvette with Yoda.

I could go on and on and on.

Like Attack of the Clones, this movie has no heart and soul.

Only two things help this movie rank slightly above Attack of the Clones. 1. Ian McDiarmid is an underrated actor who can say just about anything and be honest and interesting. 2. The final shot looking off into the sunset is beautiful, though painted with too many perfect CGI details.

To be clear, this movie did not redeem the prequels. Space politics was never the problem. Jar Jar was never the (biggest) problem. It all comes down to human beings.