Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - Movie Review

Revenge of the Sith actually holds a special place in my heart. This is the only Star Wars movie that I've ever seen in theatres, and one of the earliest movies I ever saw in theatres at all. The only other movie I can remember from that early is Shrek 2, which is, of course, amazing. This is also the first movie I remember obsessing over as it was coming out. I remember putting posters up on my wall, reading magazines, getting the Lego sets, and the excitement growing and growing, so this actually may have been my first fanboy hype movie. I can remember seeing certain things for the first time, still from the perspective of being in a theatre, and having my mind blown. It's just another one of those warm, happy things that I associate with Star Wars. Nostalgia is a powerful force, but I don't want you to think that I just like this film because of it.

All right, a watchable Star Wars prequel. People doubted it was possible, but it is. After Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, you don't know how much of a relief being able to write about this is. It's by no stretch a perfect movie, but it's actually watchable, and that's more than I've been getting lately. 

This is definitely the best of the prequels. There are actually scenes and moments in this movie that work! Do you know how crazy that is? There are a couple of scenes in here with actual style and filmmaking competence, like the opera scene between Anakin and Palpatine; in terms of lighting, music, dialogue, it's legitimately really cool. That scene where Anakin and Padmé are looking across Coruscant, looking at each other, but they don't know that they're looking at each other...beautiful. And when Hayden Christiansen isn't talking, he's actually pretty threatening. It's actually a good performance for a little bit.

But let's not get too positive, because this movie does still have the same problems as the other prequels, it's got an overreliance on CGI without a doubt, and the characters and acting still isn't very good. But it's an improvement, and that's the least I can ask for.

Right from the beginning, the CGI does look better; that opening shot of Anakin and Obi-Wan's fighters flying through the battle over Coruscant actually looks pretty good. I think the action in general in this movie is far better, the lightsaber battles especially. They still look choreographed, but it's not quite as obvious. The lightsaber battle between Anakin, Obi-Wan and Dooku is pretty enjoyable, even if most of the dialogue makes no sense. And having Anakin take his revenge and murder Dooku is actually a good way to show him starting to turn to the dark side.

Look, Anakin Skywalker is nothing but a block of wood throughout this trilogy, but in this movie, we actually get to see some development. We see Palpatine manipulating Anakin; preying on his fears of Padmé dying in childbirth, promising him that he knows the secret to eternal life, and slowly turning him against the Jedi. This was the story that people were hoping for out of the prequels, and weirdly, it seems like George Lucas forgot to write that plot into the last two, because everything seems to happen in this one.

I should also say at this point that Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine is the best part of this movie, he just seems so happy to be so evil, and it’s so great. I honestly always did think that his plan for taking over was genius; controlling both sides of the war, making everyone in the galaxy afraid and want to give him more power, it's just a cool bad guy plot.

On the flip side of that, a disappointment, General Grievous.

General Grievous could have been so cool, so interesting. He's got a sweet design, and he can wield four lightsabers, how cool is that?! But he's just a stock, underdeveloped guy who needs to be killed, and then he is. And re-watching that whole fight sequence between him and Obi-Wan today, it's really not that great.

Everything besides what's going on with Anakin isn't really that important, and Anakin's actual turn to the dark side is the most ridiculous thing ever. After Palpatine reveals that he's the Sith Lord in control of everything, Anakin tells Mace Windu this, so Mace and a group of Jedi Masters go to arrest Palpatine. The battle between Palpatine and the Jedi is hilarious for 2 reasons. One: the other Jedi besides Mace are so incompetent and taken out so easily, and two of them go down in three seconds. Two: the weird faces that Palpatine makes the whole time. I don't know if he's trying to look threatening, but I like to imagine that he's mouthing curse words at Mace the whole time. 

The fight scene as a whole is actually weird because Mace Windu and Samuel L. Jackson had a whole fight scene worked out and choreographed, but it was scrapped the day they filmed it, and they pretty much made up a new fight on the spot. And boy, does it show. And it's weird, because in Return of the Jedi, Palpatine seemed to hate lightsabers, but now he's using them all the time.

