It will be very difficult to do this movie justice. In this final episode in the George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels, Lucas puts together and completes the story in a slam dunk manner. I must admit, I was very surprised by how good this film turned out to be. In many ways, at least in my mind, this film redeems Lucas for his failings as a director, and his failings in the director’s cuts of his original trilogy.
In this film, the seduction and fall of Anakin Skywalker is played out, and he descends to become the Darth Vader we will know (and do know) in Star Wars episodes IV-VI. We also see how Emperor Palpatine comes to power, how the Republic is dismantled, how the Jedi are massacred, and how the clone war comes to an end. Quite frankly, it was almost too much, even for a 140 minute movie.
It is probably for this reason that the movie glosses over the deaths of the Jedi Order, which was actually anti-climatic. This oversight, as well as some other negative aspects in the film are worth noting right away. The biggest weakness in the film is the casting of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker. His performance is only tolerable when he isn’t speaking. This is coupled with a less than stellar performance by Natalie Portman, who portrays Padme, the mother of Luke Skywalker and Leia, makes for some mind numbing scenes of dialogue between the two.
Fortunately this movie had a number of strong performances, including Ewan McGregor’s portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine. There are other notable performances too, including Samuel L. Jackson’s “Mace Windu,” which is underutilized, and a surprisingly strong cast of extras and bit players.
Article comments
1 - Rahul R.
This is the best STAR WARS movie among the three prequels. In fact, I went to the movie without any expectations and therefore was surprised to see how good it turned out to be. The seduction of Anakin Skywalker to the dark sider is indeed fascinating and one should watch the movie to see how he finally becomes Darth Vader, which is quite shocking.
2 - Chad Kerychuk
I actually find Hayden to play the role perfectly, even though I don't think it's great acting. In fact, all of the actors played the 'Flash Gordon' roles just as George asked. But that is not necessarily a good thing. I may not like the whinyness, but that's the character George created.
Many of the actors aren't bad actors; you just have to look at their other films to see the evidence. But I think the fault lies in the Direction. Sam Jackson is great in all his other films, yet he comes across puppet-like in the new films.
In my opinion, the computer animation is superior in Attack of the Clones. Many sequences in Sith, including the ones with Clone Troopers and sequence where characters ride Creatures are very stilted. Look at the scene where the Clones have their helmets off, or where they are attacking in the sinkhole city.
Some of the space scenes, planets, and battle sequences are indeed fun and well done, and Yoda is a step-up in Sith, but nearly everything else digitally seemed to take a step back for me. Of course the Wargs in The Lord of the Rings didn't look convincing either, but Jackson's Weta really did everything else quite well. Perhaps because they retain more of their talent, while ILM may lose more over the course of films.
A lot of key points were just touched-upon (Jedi ghosts, Yoda going to Dagobah) and could have been expanded and helped cleaned up the story a bit. Even if it was a nice nod to the fans, we barely get to see any of the Wookies (though that will probably make the TV show) and there certainly weren't enough Jedi in the prequels to get a sense that they were diverse (all bipedal characters) or representative enough of The Knights of the Round Table (aside from the Anakin/Lancelot comparison). I also felt that having one apprentice (Maul or Dooku) would have helped tie the films togethers a little tighter. The biggest benefit would have been the addition of an 'everyman' like Solo. Someone who shoots first and asks questions later. A guy the audience can kind of relate to.
I did enjoy the movie quite a bit though, and will certainly be there to see subsequent 'Special Editions', new films (and we can bet that either Lucas or his kids will do more films down the road) and television shows. It wouldn't have taken much for Lucas to tweak these films and make them great, but its his money, and his worlds, so he can do what he wants. I just wish he would accept some criticism.
3 - Randem
Lucas redefined the term "tragedy" for this movie. In the past, a story was known as a tragedy if one of the main characters died, but Revenge of the Sith changed all that. This film is a tragedy because Lucas was able to take some very talented actors and - through his use of poor writing, direction, and production - make them look like amateurs.
Never before have I seen Samuel Jackson look so impotent on screen. Jimmy Smits might as well have been wearing a droid costume. Even Ian McDiarmid fell flat at points in this movie. The only good acting came from Ewan McGregor, who is apparently one of the few people in Hollywood who truly puts his entire being into each and every role.
Yoda's digitally rendered eyes showed incredible detail, and at one point Yoda played a range of emotions on the screen that can only be viewed as an overwhelming success for digitally rendered characters. But on the whole, the computer-generated details of this movie were far overused, and still lacked the realism of even an old silent movie. I count the special effects among this movies failures, not its successes.
The key to a good film is suspension of disbelief. Star Wars 4, 5, and 6 had it. Episodes 1, 2, and 3 do not. This was a disappointing climax to a disappointing trilogy, and its only redeeming quality is that there won't be another one.
4 - Flash Memory
Strong performances?...LOL ...the only strong performance I wanted to see was Hayden being a diamond-hard sith-lord in the bedroom with Portman, these performances were so weak we can surmise they fulfilled Lucas's aim to eventually completely digitize and virtualize the characters for later reimaginings...because the actors suck, and I...we can push the bounds of taste with virtual actors