Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

The first thought that popped into my head when thinking about how I felt about Revenge of the Sith was: “Finally, Lucas gives the people what they want.”

Here are some thoughts and complaints:

Complaints:

• Pacing – This film moves at light speed for the most part, with the pace increasing as time marches on. The last 10 minutes are absolute bare-bones wrap-up. A lot of what leads up to A New Hope is completely glossed over, only giving fans the simplest, dryest possible solution. RoTS could easily have spanned 6 hours at the proper pace.
• Technology – It’s as if ILM suddenly said “Whoops” we forgot that these movies are supposed to come before A New Hope. The prequels have always suffered from looking “more modern” than the films that succeed them chronologically. But in RoTS, every cut scene brings a new ship that looks ever-slightly more like what we expect to see in ANH. It felt like they were rushing to de-volve the technology enough to make ANH plausible.
• Darth Vader Insta-Turn – Anakin goes from being a “wanna-be-nice” Jedi to an Evil Bastard(tm) in about 3 hours of real time… 20 minutes of film time. Far to quickly. In reality [sic] it should have been a much more agonizing decision spanning weeks or months. It’s like Sidious says, “Hey I know about this great technique that can help you out.” Anakin goes, “Wow, really… okay, I’m in.” with about 10 seconds of deliberation.
• The Vader Scream – Ugh. This was about as grating as the infamous Toshi Station Whine. I knew the scene was supposed to be emotional and serious but I couldn’t help but look around to see if everyone else felt as awkward as I did. I think the scene would have been much better served with complete silence from Vader along with the force-quake that ensues in the film.
• Kashyyk – Completely pointless. As I watched the battle on Kashyyk I was like, “okay, this is a cool battle. Why are we watching it? Eh, I guess it doesn’t matter because it’s so neat to look at.” Afterwards I was like, what they heck was the point of that? A friend of mine gave me the answer… Chewbacca. Apparently to further strengthen the link between the prequels as the “real” Star Wars movies, they had to work Chewie into the mix. The funny thing is, his presence in the film is absolutely forgettable. He doesn’t really do anything at all… except perhaps shuttle Yoda to a Doctor Evil Escape-Egg(tm).
• Too-Close Sabers – Many of the lightsaber duels are filmed at extremely close range. Apparently as of late, film makers think that this technique “adds excitement” or “heightens the action”, when in reality it just makes the viewers think “would you just friggin zoom out a little?” and “Um.. I can’t see what the heck is going on”. This technique first became apparent to me during Gladiator. It was repeated in the Lord of The Rings films… and now it shows up here. Too bad. The wide screen, full-body action of the Darth Maul duel in Phantom Menace remains ultra-cool simply because of the way it was filmed.

Cool Stuff:

• Natural Fighting – I can’t really pinpoint it, but the lightsaber battles in RoTS seemed more “natural” than in the past. They felt more realistic because of the do-anything-to-survive ways in which the characters used their sabers. Yoda throws his at one point, retrieves it and keeps hacking. Obi-wan uses his as a shield all the while approaching a Battle Droid until he steps right up to the droid and slashes it. Very, very cool. Mace’s saber catches a window at one point and instantly shatters the whole wall of glass.
• Palpy – Palpatine friggin’ rocks in RoTS. He is the definitive Evil Bastard. He plays Anakin like a fine violin and unleashes all the dirty tricks to get what he wants. And then there is Executive Order 66. AWESOME. He’s also a behind-the-back giggling fool, which just adds another notch to his awesomeness.
• Vader’s Rampage – Great stuff. Finally a little edge in a Star Wars film. Executive Order 66 at the same time serves up a double grande latte of Star Wars chocolately goodness.
• Goodness Grievous – After seeing the trailers, etc. I thought “must they introduce a new villain at this stage?” Well I’m glad they did. Grievous is very, very cool. I ask you, How can a four-saber wielding, lung-hacking, evil bastard, arachno-cyborg NOT be cool? Duh!
• Hollywood Touches – RoTS is the most “Hollywood” of the Star Wars movies. This instantly dawned on me during one or two scenes when characters spoke aloud what they were presently doing. Normally I wouldn’t like this, after all, imagine Leia saying aloud as she worked on R2 in the Blockade Runner, “Now I’m going to program this astromech unit to find a person who will help me with a coming battle.” We didn’t know what she was doing with R2 at that point, but we figured it out later. In RoTS, Grevious is in retreat mode and he openly announces that he is launching the escape pods even though there is nobody around to hear him. For some reason, I liked this throwback to classic Hollywood.