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STAR WARS: EPISODE III
REVENGE OF THE SITH
Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox, 2005

Directed by George Lucas
Screenplay by George Lucas and Tom Stoppard
Produced by Rick McCallum
Music by John Williams
Cinematography by David Tattersall
Edited by Roger Barton and Ben Burtt
Production Design by Gavin Bocquet
Visual Effects by Industrial Light and Magic

Cast
Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi)
Natalie Portman (Padmé)
Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker)
Iam McDiarmid (Supreme Chancellor Palpatine)
Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu)
Jimmy Smits (Senator Bail Organa)
Frank Oz (voice of Yoda)
Anthony Daniels (C3PO)
Christopher Lee (Count Dooku)
Kenny Baker (R2D2)

Man, I am relieved. Perhaps not as relieved as the serious radical core of Star Wars fans. (I do not consider myself in any way a ‘fan’ of the franchise; I’m rather a science-fiction and pulp fan and therefore linked to Star Wars no matter what. However, my fannish interests lie with J. R. R. Tolkien, Godzilla, James Bond, and various superheroes.) After two very bad Star Wars prequels—the execrable and embarrassing The Phantom Menace and the disappointing and sappy Attack of the Clones, Lucas finally remembers what the story should actually be about and delivers an exciting space opera/tragedy where the characters can at last take some equal standing with the assault of myriad visual effect set-pieces. The people don’t supersede the spectacle, as in the excellent The Empire Strikes Backs, or provide the genuine pulp joy and 1940s sharp dialogue of the original Star Wars, but for big space opera excitement, Revenge of the Sith has a good dramatic story and doesn’t insult the intelligence. And yes, despite some action overkill and far too many lightsaber duels, it’s also quite thrilling.

Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader delivers the film’s best surprise: he’s not that bad. His performance in Attack of the Clones was so wooden he nearly sunk the whole thing, and having to mouth the inane dialogue with an almost as wooden Natalie Portman made the love scenes near-intolerable. Christensen has matured as an actor, apparently; or else he merely handles dark brooding far better than cutesy kissy-face love scenes. Either way, as the slowly darkening Anakin Skywalker, he’s far more effective than I could have expected.

And Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side comes across well. Even having to compress it all into this one movie, it doesn’t come as a rapid change until the very last moment when Anakin makes a bit too snap a decision to submit to Darth Sidious. Otherwise, the scenes of Palpatine/Sidious slowly working on Anakin’s innate good desires to twist them, such as the young Jedi’s protectiveness of his family and his desire to save the Republic and ‘bring peace’ no matter the cost, are the best in the movie. Ian McDiarmid’s subtle performance as Palpatine helps out immensely here as well. Unfortunately, when he makes the full change over to the scarred and twisted Darth Sidious, he starts chewing the scenery a bit much for my tastes. His big duel with the ‘flippin’ and floppin’’ version of Yoda in the Senate is a case of extreme overkill—even if it works well as a metaphor to see a former senator use the components of a democracy as weapons to bring it down. (Yes, there are many disturbing parallels in this movie to the current political situation, a fact that everybody seems to have picked up. Draw your own conclusions and wonder if any of it is intentional. I personally don’t think it is)

On the flip side of Hayden Christensen’s performance is Natalie Portman’s. For such a fine actress, this flat display of acting looks embarrassing. Padme has scant to do here except sit around her gorgeous apartments and worry about Anakin, and Portman doesn’t even do that convincingly. There are far fewer “groaner” scenes here than in the first two prequels, but all of them involve Padme. She delivers the film’s absolute worst line, complete with overworked vibrato: “Anakin, you are breaking my heart!”

The last hour of the film flips between some intense dramatics—such as the immolation of Anakin after his lengthy duel with Obi-Wan—and far too many rapid cuts between planets. With so much to get done, the movie loses some focus, but the power of Anakin’s descent and the tragic sight of watching the Republic die before our eyes as the Jedi fall to the clone warriors redeems it. Some of the action sequences seem like padding, such as Obi-Wan’s duel with the underused and under-explained General Grevious. (I couldn’t figure out exactly what he was supposed to be: droid or cyborg? Why the cough? Where in the universe did his Jedi training come from and why didn’t he use it earlier?) As I mentioned before, there are far too many lightsaber duels, which does tend to dilute some of their effectiveness. The opening space battle is visually spectacular, calling to mind the Lensmen stories of E. E. Smith—the true original inspiration for Star Wars—but contains the only place where Lucas unwisely loads up on silly comedy. Thankfully, he drops the jokey attitude after that, and there are no comic antics from C3PO during the climatic scenes.

This place looks really familiar…

And yes, I found the ending quite moving. We’ve waited three movies to see how these events would eventually link up with Star Wars and the original trilogy, and the fitting together of the pieces is satisfying and provides the needed uplift for what is otherwise a story of failure and destruction. The visual reminders of Star Wars, such as the interior of Bail Organa’s ship Blockade Runner and Owen and Beru watching the binary sunset of Tatooine while holding the infant Luke Skywalker in their arms, provide the feeling that even in the tragedy of Anakin’s fall and the death of democracy, hope remains.

But…and I have to bring this up…this whole story will culminate in an awful and disappointing movie: The Return of the Jedi. With the quality of this final installment, Return of the Jedi now only appears worse. For Anakin’s final redemption and the fall of Palpatine’s Empire, it’s sadly underwhelming.

Did anybody else think that General Grievous was an homage to Kali in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad? Lucas has made plenty of references to Harryhausen before, and I know he's a fan.

Death! Death to our enemies, Kali!
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