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« on: May 19, 2005, 05:05 AM »
I took in "Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith" this evening. The overall experience was sheer fun. I strolled in at 8:00 PM, was ushered almost directly into the theatre where Alison and I got seats dead center, bullseye in the stadium seating. Best seats in the house, no doubt.
The opening crawl rolled up to thunderous applause, and from that point on, we all knew it was the beginning of the end. Episode 3's opening dogfight sequence was simply awesome. The CGI ships and atmosphere looked more polished than ever, provided a nice segway from the "Clone Wars" micro-series, with the easy going camaraderie between Anakin and Obi Wan ever present. A welcome change from the smug, wooden, emotional robot Hayden Christensen played in the previous installment. From that point on, I knew I was going to be pleasantly surprised with the film. He executed his heel turn to near perfection, save the trance-like dialogue between he and Palps in his office.
What Lucas achieved in the script of Episode 3 is exactly what the previous 2 episodes were missing, that being the casual nature of the dialogue. Too often we were subjected to regal, stale, monotone diatribes and corny, prim and proper sounding quips. This time around, the character interaction was more believable, less contrived and trivial, and you felt as if they actually known one another for quite some time. In addition, he maintained a great pace with the storyline. Never abandoning one segment for too long, it all pieced together quite nicely, all eventually focusing righ back onto Anakin, the beef of the film.
Ian McDiarmid headed up the overall acting revival that was so sorely missed over the past 6 years in the franchise. This was a personal film, one with actual relevance and meaning to Star Wars lore, not filler. McDiarmid actually taking his dialogue and running with it, showing Palpatine for what we all knew he was. IMO, it was Christensen story to mold, but McDiarmid's movie through and through. Hayden, dropping his prowess for playing an angry, angst ridden, wooden Anakin, in its place, a dark and brooding soon to be Vader..with true emotion! Honorable mention to the staples in Kenobi and Amidala, but absolutely no kudos to the one man who blew his once chance at redemption in Samuel L. Jackson. Even Jar Jar, who was on screen only twice, was more welcome than he.
That said, there were some instances that seemed a little less than inspired, and were more for the sake of fulfilling a bridging of the final episode and the Original Trilogy. Kashyyk was introduced, along with Chewbacca, neither of which really held no relevance. Very minimal nods to otherwise important characters such as Tarkin and Antilles were appreciated, but somewhat forgot when Padme's ultimate demise is described as merely "losing the will to live". The birth of Vader seemed extremely rushed, and tarnished the lore of how Vader came to be, having been condensed to a 15 second building scene, after which he's seen clumsly stumbling to his feet, followed by a cartoonish bellow, which made me just shake my head in disapproval.
While there were some missed opportunities, and some nonchalant tie-in's, which seemed obligatory at best, overall, it was a very entertaining movie, which finally improved on the mistakes of its precursors. Lucas delivered a much more mature film, overall. It was witty as the original, scripted and delivered with ease, no contention, the action sequences were polished, and the battles were wholly engaging. It was promoted as dark and sinister, and that's what it was.
After 1 of 3 scheduled viewings, I'm giving ROTS a 7/10. Big ups for finally writing a flowing script, motivating the players, and remembering the true motivation for this new trilogy. Docking points for the gigantic, enormous, Mack truck sized plot hole in the fact that Anakin's turn to the dark side was to learn how to save Padme from dying, of which he never asked how, never trained to do so, never expressed interest in doing, and factually almost killed her himself.