THE FOLLOWING ENTRY REVEALS INFORMATION ABOUT SPECIFICS OF Revenge of the Sith!
Well, I just got out a few hours ago from seeing R.o.t.S. and the rumors you've been hearing are correct. The movie was great.
This isn't really any effort to be a comprehensive review, but some thoughts:
-- The reason this movie is great, whereas the last two sucked, is because it finally returns to the feel and style of the original trilogy. In the previous two movies I felt like the franchise somehow looked more like the mailman than the father. Not so in RotS.
--Ewan MacGregor does a LOT for this movie. The acting all around is not bad, as many have suggested. Even the lines, which old-school Star Wars aficionados can appreciate, are not painful except in a few spots.
But MacGregor really puts on Alec Guinness in this one, albeit years younger than the Obi Wan we know. He lends real acting credibility. Hayden Christiansen is not nearly as bad as many critics have said. The emperor is true to form, although admittedly a relatively shallow typecast. By contrast we have Vader -- we get the breadth and depth of what leads to his supervillainy in the original trilogy.
-- Which leads me to a minor disappointment. (STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT MOVIE INFO.)
-- When Anakin dons the Vader suit after the action peak of the movie -- simultaneuos duels between Yoda & Sidious and Kenobi & Skywalker -- the viewer is treated to the only humanism you'll get out of the big black lug until the culmination of Return of the Jedi. He asks the Emperor what has become of Padme and is told that he killed her. Vader begins to rage, and I reasonably expected to see some serious fireworks and a good primal scream. No such luck. There's just a corny "No!" that even Howard Dean coulda done better than.
-- The animation is much better in this movie than the previous two, although I still prefer the elaborate costumes of the original trilogy. The characters look more real and aren't caricatures. Justice is done with Yoda's character, who seriously brawls without the midget-wrestling sideshow feeling given when he battled Dooku in episode II. Facial expressions are right on. Like with Kenobi, we get a great sense of the character we know, at a younger age.
-- The references to this movie being anti-Bush are a big stretch. Aside from a few ultra-basic and warped statements by Sidious on democracy, peace, and security, there are no developed allegories going on in this movie. While these lines are easily identifiable with our own dark lord Darth Dubya, they're a passing shot and totally undeveloped -- thank God.
-- Another triumph of this film was to really tie the two series together, which it did admirably. When considering how much more identifiable with the original trilogy it is, the denouement is nearly seamless, ending with the placement of Luke and Leia. At this point even the film's artistic styling - the grain, the appearances, etc - shift noticeably into old-school mode. It's well done and made me leave the theater wanting to go ahead and start with the first Star Wars (A New Hope).
-- There is no letdown with action and violence! I vaguely object to the opening scene, a space fighter sequence that's hard to follow and carries little weight. I also felt somwhat disappointed in how Lucas carries out the extermination of the Jedi -- somewhat graceless and I feel sells the Jedi somewhat short (shot in back by droids, etc.).
But I meant to focus on the good here - lightsaber battles galore, dream matchups - one of the highlights of the film is the fight between Mace Windu and Sidious. Windu gets dissed a bit by critics and it's unwarranted. Jackson plays the part understated but well, and the actual scene -- which is where Skywalker goes bad -- has great parallels to the Emperor/Vader/Luke scene at the end of Return of the Jedi.
-- There has been talk about the movie's "darkness" but that's a load of hooey. It's not scary and not disturbing. The only really deep-end part is Anakin's assault on the Jedi Temple, in which it is implied (and later confirmed) that Anakin slaughters children training as Jedis. But it's off-camera and therefore only vaguely horrifying, and it's overall good as a benchmark for the depths of Anakin's fall.
And that's what this movie is about, really, so throw in the action and even a bit of suspense, and it's a winner.
It's not as quite as good as any of the original trilogy, but it's very, very close -- at least it deserves to be put alongside them.
Ultimately I think critics were dying for something to criticize because let's face it, this isn't Shakespeare. It must offend their cinematographic sensibilities. But this ain't a movie to live up to movie standards. It's a Star Wars. And finally, thank God, it lives up to Star Wars standards.
