Revenge of the Sith

Just saw Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith for the second time today. I was moderately impresssed, not a bad effort at all. That was my thought after seeing it the first time, but there were many thing I felt I wanted to see again before commenting on them. Also, I figure by now anyone who wanted to see the movie has seen it, and I don't have to worry about spoilers. The movie did an adequate (if hardly brilliant) job of getting you from the end of Attack of the Clones to the beginning of A New Hope. I guess how good the movie really is depends on what the movie was about.

• If the movie is meant to be about how the Republic turns into an Empire, then it is downright brilliant. Palpatine's handling of the political situation is superb. He understands human psychology intimately and can correctly predict behavior such as the Senate voting to continue the war or granting him executive powers. Furthermore, he is aware that those who prefer security to freedom ultimately get neither. His speech in the Senate chamber where he declares the Empire clearly indicates a deep understanding of the "handling of the masses." The speech in the novelization (browsed through it at Border's) is even better.


• BUT ... if the movie is meant to be about how Anakin Skywalker turns into Darth Vader, then it is mediocre. Palpatine's handling of Anakin is very poor. The only reason it works is because it has to, not from any sense of internal plot logic or consistent character development. From the first scene where he tells Anakin to kill Dooku (shouldn't he be a cowed kidnapping victim, not bordering on ecstasy as he is?), through his attempts to plant distrust of the Jedi Council (transparent!), to his story of Plagueis the Wise (could he have sounded more worshipful?) - it was all strictly amateur night. Granted Skywalker isn't very bright and his thoughts have been clouded by the dark side, but shouldn't even he have seen through this crap? "Don't you wonder why the Jedi Council won't make you a Master?" "They don't trust you." "I would doubt the Council's judgment if they didn't choose you for this mission." If you look really hard, you can see the corner of Palpatine's copy of Manipulation for Dummies sticking out of his cloak. Of course, all of this is nothing compared to the scene where Skywalker barges in on Windu and Palpatine fighting. "I'm too weak. Don't kill me. Pleeeease don't kill me." Come on now! Pleeeease spare me your righteous indignation.

Some other observations about the movie.

• How Anakin goes from killing Windu to becoming Darth Sidious's apprentice to killing a room full of small children defies all credibility. One can almost understand his turning on Windu, as Anakin is not particularly intelligent, Palpatine has been playing with his mind for some time and the political situation is not completely clear. However, once he sees Sidious kill Windu in cold blood, he just gets on his knees and says, "I'll do whatever you ask."? Why? The first mission Sidious gives him is to kill all the children in the temple and he goes do it without objection? Why? It's not like Palpatine told him "The Jedi Council tried to kill me. Go kill them." or "Go kill the separatist leaders." No! He said, "Go kill a bunch of innocent children." And Anakin says, "Okey dokey, boss, whatever you say." Seems unlikely. The novel (I know hard-core fans would consider this non-canonical) does a much better job of managing this transition.


• The Jedi handle the Anakin situation very poorly. Clearly they are not politicians. It's almost as if they are going out of their way to insult him. It is clear that he is close to Palpatine, which would make him an obvious candidate to pass information back to the council. However, it is just as clear that he cannot be trusted with this critical task.


• The visual feel of the movie was very well thought out. I particularly liked the graphic symbolism - most scenes were dark and somber, a lot of them with rain. It added quite well to the "dark side" feel of the movie. The occasional well-lit scene such as on board the Tantive IV only served to focus this feeling. The scene where Luke's uncle is looking off into the horizon did a good job of bringing to mind the famous scene from the original movie. And of course the final two battle scenes, Yoda v Sidious and Kenobi v Vader, are very stunning both visually and musical score-wise. Both battles are on a grand scale with their fantastic backgrounds, evoking thoughts of a Wagnerian opera. My only thought is that the background music could have been even MORE Wagnerian.


• The "love" scenes between Anakin and Padme are still ludicrous. The dialogue between them is ridiculous (Lucas should have had someone else write those scenes). And Christensen is the world's worst actor. Their first scene where he learns that Padme is pregnant and he says it's the happiest moment of his life he looks particularly idiotic ... the post-coital scene on the balcony of Padme's apartment is also awful ... and the scene where Padme tells Anakin "you're better than this" ... and the scene ... never mind, they are ALL awful. I don't think I've ever seen two actors with LESS chemistry.


• The space battle that opens the movie is unbelievably impressive visually but basically meaningless to the viewer. You definitely can't tell who's winning or what's going on. However, what is particularly unforgivable is that you can't tell who's who. The entire scene was just too busy.


• I found the gratuitous attempt to introduce contemporary relevance ("Either you are with me or you are my enemy." "Only a Sith deals in absolutes.") poorly done and distracting from the story.


• What could have been one of the iconic moments of American film history, the "birth" of Darth Vader, was handled absurdly - unforgivably - poorly. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO"? You have got to be freakin' kidding me!


• I always found the end of "Return of the Jedi" quite good. Redemption of the fallen hero, blah blah blah. I could forgive Darth Vader his sins in light of his selfless sacrifice in doing the right thing at the end. In a civil war, each side generally believes that they are in the right. So the viewer can forgive murder, torture and other villainy. The destruction of Alderaan was a bit much, but Vader wasn't personally responsible for that (Grand Moff Tarkin gave the order). However, after learning that Vader began his career as a Sith by slaughtering defenseless children, killing the emperor to save his son hardly seems to warrant forgiveness for all his prior sins.


• A final comment to wrap things up. Anakin joins Palpatine because he wants to learn the trick to cheat death. Clearly, Palpatine implied he knew it since he says Plagueis taught his apprentice everything. Yet when Anakin asks about it, Palpatine's response is along the lines of "Yeah, right, sure, we'll get right on that." Not only does he continue to follow Palpatine, but he actually remains convinced that he has the power to keep Padme alive. He really isn't very bright, is he?