KMC Forums - My Review for Revenge of the Sith

The Good

The Performances
I honestly think that nearly every performance, across the board was exceptional. Words barely describe how utterly wonderful Ian McDiarmid, Sam Jackson and Ewan McGregor are. I don�t think I�ve ever seen these actors on this form before, especially McGregor. Yoda, as expected, steals every scene he�s in. He hasn�t been this good since Empire. The nicest surprise of all though is Hayden Christensen. In AOTC he�s played as a whiny, annoying little brat, but this time around Christensen is saved by both a competent script and a visible effort to improve drastically on his previous work.
Then there�s McDiarmid. Palpatine is so ridiculously cool in this film. He certainly isn�t a blandly evil character anymore, but one who has an intriguing back-story and motive.

The Pacing
Many may disagree, but I felt the pacing of the film was impeccable. It started as quickly and excitingly as you�d want from a Star Wars film, before slowing down nicely and reintroducing you to the characters as Palpatine begins to seduce Anakin to the dark side. The film then builds up over the next hour and a half into a series of unimaginably emotional highs, and then ends as perfectly as you could possibly want from a film that has to connect two trilogies. All I wanna do afterwards is run home and watch A New Hope

The Effects
The effects work is astounding. Episode 3 looks as pretty as any of the original trilogy or TPM.

The Music
I don�t even need to elaborate here, John Williams is God as always. Duel of the Fates into the Yoda/Palpatine duel was nice as well.

The Lightsaber Fights!
Man, these are always a lot of fun. Let me comment on each individually�

Count Dooku vs. ObiWan/Anakin
This was a nice little fight. It felt too much as though Dooku�s only purpose in this film was too die early, which was sad, but it was a well choreographed and well shot scene with some nice goading from Dooku and a really cool end *waves goodbye to Dooku�s hands and head*. I liked Palpatine�s part in the entire thing too.

Mace Windu & friends vs. Palpatine
I actually enjoyed this one much more then I expected. The three Jedi that Mace takes with him all get killed off in about 5 seconds, but when its purple vs. red, it�s good fun. I absolutely love the way Palpatine�s transformation into shrivelled man takes place, and even though some of the dialogue and delivery once Anakin arrives is a tad clunky, it can�t take away from the coolness of Samuel L Jackson�s epic death scene. I predict that the extended universe and fanfiction writers will embrace Mace as NOT BEING DEAD, and as a decided supporter of the �MACE IS ALIVE� campaign, I can�t wait to read some of their work. I doubt the lightening killed him, and even with only one hand, I am confident he could have used the force to save himself and then gone into hiding... or maybe even have confronted Vader at a later date.

ObiWan vs. General Grievous
I didn�t care for this fight all that much. It was moderately entertaining, and anything with McGregor is always watchable, but Grievous� 4 lightsabers were unnecessary. Surely ObiWan could have just used the force to rip out his guts or something, instead of getting the nuts kicked out of him for a fair while. The fight was also too short for my taste, with the hype of Grievous and all.

Yoda vs. Palpatine
I really liked this, infact, I�d go as far as to say that on a purely �action� level, it�s the best duel in the film. You take two of the most powerful guys in the entire saga, and throw them together in a duel that �out epics� anything else the film has to offer. Your emotional investment may be with Anakin and ObiWan, but you just can�t beat the sheer coolness of these two throwing those huge senate pods at each other whilst Duel of the Fates plays out in the background.

Anakin vs. ObiWan
This is �the big one�, I guess. �THE DUEL�, as it�s affectionately been known since before the prequels were announced. Does it fulfil expectations? I think�yes, probably, just about.
In terms of actual sword fighting, it�s very fast and intense, though Nowhere near as gymnastically exciting as the big fight in Episode 1, or even as acrobatic as Yoda�s fight with the Emperor, but the varying threats posed by the hostile environment and the absolute intensity of the fight make it some of the best stuff in the prequel trilogy. I am a bit pissed off that it�s a blue vs. blue saber fight, as contrasting colours look so much better, but the highlight of the battle is the words being thrown around rather then the sword fighting. Both the scene preceding the duel, and the scene that concludes it are breathtakingly emotional and tragic. Those who have seen the film already know this, those who haven�t�. you�ll find out soon enough. Apparently there�s a really nice quote about the end of the duel in the novelisation that sums it up�

".... In the end, he was still Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he was still a Jedi, and he would not murder a helpless man. He would leave it to the will of the Force. He turned and walked away...."

