Saw the movie this afternoon and loved it! The only parts that were painful for me to watch (as in "Gaah, move along," not "Gaah, my eyes!") were the Anakin/Padme love scenes. Other than that, two thumbs up from me. I know my smark membership card's gonna be revoked for this, but I think
Episode III is actually the best of the
Star Wars films. For that matter, I think
Episode II is better than a lot of people give it credit for-- I'd put it third overall behind
Revenge of the Sith and
The Empire Strikes Back.To quickly answer someone's question about Yoda's reasoning for going to Dagobah. In addition to that dark tree, which housed tremendous evil energy and thus apparently shrouded Yoda from Palpatine's senses, the novelization of
The Empire Strikes Back states that Dagobah isn't on any star chart-- which was one of the reasons R2 thought Luke had lost his mind when he announced their destination. I'm guessing Yoda did the same thing with Dagobah as Dooku apparently did with Kamino-- he erased Dagobah from the Jedi Archive's data banks, knowing all along that was where he was going.
The lightsaber sequences were out of this world. Obi-Wan/Anakin was #1 in my book, just as I expected it would be. After that, in this order I'd go with Yoda/Sidious, Windu/Sidious, Obi-Wan/Grievous and (the only disappointing one) Anakin/Dooku. Although Anakin/Dooku was very important from a storyline standpoint, don't misunderstand me. I just thought it was over far too quickly, that's all. Did I miss any of the major 'saber fights?
I'd like to know who that kid was who, while Order 66 was in full effect, suddenly broke out his lightsaber and killed like seven or eight Clone Troopers in front of Senator Organa before being gunned down. Brave lad.
I loved when Obi-Wan regained consciousness after several minutes... in that time, Dooku had been killed, Palpatine had been saved and the gravity was doing all sorts of funky things during the atmospheric re-entry. "Did I
miss something?" HA!
Overall, I think the Obi-Wan/Anakin dynamic was much improved in
Revenge of the Sith. Obi-Wan seemed far too bossy, too critical of Anakin in
Episode II-- he didn't have nearly enough patience and understanding towards Anakin. In
Episode III he related to him more as an equal, or at least like a younger brother. He was still a mentor, but the good-intentioned scolding in the previous movie was replaced by more patience. But you could tell Obi-Wan was still disappointed by Anakin in some ways.
Quickly on the Jar-Jar issue before I move on-- sure, I, too, would have liked to see Jar-Jar die a stabbity death. But I was relieved in any event that Jar-Jar's role in
Episode III was
extremely minimal-- in fact, if I recall correctly, he didn't speak a single word. I can live with him as a background character, just don't thrust him in my face for 70 minutes like they did in
Episode I.Sasee Tinn and Agen Kolar were made quick work of by Sidious, weren't they? Kit Fisto, at least, managed to get
some offensive moves against him before he, too, met his fate. Makes you wonder... is Mace that good, or are Tinn, Kolar and Fisto simply that bad?
The reason Palpatine's face became so hideously distorted is because when he shot his lightning at Mace (after a brief period in which Mace was hit with some of it), the vast majority of that lightning was repelled back onto Palpatine's face. If you watch, his face becomes more and more distorted as the lightning is reflected onto him. Quite disgusting, actually.
I think he actually
was beaten, and Mace would have killed him if Anakin hadn't interfered. And I agree with Mace-- he was too dangerous to be kept alive. No chance that Palpatine would have gotten a fair trial. Jedi code be damned. He had to die. Anakin could have chosen to allow Mace to kill Palpatine, but erred in aligning himself
with Palpatine.
The Emperor's manipulations throughout the prequel trilogy have been brilliant-- both his manipulation to gain power over the Republic, and his manipulation to gain power over Anakin, which have a lot in common in many ways. Surely if Anakin had been born on a Republic world, he would have been taken into the Order at a very young age, and his life would have turned out a lot differently. He would have had no mother that he was aware of, and therefore wouldn't have gone all Steiner on the Tuskens who killed her. But this thing about Darth Plagueis' ability to create life with the midicholorians raises the question, as others have brought up, about how Anakin was conceived. I think one of the Sith Lords used this power to bring Anakin into being, and because he was born in the sticks of Tattooine, his power went unrecognized for many years.
