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'Revenge of the Sith' reviews (Spoilers)

Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

Apples and oranges.

Yeah. And I like apples much more than oranges.

It's more like trying to decide who's the smarter person, Albert Einstein, William Shakespear or Ludwig van Beethoven :p

And I fail to see the relevancy to start comparing everything to a movie that won't be out for months :p .. as much as I am looking forward to Serenity and desiterested in Episode III :D
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

But I dont think it was CAUSED by his own electric bolts, because we saw him years earlier with that face already.

I agree. I think him 'transforming' to the 'real' him was just for Anakin's benefit, to further lure him to the Darkside. That was also just the excuse he needed to convince the senate. I do find it somewhat odd that almost the entire senate was fooled into believing him and supporting his decison to create the Empire.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

Yay! I hope it makes loads of money. I know I want to go back and see it many, many more times. (I know I have trouble actualizing my desires, so I can't say with certainty that I will see it a whole lot, but I sure want to.)
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

don't agree with this at ALL LH. In fact, the Sidious's appearance throughout the entire Pre-quel movies has confused me.

In "The Phantom Menace" you see a transmission from Sidious to the Trade Federation dudes. He is in his hooded robe, and clearly has the same deformed face that the Emperor had in Return of the Jedi, as well as the face that the Chancellor's became.

So to me, he is deformed sometimes, and not others.

I think its something like, he is able to use the force/darkside to project the appearance of looking normal to hide who he is. When Anakin started whacking the Jedi-kiddies he got that same deformation in his eyes. It probably has something to do with the darkside of the force.

Actually the explanation for Palpatine's change in appearance is quite simple. He's been using a changling net for years! And when he gets in that final fight, it finally gets overloaded and blows!
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

I just saw the film today, & while it looked great, the script & directing were very weak. This was an important part of the saga, & Lucas should have gotten a better director to direct it. I guess I have been spoiled with the great, tragic scenes of B5. Here are a couple of scenes I had a problem with:
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In the scene where Obi-Wan sees the security-cam footage that proves Anakin went to the dark side, he shows very little emotion in his reaction, & it's a very quick segment. It's like, "Oh, Anakin went to the dark side, that's tragic, let's move on". I would have wanted some *tragedy* there! I mean, here is this guy Kenobi has trained himself, & they have become friends. The friend has now betrayed Kenobi & the rest of the Jedi. You would think that this would really hurt Obi-Wan, right? But he hardly reacts at all!

Also, when Anakin kills Mace, he is really troubled by it, saying "What have I done?" But mere seconds later he is pledging loyalty to Sidious/Palpatine. It just happened too quickly. Again, I would have made the scene more tragic, more heart-rending. Anakin would suffer a bit before Sidious finally convinced him to pledge loyalty.

I worried that Hayden Christensen wouldn't be able to pull off Anakin's change to the dark side. I was right, unfortunately. Hayden has intense eyes, but every time he is angry he sounds like he is whining. They should have gotten a better actor to play the older Anakin. I guess Lucas just hired him for his eyes, I don't know.

Again, Sith looks great, but I just wish the other elements had been stronger.

Tammy
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

Well, I enjoyed the movie. It was a good film. But I'm not about to say Best. Movie. Ever. or any other such fanboyish accolades.

The main problem I found was a poor middle act, with Anakin's seduction to the dark side (a loaded thing to say on this board ;)). Everything was far too telegraphed, and I found Palpatine's digs at the Jedi council just too obvious for someone who's been so subtle until now.

Obviously, characterization was the movie's weakness. The less said about Anakin and Padme's "love" dialogue ... actually, most of their exchanges, the better. And, yes, I didn't buy how a horrified Anakin would suddenly swear fealty to Palpatine, at least with the dialogue that was there. I don't really think it was as much Hayden's fault, as it was George's. Anakin wasn't the only one, though, most of the characters seemed a little off. Bail Organa really needed a better introduction, his character appears out of nowhere.

My final problem is that, looking chronologically, how would anyone want Vader's redemption? He slaughters children in ROTS, and we're supposed to be happy for his "redemption" in ROTJ?

Having said all that, the movie was still loads better than TPM or AOTC. The action sequences didn't seem overly drawn out, the scenes of the Jedi being betrayed were emotional, I even got a little teary when the kid was trying to get to Bail's speeder. The visuals and effects were really good.

