I know I may forfeit my claim to geekdom by admitting this, but I saw Star Wars Episode 3 for the first time tonight. (In my defense, having two kids does make it tricky to see movies very often). Don’t think I’m not a Star Wars fanboy, though, because I am. I saw Episodes I and II opening night, saw all the remakes in the theater, and have pretty much all the dialogue from episodes 4-6 memorized. I just never made time for Episode 3, for which I am sorry.
After Attack of the Clones, I thought to myself, “there’s no way Lucas is going to be able to wrap up all those loose ends in a nice neat package in Episode 3. The movie would have to be 4 hours long.” Color me surprised and impressed that he pulled it off. Revenge of the Sith is everything we wanted the first two movies to be. I thought Phantom Menace was okay and AotC was decent but they didn’t live up to what I imagined in my mind’s eye. RotS did. (I know it’s pretentious as a fan to “expect” certain things from a movie, but Star Wars fans don’t exactly abide by such norms.) It had moments that made me cringe but overall it succeeded at what it was – a segue into A New Hope.
I was also impressed with Christensen. His performance in AotC was wooden. I’ve seen two-by-fours with more personality than his Anakin in that movie. In episode 3 his acting seemed much more geniune. Poor Anakin/Vader was a troubled soul. His relationship with Padme seemed strained but everything else he did worked. When Vader’s helmet was lowered and he took his first breaths as “more machine than man,” I felt chills.
And can we all agree that Yoda is one bad mamma-jamma? Is he Lucas’ favorite character or what? Again, chills.
So yeah, I was late to the party but I’m glad I came. Revenge of the Sith made up amply for whatever trespasses Lucas may have comitted in the first two movies. All is well in the Star Wars galaxy.
(Oh, and sorry about the post title. It’s late, I’m tired, and that’s all I got. Sorry)
I still haven’t been. Won’t do, either. Perhaps I’ll con someone into renting it so I can watch it when it’s released on DVD.
I thought about skipping this one and waiting for video, too, but it was an enjoyable theater experience. In the end it was one last shot at feeling that “Star Wars Feelin'” on more time. And it worked.
Finally, some people on the web who are not on the “hate” bandwagon.
It was a good movie, not the best this year, but a good movie nonetheless. My only gripe was how the “disappearing” dead Jedi trick was written off at the end. Bah.
Christensen is a good actor, but SW does not bring out the best in him. He was better in this movie. However, 90% of his part in the film was to tilt his head down and look up through his eyebrows. That makes you bad.
Portman’s part was kind of written off as well, but she had the best line, “So this is how liberty dies to the sound of applause.”
Palpatine had the freakiest line.
Anakin: “Where does one learn this power?”
Palpatine: “Not from a Jedi…”
Over the top and freaky. Loved it.
Yoda is the shiznit….Mace Windu was the only guy to ever defeat the Emperor hand-to-hand. I wanted him to go all Pulp fiction on him, but oh well.
If it makes you feel any better, I still haven’t seen it either. I’ll wait for the DVD. I prefer sitting on the couch then a cramped up over-priced theatre.
I thought it was OK, certainly better than the other two prequels. Maybe as good as Return of the Jedi, but certainly no classic. There were just too many cringeworthy moments and somehow making Darth Vader the result of obsessive love makes him less interesting as a towering villain.
I think the problem with the prequels is that Lucas began to buy all the fan boy talk of Star Wars being an epic, when, in fact, it is a popcorn serial with epic undertones. So the prequels tended to put the epic arc ahead of the fun stuff.
All that said, RotS had some great light saber stuff (maybe a little too much of it) and the Third Reich imagery was reinforced without being a sledgehammer. Portman was terrible, but they really gave her nothing to do but look sad.
If you like Star Wars you will love this. Watch the video clip of the One man Star Wars show. Quite funny and quite good.
One man Star Wars show
Yeah, I’m with Troy on this one – it was okay. I might even say it was better than Return, although that would truly be damning with faint praise indeed. And “cringe-worthy” is right! Right off the bat, when he said “My power is twice that of before”, I cringed at how stilted the dialog was. Exactly how did he measure his power, anyway? He can lift more now?