So in the end, Anakin shows up and cuts off Mace's arm to save Palpatine, leading to the best line delivery in the history of film. "Power! Unlimited power!" is nothing short of cinematic genius. The best part is that Ian MacDiarmid starts overacting so much more after this, when he gets all weird and wrinkly, some of his line delivery is so funny. 

So after he helped to murder a high-ranking order of the Jedi Order, Anakin just kneels before Palpatine and says he'll do whatever he asks. No questions, no arrangements, he's just the Sith apprentice now. The funniest part is that right after, Palpatine says something along the lines of "Only one person has discovered the secret to eternal life, but if we work together, we can find it". To which Anakin's reply should have been "Oh, you don’t know the secret? You’ve been lying to me..." *Lightsaber out, slash, kill* and Anakin's a hero. But no, his answer is "Yeah, sure, I'll kill some kids, why not?"

For all the stupidity of the prequels, I really like the Order 66 sequence. With the music, and the imagery of the clones just turning and slaughtering the Jedi, it's really effective. And seeing Anakin about to murder some kids is really dark, I mean, Darth Vader killed some British guys, but now he's murdering British kids.

Oh yeah, and back to those forced references to the original trilogy: Chewbacca is also painfully forced into this movie. At least they didn't force Han Solo into any of these movies. Can you imagine seeing a little kid version of Han running around? Wait, I just threw up a little.

So Obi-Wan and Yoda meet up, seemingly the final Jedi left, and when they discover that Anakin has turned to the dark side, they promise to destroy him and Palpatine.

At this point, I realize that Anakin really was the chosen one, because now there's only two Jedi and two Sith left. That seems like balance in the Force to me. 

Anyway, their plan is that Yoda will go and kill Palpatine while Obi-Wan goes to Mustafar, where Anakin’s gone to kill the last of the Separatists, and kill Anakin. What the plan should have been was they both go kill Palpatine, then both go kill Anakin, I don't know why neither of them suggest this, but I guess they don’t think of it.

We need our one-on-one boss fights, who needs logic?

I will admit though, I enjoy these fight scenes quite a bit. Seeing Anakin and Obi-Wan finally face off is suitably epic, the choreography is great, but it just goes on for too long. They go from the landing platform, through the entire station, then they turn off the shields, so the station falls into the lava (while they're fighting on the surface), then they fight on a section of the station outside, then that section falls down a lava waterfall (lavafall), so they fight on droids floating on the lava, then on another platform. And even after all that, it feels kind of anticlimactic, it all comes down to Obi-Wan having the high ground, and then Anakin tries to jump over him and gets his legs and arm chopped off, then he gets all burned up. The whole "high ground" thing still confuses me.

As for Yoda and Palpatine, that fight is pretty entertaining, Yoda does his usual flips, Palpatine uses his usual lightning and overacting, and after Yoda fails to defeat him, he puts himself into exile. Because I guess he'd serve no further use to anyone. Definitely not to some sort of Rebellion or anything.

So, after being choked by Anakin, Padmé does end up dying in childbirth, because she...loses the will to live? I guess she dies of a broken heart, because women are just so fragile and delicate when you write them like it’s the 1910s. Although I do think that seeing Padmé giving birth and Anakin being turned into Vader, and cutting between those two, that editing was really well done.

What wasn't well done was Darth Vader screaming "NOOOOOOOO!" Disgusting.

So Luke and Leia are born, and Leia is taken by Jimmy Smitts to Alderaan, which is pretty smart. I mean, Vader would never think to look for them there. They give her a different name, raise her far away from any source of the Skywalkers, it's the perfect place.

So they take Luke to his father's home planet, where his family is, to be raised by his family, while using Anakin's last name...okay.

So that's Revenge of the Sith. Overall, it’s definitely the best of the prequels. It has the most in it to like, there's some actual development, some good action, and even though it has a lot of nonsensical things in it, it comes pretty close to being an actual good movie. That's also the last of the prequels, so we're finally past the darkness, and we can get into the real classics, some of my favourite movies of all time.