In the final analysis, it's difficult to say how much of the enjoyment I got watching ROTS came from the nostalgia and tie-ins of the original triology and how much comes from the actual movie itself. I have to wonder what someone who'd never heard of Star Wars, would think of ROTS, presented with the Star Wars saga in story order.

The pacing was way off for me. All the scenes near the beginning were really short and choppy, and near the beginning it doesn't really feel coherent at all.

Oddly enough, I thought the pacing of ROTS was a significant improvement over the other prequels. TPM and AOTC both suffered from massive pacing issues, while ROTS had only minor issues, mainly from a characterization standpoint.

The whole Anakin/Obi-Wan fight was over the top and overdone -- and then Obi wins "because he has the high ground"? Uh-huh.

Especially given that Obi-wan managed to get Maul despite Maul controlled the high ground.

And evidently the trip from Coruscant to the lava world is about three minutes, because Palpatine arrives so quickly. (Actually travel times bugged me a lot throughout. "He's here! Now he's halfway across the galaxy! Who needs hyperdrive when Star Trek loaned us the transporter?")

Ships move at the speed of plot. - JMS
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

I agree with a lot of the criticisms here, especially Padme's abysmal dialogue in the love scenes.

Ani's turning to the dark side - I agree with Flounder, I think Sideous was using some sith mind manipulation on him, and may even have been sending him the premonitions he had of Padme's death. I liked the irony that Ani caused her death, by going to the dark side, so she lost her will to live. At first, Sideous told Ani that he, Sideous, could save Padme's life by manipulating the midiclorians. Later, he told Ani that was the one thing he never learned from his master, but that Ani must fully embrace the dark side to have a chance of doing it. That's a pretty thin hope, mastering something Sideous had not, in a very short time. I think that after Windu defeats Sideous, and Ani helps Sideous defeat Windu, Ani is terrified by what he's done, knows it is wrong, but thinks there is no turning back.

By the way, I think it clear that they decided that Ani was NOT the chosen one, that it must be the next generation.

This is called Revenge of the Sith, but we see only three... Sideous, Dooku, who is there briefly, then is killed, and Ani/Vader, who isn't really a Sith until near the end. I think we should have seen a few more Sith!

Another general criticism of SW - the only reason I can think of for having electro/mechanical devices replace missing body parts is philosophical, that is Lucas trying to say that we are becoming cold and machine-like. It seems very clear that we will be able to grow new body parts for people LONG before we can travel throughout the galaxy.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

By the way, I think it clear that they decided that Ani was NOT the chosen one, that it must be the next generation.

Of course, the fun part is that Anakin does eventually kill Sidious and restore balance even though it takes him losing everyone he cared about for years only to finally discover his children and see his son in pain to respark the Jedi sensibility of helping the helpless that he once adhered to long ago.

This is called Revenge of the Sith, but we see only three... Sideous, Dooku, who is there briefly, then is killed, and Ani/Vader, who isn't really a Sith until near the end. I think we should have seen a few more Sith!

I don't concur at all. I like the concept that the Sith are so power-hungry that there can only be two Sith at a time as the junior Sith will always plot to kill his master and the senior Sith will always be on the lookout for another Sith to replace the apprentice.

It seems very clear that we will be able to grow new body parts for people LONG before we can travel throughout the galaxy.

I don't think this was as readily apparent way back when the bulk of the story of Star Wars was written by Lucas.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

I don't think this was as readily apparent way back when the bulk of the story of Star Wars was written by Lucas.

It wasn't as obvious HOW we would do it, but it was believed, even then, that we would be able to do it before too long. I actually had this thought when I saw ESB at first run in the theater.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

It was good movie in my opinion. Better than I have hoped for. I enjoyed it. End of line.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

In the scene where Obi-Wan sees the security-cam footage that proves Anakin went to the dark side, he shows very little emotion in his reaction, & it's a very quick segment.

There's actually a logic flaw in the security-cam footage. The Jedi Council want to use Anakin to spy on Palpatine. However, if they've got secret security cameras everywhere--even in the chancellor's personal office--well, then why do they need a spy at all. They could just about stick a youngling or two in front of camera recordings and tell them, "If you see anything weird or alarming, go tell an adult."