The Bad

General Grievous
It�s not so much that Grievous is a badly executed character; it�s more that he is totally unnecessary. Why introduce ANOTHER villain so late in the game, merely to sell more toys, when Palpatine and Dooku are adequate enough. Surely it would have been wiser to keep Dooku alive longer, and have ObiWan kill him off on Utapau, rather then bringing in a slightly tacky computer generated cyborg. It doesn�t help that his voice/coughing is pointless and irritating. This is definitely a character I could do without.

Not Star Warsey enough
This is an interesting point, but kinda relevant, although not necessarily an irritant, I just felt that aesthetically, the film had less in common with the original Star Wars films then TPM. Lucas attempts to be visually innovative and try new things with his camera, which works out nicely, but could be seen to affect the overall visual continuity of the series. It doesn�t really matter though, at least the CG looks real this time *glowers at AOTC*.

A couple of dodgy lines
Again, not that irritating. AOTC script had dozens of cringeworthy lines, this movie thankfully gets away with only a few. The �love scenes� between Anakin and Padme are vastly improved on those in Episode 2, and only a couple of moments between the characters spring to mind in regards to crappy dialogue. Much worse is Palpatine�s �NO NO NO� when he is turning into a raisin, and Vader�s �NOOOOOOOO� at the end (which I will discuss shortly).

Vader in Suit
I can understand why Vader has been the driving force behind this films marketing campaign, so it�s a dreadful pity that he is shafted when it comes to screentime, and the material he DOES get is a bit poor. I don�t know what Lucas was thinking, really. The guy had years to build up to those 90 seconds that Vader actually APPEARS in his suit, and he f**ks it up by only giving the guy a couple of lines�both of which are extraordinarily lame. I acknowledge that the films structure wouldn�t really allow for him to have much screentime, but less then 2 minutes is, frankly, taking the piss out of the legions of fans who love this series and wanted to see the character explored in more depth. The cheesy �NOOOOOOOOO� that he lets out upon learning of Padme�s death is one of the aforementioned �cringeworthy� moments in the film. Ironically, the best moment he has is in silence, as he walks out to look at the construction of the death star during the ending montage.

Wookies
When did the universe get so f**king small? Fair enough, I like Wookies�they look funny, make cool noises, but why the hell did Chewbacca have to be in this movie in such a tiny part? His entire existence in the film is to sell more toys to impressionable kids who�ll be excited that Chewie is �back!� in the new movie. Sorry to let you down kids, but the poor bastard gets even less screentime then Vader. It�s sad that Lucas goes to all the effort to insert Chewbacca into the film, but then cruelly cuts out Qui-Gon.

Lack of Qui-Gon
Without doubt my biggest annoyance with the film. The scene in which Qui-Gon converses with Yoda has been present in all the literature associated with the film. It�s in the novelisation, every single draft of the screenplay, and even the comic, but sadly Lucas felt it necessary to trim the scene out in the months leading up to its release.
The annoying thing is that the scene feels like it�s required. There�s something of a plot hole without it, as we witness Yoda meditating at the end of the film, just before Bail Organa enters and breaks his concentration (the moments that ended the �Qui-Gon� scene), and to add insult to injury, the short scene a while later where Yoda informs ObiWan that he has made contact with Qui-Gon is left in, leaving all but a minority in a state of confusion. Thankfully, as with Yoda/Dagobah, the scene should appear on the DVD.

As you can see, my problems with the movie are quite minor in general, and I think it fits nicely into the saga, however I might as well take this opportunity to bring up a major problem with the prequels.

They have been hideously disappointing.

Regardless of how entertaining aspects have been, as a whole, the prequels are not the films they could have been, or the films that an overhyped crowd expected. As films in their own right, the prequels are better then most blockbusters out there, but when you have the words �Star Wars� in your title, you have no excuse but to be a classic�and I don�t see any of the prequels as anything more then, at best, very good films.

They are not classics. They will never be classics. The Star Wars saga will always consist of three good films and three great ones.

But this one is soooooo close to greatness�

4.5/5