quote:

Show opens with a scene from the battle of Kashyyk.

Roeper: The most anticipated movie of the year, the decade, the century, finally comes to theaters...I'm Richard Roper

Ebert: And I'm Roger Ebert. Well here it is at last "Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith". It opens Wednesday at midnight. This is an early review, after 28 years the Star Wars series concludes with a final shot showing two characters facing a dawn of what we know will be parts 4,5 and 6.

By starting in the middle and returning to the beginning, Lucas loses some suspence since we already know that Anakin Skywalker will become Darth Vader.

But the transition is in a way all the more facinating as we see a younger and a more innocent Anakin (played by Haden Christensen)in love with Padme (played by Natalie Portman).

Their twins will be the future Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. As the movie opens, Anakin and a young Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Ewan MacGregor)are flying to the rescue of the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine.

Palpatine (played by Ian McDermid)has an uneasy relationship with the Jedi Council and tries to shake Anakin's loyalty to the Jedi.

Can Anakin be trusted? Mace Windu, Obi Wan and Yoda have their doubts about this untested young man.

That's Samuel L. Jackson as the powerful Jedi Master Mace Windu and of course Frank Oz as the voice of Yoda.

Finally the hostility surfaces in a duel to the death on a firey volcanic planet.

Revenge of the Sith is filled with action, including a thrilling dogfight, a sensational crash landing, maybe a little more dueling by lightsabers than you really need since since the swordsman are so good it takes forever for anyone to actually get hurt.

The weakness is in the dialogue. It's flat when it should be poetic and exciting. They seem to be working from a limited vocabulary of basic english.

This would be a bigger problem if the characters spoke more but they don't, except for Chancellor Palpatine who is eloquent and snakey as he seduces Anakin over to the Dark Side.

Thumbs Up

ROEPER: Yeah the Chancellor is the real villan in this chapter. Big thumbs up for me Roger. And you're right about the dialogue THAT'S ALWAYS BEEN A WEAKNESS IN THESE MOVIES.

But that's a small part of this saga. I do like the action sequences alot. I think this movie has something that the most recent two had none of and that is it has a heart. It really does. I mean the Natalie Portman character Padme..

EBERT: Yeah

ROEPER: I mean she's playing this as real drama. She's seen the man she loves going to the dark side and it's really breaking her heart and it feels authentic.

EBERT: Yeah, the last third of the movie is stronger thanks to that emotional content. But at the same time I wish that in a way he(Lucas) would have pumped up the dialogue you have people saying things like 'They're worried about you, they think you're under too much stress'. I mean come on.

ROEPER: Yeah. Hey absolutley

EBERT: I mean its just pedestrian clunky dialogue.

ROEPER: Maybe they should have brought someone like David Mamet to punch it up

EBERT: Somebody like Jackson (Samuel L.) is such an eloquent actor and here he is just intoning. THAT'S JUST A WEAKNESS OF THE SERIES.

ROEPER: But of the recent movies this is the best...

EBERT: Yes it is

ROEPER: I actually think it's the best one since Empire Strikes Back. Maybe the third best out of the 6.

EBERT: What this one does, it goes back to the great tradition of Space Opera, and action, and science fiction and gets out of those long dialogue passages that were not only badly written but also endless.

ROEPER: Yeah and as you mentioned of course the suspense isn't all quite there because we know what's going to happen.

EBERT: Yeah we know

ROEPER: But that also gives the scenes alot more resonance.

EBERT: The scene where Anakin turns into Darth Vader and how that mask is applied ...

ROEPER: Powerful stuff

EBERT:....that's a good scene.

ROEPER: So two thumbs up for Star Wars.

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Episode III delivers
Finale wraps up Anakin's tale, as well as a career-long journey for Lucas

By Michael Wilmington
Tribune movie critic
Published May 16, 2005


The climax for George Lucas' entire "Star Wars" series comes in a blaze of fire and darkness, wild light-saber battles and enough Sturm, Drang and digital pyrotechnics to fill multiplexes from here to Tatooine.

Like some grand, crazy Moebius strip of fantasy and adventure, "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," twists back on itself to end where it began, with all the players and puzzle pieces finally explained and set in motion, ready for the events of the first "Star Wars" film (1977's "Episode IV: A New Hope") to start all over again.

Is that a spoiler? Yet who in the world doesn't know how this "Star Wars" is going to finish: with Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) making his last metamorphosis and the Evil Empire rising? Actually, it's hard to think of any big popular movie entertainment that has ended -- or appeared to end -- more horrifically and tragically than this one, with not just characters we may like, but an entire planet, galaxy and way of life going up in flames.

It doesn't matter, of course. I enjoyed the movie. Even though many critics have been rough on the last two "Star Wars" (1999's "The Phantom Menace" and 2002's "Attack of the Clones"), this one is a smashing success on its own terms, achieving exactly what Lucas wanted and carrying most of its viewers where they want to go.

It's also the scariest, most exciting, most visually prodigious of the sextet, with action sequences that explode off the screen, characters who finally awaken your sentiments (a bit) and images of violence, inferno, chaos and the dark side that descend like a shroud of noir.

"Revenge of the Sith" begins with an amazing, bang-up air fight, -- led by young Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin, whipping through the skyscrapers and alleys of city-planet Coruscant -- and ends with awesome visions of destruction, a fantastic plunge into the abyss.

The story that charts the last stages of the eventual Evil Emperor's insidious plot to overthrow interplanetary parliamentary democracy and replace it with tyranny and horror is enhanced by incredible digital imagery. CGI bears the actions from the violent battles with renegade Jedi Count Dooku (Christopher Lee); to starchy parliamentary debates presided over by Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid); to intrigue on the Jedi council; to the tragic love of Anakin and Padme (Natalie Portman); to Obi-Wan's grand military adventure; to Yoda's swashbuckling Errol Flynn act; looks at the series' most persistent characters, robots C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) -- and, finally, to the blinding terrors of the dark side of the Force.

All of this approaches a darkness even deeper than that of 1980's "The Empire Strikes Back," the critical favorite of the entire series, and earns this movie the series' first PG-13 rating.

Yet the final effect is exhilarating. The gloom and tragedy are muted because we know the real end of the story, the fireworks-fantasy celebration of the Evil Empire's end, set decades later, in 1983's "Return of the Jedi."

Lucas has constructed the whole last half of the epic double trilogy something like the flashback solution of a mystery story, though by now little of it is a surprise. As he writes finis to a project that has preoccupied him for most of his moviemaking career, he achieves once again, at his best, technological marvels and storytelling delight with characters who (Yoda charmingly excepted) have become endearingly stiff, trading dialogue that's beguilingly clunky.

Now, as he puts a close to the epic (if not to the merchandising), we can feel something for which many critics never gave him enough credit: the real affection and personal joy he took in these movies, the ways he fussed and fretted over them, and the ways he ignored the Hollywood establishment and forged his own relationship with the audience. Perhaps it's that personal investment in what is usually the impersonal blockbuster form that really bothers Lucas' most intelligent critics. They may feel that ambition should be saved for less silly stuff.

But throughout his career, Lucas, like his comrade/colleague Steven Spielberg, has gotten a raw deal from some for bringing pleasure to audiences. All the "Star Wars" movies will continue to entertain us for many years to come. They were grand fun, and this last one's a corker. That's all the defense they need.