And like a lot of scenes that are abbreviated in movies for the sake of pace, it's kind of unrealistic that Obi-Wan could have such quick glimpses of such key moments from multiple locations--without having to rewind, fast forward, etc. Those moments just pop up first as if the computer had analyzed all the footage and created a quick, relevant PowerPoint presentation for whoever looked at it first. I admit, this is a nitpick.

I would have wanted some *tragedy* there! I mean, here is this guy Kenobi has trained himself, & they have become friends. The friend has now betrayed Kenobi & the rest of the Jedi. You would think that this would really hurt Obi-Wan, right? But he hardly reacts at all!

I don't remember his reaction being a problem in that scene. Granted the combination of writing, directing, and acting could have used some boosts throughout the entire trilogy, but *overall* Ep. 3 was an improvement.

The Jedi seemed to have an anti-emotion policy. Not necessarily as rigid a philosphy as the Vulcans on Star Trek, but Yoda's advice to Anakin that he distance himself from those things that cause him concern, shows that Jedi don't encourage emotional attachment or outpouring of emotion. Yoda even says that attachment leads to jealousy.

I believe Obi-Wan, as shocked as he may have been watching the footage, was just holding back the emotion. I believe things were greatly redeemed in one of my favorite moments when Obi-Wan yells at Anakin about him being the chosen one. He calls him his brother and said he loved him. I think that moment was the ramp of emotion that I'd been waiting for. I could believe Obi-Wan's pain at that moment.

Also, when Anakin kills Mace, he is really troubled by it, saying "What have I done?" But mere seconds later he is pledging loyalty to Sidious/Palpatine. It just happened too quickly. Again, I would have made the scene more tragic, more heart-rending. Anakin would suffer a bit before Sidious finally convinced him to pledge loyalty.

I agree, but I think this is a problem caused by the structure of the entire trilogy. There's too much to pack into this one, so everything happens too quickly.

The transformation of Anakin was greatly dependent on his love for Padme. We don't see that love develop until Ep. 2, and that movie handled it badly. Anakin seems obsessed with Padme for 10 years even though he was only 9 when he met her. That's dumb; he should have met her and got the hots for her at a later age.

Combine that with the Hayden's bad acting in Ep. 2, Portman's bad acting in Ep. 3, and the bad romantic writing & directing in both, and you get a somewhat unconvincing love affair. If the romance had been dragged out and better developed, it would have been more convincing that she was his motivation for turning. Ep. 3 makes up for what Ep. 2 lacked, so you can kind of take Lucas's word for it, but it is hard to "feel the love", so to speak.

I know Lucas structured the trilogy and the characters' ages such that we could see Darth Vader as a child, a teenager, and as an adult. Their ages in the movies are:

Episode 1: Anakin 9, Padme 14
Episode 2: Anakin 19, Padme 24
Episode 3: Anakin 22, Padme 27

But, I think it would have made more sense to be more like this:

Episode 1: Anakin 12, Padme 15
Episode 2: Anakin 18, Padme 21
Episode 3: Anakin 21, Padme 24

If Anakin started at 12, we still would have seen him at three stages: pre-teen, teen, and adult. At age 12, it would be more believable that his attraction for Padme started early. It would also require less of a time gap between Eps 1 & 2 and would put Anakin and Padme closer in age.

Then, throw out Jar Jar Binks, move Wookies to Ep. 1 or 2, show some dark foreshadowing earlier on, set the foundation for the romance in Ep. 1 and accelerate it in Ep. 2, and you have more time in Ep. 3 to show Anakin turning more gradually.

I worried that Hayden Christensen wouldn't be able to pull off Anakin's change to the dark side. I was right, unfortunately.

I really didn't have a problem with Hayden in this one. He was horrible in Ep. 2, but I was totally okay with him in Ep. 3. Granted the dialogue between him and Padme was pretty cringe-worthy at times, but that's Lucas's fault, and I think he actually handled it better than Portman.

After seeing the movie a 2nd time (a mere 9 hours after seeing it the first time), I feel a little better about Natalie Portman's performance, but just barely. In my first post in this thread, I called her the "turd" of the movie. That may have been a little harsh. However, it still baffles me that someone with so many respectful acting wins & nominations could turn in the weakest performance in this movie. Everyone else rose above the occasionally clunky dialogue; Portman was brought down by it. Hayden, though, I was fine with.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

However, it still baffles me that someone with so many respectful acting wins & nominations could turn in the weakest performance in this movie.