In the meantime, Sidious created the Naboo crisis, manipulating the Trade Federation into blocking that world even though, in reality, Palpatine was representing that world in the Senate. In fact, that was exactly why he
chose Naboo-- because the crisis would engender sympathy for Naboo which would help to win Palpatine the Supreme Chancellor seat once he had Padme call for the vote of no-confidence in Valorum.
So when he said to Padme, "I think our crisis will generate a good percentage of sympathy votes" (paraphrased) he wasn't just hoping that would happen-- he was counting on it.
But he needed another crisis in order to consolidate his power base-- so he had his new apprentice, Darth Tyranus (a.k.a. Count Dooku) call in an order for the clone troopers and blame Syfo-Dias (or however that worked-- what's important is that Palpatine was ultimately responsible for the clonet troopers coming into play). Only Palpatine and Dooku knew that the Clone War between the Republic and the Separatists was ultimately being staged by the two Sith Lords for the purpose of gaining further powers for Palpatine. And though Dooku actually
told Obi-Wan in
Episode II that "the Republic is being controlled by a Sith Lord named Darth Sidious", he didn't tell him Sidious' alter-ego
or mention the fact that he, himself, was also a Sith Lord. And by the time the Jedi came to the realization that Sidious and Palpatine were the same person, he had already gained far too much power. (Thanks a
lot, Jar Jar.)
Between
Episode I and
Episode II, Palpatine clearly took Anakin into his confidence and treated him like a son. It made him far more vulnerable to Palpatine's deception in
Episode III, when he was able to convince Anakin that the Jedi were plotting to take over the Republic. Add that to Palpatine talking about Plagueis and his alleged ability to stop people from dying (which he knew would intrigue Anakin because if he'd had the power earlier, he might have been able to save his mother-- and with the power, he might be able to save Padme)-- and Palpatine had stacked the deck so much in his favor that it made a lot of sense, from a character perspective, when Anakin finally fell to the Dark Side.
And when Anakin starts slaying Jedi left and right, he's doing it for the same reason the Jedi are going after the Sith-- because he loves the Republic, and believes the Jedi want to overthrow everything he believes in. But he doesn't realize just how evil Palpatine truly is, because he's been blinded by all of this deception.
So I think the writing, from that standpoint, was fantastic-- very logical, slow, methodical. When Anakin fell to the Dark Side, it was believable, you know? You don't agree with his decision, obviously, but you understand the thought process behind his
making that decision.
I think the following Obi-Wan/Anakin fight was tremendous, and very emotional for both men. Obi-Wan believes Anakin has betrayed him, Anakin believes Obi-Wan has betrayed him, and the time for diplomacy is over-- we got bidness we need to conduct, and only one of us is coming out alive. But dammit, Obi-Wan, you should have killed Anakin when you had the chance. It wasn't necessary to allow him to suffer like that, with his skin melting away and all that (definitely the most gruesome scene in any
Star Wars film, without question)-- he was in terrible agony, and he should've done the right thing and finished the job. It would have been a humanitarian move on his part, and it would've left Palpatine once more without an apprentice. If he's still alive, the job isn't done yet.
But obviously, if he'd killed Anakin, there wouldn't have been an original trilogy, and I'd be spending this time talking about, I don't know, some other movie.
In any event, I loved the movie, I'm definitely gonna see it again at some point, gonna buy the novelization, gonna buy the DVD, and at some point I'll set aside 12 hours and watch Episodes I-VI back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back.
Now, everyone go watch
Star Wars Revelations like I told ya earlier, and bridge the gap (albeit unofficially) between III and IV!
(edited by ekedolphin on 22.5.05 2219)
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