From all acounts, George is not a director that deals well with actors, and a lot of actors need a good relationship with their director to pull off a good performance.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

From all accounts, George is not a director that deals well with actors, and a lot of actors need a good relationship with their director to pull off a good performance.

Crap. Most good actors can pull off a good performance on film* without any input from or relationship with their director whatsoever. When a good actor's screen performance looks bad, 90 percent of the time it is because that's the performance the director wanted. That's what he or she pushed that actor towards, those are the takes the director printed, this is what the director built by cutting together those bits and pieces of film into finished scenes. Stage actors have more power over their own performances. The director’s control ends the moment they step on stage and the lights go up. In film or television the director’s power only begins with the directions on the set and the camera angles and light he chooses. He can create or alter (or uncreate) and entire performance in the editing room, too.

That was certainly the case here. George Lucas has never been much of a director and if anything he's gotten worse over the years as his films (and his ego) have gotten bigger. There's also the "best seller" problem. In publishing as writers like Danielle Steele, Stephen King and Tom Clancy (to pick three more-or-less at random) started selling more and more books they became an important part of their publisher's "bottom line" and keeping the writer happy (and preventing him/her from jumping to another house at the end of the current contract) became more important than turning out good books. So the editors did less editing, and when they did they backed down more often if the writer complained. Because of his economic clout nobody wanted to tell Stephen King that his books were becoming bloated and needed cutting. Similarly nobody (at least in the industry) wants to tell Lucas his films have been getting worse and worse over the years. And most actors aren't going to push to hard, either. When people as talented as Natalie Portman and Samuel L. Jackson come off as badly as they do in this film you can point directly to George Lucas and his inability to understand what a good performance looks like.

RotS (love that acronym :)) is "the best of the new trilogy" - which by all accounts is setting the bar pretty friggin' low. (I must say that after seeing The Phantom Menace - ONCE! - I refused to see Attack of the Clones, so I only know what I heard about that one, which was enough.) RotS works, to the degree that it does, because it had a structure imposed on it by the need to set-up "Episode IV". And the film gets better the closer it gets to the climax precisely because it is getting closer to the original trilogy. The lava planet is like the light at the end of the tunnel. We're approaching the end of Lucas's ill-conceived prequel and back to the early days when he was constrained by limited funds, and when he knew enough to get out of Harrison Ford's way.

BTW, for those of you convinced that Lucas didn't have any of this planned out - I attended an SF convention in New York sometime between 1978 and 1980. (I used to go to a couple of cons a year in those days, so my memory is a bit hazy. Oh, and I was still drinking back then, which probably didn't help matters. :)) Empire had certainly been announced, but it hadn't yet been released and it was known that Lucas was proposing a nine-part epic movie series. A dealer I had gotten to know a bit took me aside and offered me something he wasn't openly selling at his table - a purportedly bootlegged copy of the treatment for the last film in the (chronologically) first trilogy. I bought it. It is probably still floating around here in a box somewhere. I read it that same night and concluded I'd been had and that the thing was a forgery. The climactic battle seemed especially over the top as an explanation for how Anakin Skywalker (as he was already named) became Darth Vader. That was my judgment until Thursday night when I saw the movie and watched Obi-Wan and Anakin fight exactly the light saber duel amid the flowing lava of a volcanic planet that I had read and dismissed over 20 years ago. Oh, and it is established that Leia was adopted and knew she was adopted in Empire. Luke takes her aside just before he goes off alone to face Vader. One of the questions he asks her is what she remembers about her mother, her real mother. Leia doesn't remember much, just a soft voice and the fact that she was very beautiful - which certainly suggests that Lucas intended at that point for Anakin's wife to survive at least for a time after the birth of the twins. I suspect that Luke would have been sent to his family on Tatooine and Leia and her mother would have lived hidden in exile with Senator Organa and his wife, with Padme still dying young - maybe for a year or two, then dying. As with JMS and the circumstances surrounding Sheridan's destruction of the Black Star I think when it came time to actually tell the story on screen, Lucas decided to alter his earlier conception of events to serve the needs of the dramatic structure he was now working with. (Leaving her alive would have been a loose end - skipping ahead a couple of years would have spoiled the "snapshot at the moment" survey of where everyone is at the end of the film. So he killed her off early.

Mentioning JMS and In the Beginning reminds me of some of Lucas's other sins, so here's a quick recap of "things that really piss me off about Lucas in general and this movie in particular, in light of the works JMS - or the World-Famous Billionaire no talent vs. the almost unknown toiler in the vineyard":

1. George Lucas couldn't write his way out of a wet paper bag, at least not when dealing with this kind of material. (He did OK illuminating the lives of some not-terribly-bright high school kids in American Graffiti. But then he was writing about a world he knew. When it comes to science fiction he's dealing with a world he likes - and finds interesting, but not one he inhabits. So he can't really write SF stories, he can only cobble together SF pastiches, cobbled together from bits and pieces of other people's work.) Some people complain about JMS's dialogue, saying it is too "stagy" and self-consciously articulate, that the speeches sometimes go on too long, and that his attempts at humor sometimes fall flat. And there is - in particular episodes and scenes - something to this criticism. But I'll take his dialogue over George Lucas's any day - especially when Lucas is attempting actual human emotion. He just can't pull it off.

2. Lucas has uniformly bad taste in naming people, places and things. It goes along with his tin ear for dialogue and his inability to hear when an actor's line reading is off. (Or his actual preference for line readings that most normal people would call "off", hence the number of them from otherwise good actors that end up in his films.) In addition to being ugly, silly or stupid in and off themselves (Padme? General Grievous? Lord Dooku?) they also become confusing because Lucas keeps using the same sound elements over and over (Padme/Padwan, Dantooine/Tatooine) Anakin (with the diminutive "Annie" - redolent of red-headed orphan girls) was a poor name. Mace "Widu" a worse one. Emperor Palpatine? Puh-leeez. It sounds like "Palpitate" to anyone who knows more actual words and Lucas seems to. Again, the Stephen King syndrome at work. Lucas has gotten to big for anyone to tell him, "George, this is a really stupid idea." I have a feeling them second set of films could have been a lot better if Harrison Ford had agreed to do a cameo in each as Han Solo's father just so he could read the script, hang around the set a little and tell Emperor George when he was about to leave his trailer naked again. And someone really ought to hang a giant banner over Lucas's writing desk with Carrie Fisher's immortal words from the set of the first picture: "George, you can type this stuff, but you can't say it." (Evidently Lucas does not follow the advice given to every young writer of fiction - whether of books, TV or movies - "read your dialogue out loud, or into a tape recorder." Or else he does and he's a bad actor as well as a bad writer, and unaware of both, and that he tries to make the actors match his own performance.)

3. More money isn't necessarily a good thing: I kept wanting to yell, "Stop! Enough! I can't see anything!" The movie is too "busy" there are simply too many explosions, too many ships, too many clones/droids/whatevers, for the eye to focus on, or even take in, and everything in the battle scenes moves too fast. The result actually undercuts the audience's ability to feel any connection to the action, or even quite understand what is happening. Nowhere is this clearer than the "end of the Jedi" sequence. All I could think of while watching that was the "three years" montage from In the Beginning, a terribly moving evocation of desperate courage in a lost cause. That's a theme that means something to JMS personally, and which engages his own emotions, so he finds it easy to write movingly about it. For Lucas it is another plot element in his paint-by-numbers "hero's journey", another item on the checklist to be completed and that's how it plays, with all the emotion of a giant video game except for when Obi-Wan or Yoda are on-screen. (Lucas could have used exactly the kind of voice over narration that JMS did to add a human connection for the audience by having Yoda or Obi-Wan describe the events which they sensed through the Force from the perspective of the immediate aftermath - to Chewbacca and the other wookie, for instance.)

4. JMS has influences, Lucas has sources. JMS, like all writers, has been influenced, especially early on, by other writers and other works, and this shows up in his writing. There are echoes of Tolkein, thematic connections to Shakespeare, deliberate nods to the Arthurian cycle and the Greek myths and the tragedies they inspired. These are all ingredients - a pinch of Lear, a teaspoon of the Morte d'Arthur - in an original recipe for a unique JMS stew. Lucas just grabs whole vegetables, throws them in a pot of cold water and leaves them there, unblended and almost unaltered. And he can't resist showing off by visualizing elements of other people's stories that have nothing to do with the story he's telling, just to prove he can.

Obi-Wan was far closer to Tolkein's Gandalf than anything in Babylon 5, but hardly anyone cried "rip-off". (Actually I always cast Alec Guinness as Gandalf in my dream film of LotR. :)) Tatooine and those oddly sandworm-like skeletons was like Lucas auditioning to do a film version of Dune. (The handling of precognition in the Star Wars and Anakin's arc in the first three films owes more than a bit to Herbert's novels as well.)

This time around we got to see what Lucas could do with the Dragonriders of Pern I can't wait to hear people complaining about how Pern ripped off RotS when and if that series ever makes it to the big or small screen.

One of the reasons the Star Wars films have collectively done so well is that Lucas tapped into themes and stories so appealing and so universal that even his incredibly clumsy handling of them couldn't destroy their power, and he added on top of them a shiny veneer of technology and visual effects that appealed to the child (or the geek) that lives somewhere in most movie fans. Like its near-contemporary Rocky, Star Wars took a simple story that had been told a thousand times before and dressed it up in just the right way to appeal to a new audience. He has vastly more luck than talent.

Just imagine what these films could have been had Lucas had enough genuine confidence in his vision and enough humility about his own limitations to hire a real writer to do the screenplays (JMS does come to mind) or a real director to make them. It is no accident that the best of the 6 films is the one written by a writer who proved he could created living, breathing characters, and a director who could tell human stories. (I also think it helped that Lucas was not yet so hugely successful as to be out of control.) It isn't like Carrie Fisher, Mark Hammel and Harrison Ford became much better actors between movies 1 and 2. It is that they had believable lines to other and a director who was not looking for comic book performances.)

Anyway, that's my (short) take on the film. I suspect I'll see it again, at which point I'll have even more nits to pick.

To sum up: The movie did its job, which was to set up "Episode IV", it didn't embarrass itself, and it was better than Phantom Menace, but probably not as good as RotJ. (And doesn't even bear comparison with the first two films released.)

Later,

Joe
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

P.S. - Other random thoughts

Did anyone else have the opening to The Six Million Dollar Man running through their heads toward the end there? ("We can rebuild him. We can make him stronger, faster...")

Sen. Organa's air car looks amazingly like a '57 Chevy, or maybe a Buick. Padme seems to drive a Corvette. And when Obi-Wan hopped into that one flier late in the film, all I could think was, "I'm Batman"

When it became clear that Anakin had turned and things were going badly there was a slient shot of Yoda on screen. My inner Yoda-voice said suddenly said, "F*cked, we are" :)

So let's see - it took 18 years to finish the first Death Star, and when it was completed it still had a fatal flaw. The second Death Star, bigger and more powerful than the first, was nearly completed in the relatively short interval between "A New Hope" (hate that stupid title) and Empire and had its weapon systems fully functional. It was only vulnerable to destruction by a small scale attack because of the Emperor's hubris, using it as bait for Luke before it was finished and assuming that his interim security measures would work flawlessly. I can only assume that the first DS was constructed as a purely govermment project, while the second was mostly sub-contracted to the private sector as part of the Emperor's "new federalism" policy of decentralizing Imperial administration, cutting the bureaucracy and turning over control and resources ot the local governors. ;)

Joe
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

Well put, Joe.

Or else he does and he's a bad actor as well as a bad writer, and unaware of both, and that he tries to make the actors match his own performance.

Quite possible, given that his appearance on "The OC" was really, really bad. Mind you, his cameo was pratically a ripoff of Stan Lee's appearance in "Mallrats".

Lucas just grabs whole vegetables, throws them in a pot of cold water and leaves them there, unblended and almost unaltered. And he can't resist showing off by visualizing elements of other people's stories that have nothing to do with the story he's telling, just to prove he can.

Stupid podracing.

So let's see - it took 18 years to finish the first Death Star, and when it was completed it still had a fatal flaw. The second Death Star, bigger and more powerful than the first, was nearly completed in the relatively short interval between "A New Hope" (hate that stupid title) and Empire and had its weapon systems fully functional. It was only vulnerable to destruction by a small scale attack because of the Emperor's hubris, using it as bait for Luke before it was finished and assuming that his interim security measures would work flawlessly. I can only assume that the first DS was constructed as a purely govermment project, while the second was mostly sub-contracted to the private sector as part of the Emperor's "new federalism" policy of decentralizing Imperial administration, cutting the bureaucracy and turning over control and resources ot the local governors.

Well, one wonders about the private contractors on the Death Star 2 when it was destroyed. ;) It's especially bizarre given that the station was being built out in the middle of nowhere, without any supporting infrastructure.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

Like its near-contemporary Rocky, Star Wars took a simple story that had been told a thousand times before and dressed it up in just the right way to appeal to a new audience. He has vastly more luck than talent.

This very point is something I have been trying to get my arms around. I agree with all your criticisms about Lucas, and how getting so big (his ego too) has caused a falloff in his work.

However I think the bottom line reason as to why the original Star Wars is far, far better than the Prequels, is a simpler reason.

Star Wars was, as you said, a simple story.

Farm boy dreams of being a hero.
Gets told he has a grand destiny and has heroic roots.
Goes off to fight the big, bad empire
Rescues a princess
Fights against all odds against an enormous foe, and wins.

That same story has been done, over and over, throughout the years. However in Star Wars, they did something that was never done --- add in special effects, and made it a sci-fi event.

The story was so simple, the characters fun, and it was an adventerous romp. A huge hit on all fronts.

These Pre-quel movies were supposed to be the "story before the story." I think he tried to make them too grand and encompassing. We were dealing with all the larger-than-life characters in the universe now. Whereas in the original Star Wars movies we were looking at a humble farm boy, and old hermit, a smuggler, and a prissy princess (of what, we really never find out, heh); in the prequels we have the CHANCELLOR OF THE REPUBLIC, and QUEEN OF THE PLANET OF NABOO, not to mention the entire ALL KNOWING JEDI COUNCIL. Everything in the prequels tried to be so big and larger than life, when the first movie was a simple heros tale.

Ill grant you, given the nature of the storyline, it had to be this way, but I just think it was doomed from the start to never be as good as the original for these reasons.

Everything did seem too big, and when the screen got crowded with so many special effects that you couldn't focus on one single thing --- that summed up how I felt about the entire prequel story.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

Well, one wonders about the private contractors on the Death Star 2 when it was destroyed ;)

I would imagine the lawsuits and worker's comp claims dragged on for decades. :D

Star Wars was, as you said, a simple story...
Farm boy...
...That same story has been done, over and over,

I once half-jokingly suggested that Star Wars was nothing more than a remake of The Wizard of Oz in sci-fi drag. But the comparison actually holds up pretty well, much better, in fact, than attempts to connect The Lord of the Rings with B5:

Luke = Dorothy
Auntie Em = Aunt Beru
Chewbacca = The Cowardly Lion
Han = The Scarecrow
R2D2 = Toto
C3PO = The Tin woodsman
Darth Vader = The Wicked Witch of the West
Ben Kenobi = Glinda the Good Witch

Scary, isn't it? ;)

The Force itself plays a role similar to that of the Wizard, and the Emperor is one of its Avatars. (Yoda is another.)

I swear a PhD candidate in sociology could do a dissertation on this idea, assuming one hasn't already. :D

Of course there isn't a one-to-one correspondance between the two, but there seriously are echoes in the adventures (one explicitly for children, and therefore a there-and-back-again journey, the other aimed at a more adult audience, and therefore grimmer and bloodier - sound familiar?.)

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

Well here's my break down of SW:RotS.

The "Good" (and I use the term loosely)

1. Hayden Christensen's performance has marginally improved over SW:AotC. Data from ST:TNG had more emotion then Christensen did in AotC. I'd give it a C+ where as last time I'd give it a D.

2. It was a very "pretty" movie. The FX where dazzling to the point where you could believe that in the span of a few years ILM could make photo real CGI human close ups.

3. I liked seeing the old style Dreadnaughts that Timothy Zahn wrote about in Star Wars: Dark Force Rising. Which as I understand where part of Lucas' original outline for the Pre-Empire days of the Old Republic.

4. It does explain "what happens" in the days of the Old Republic.

5. The Anakin/Obi-Wan battle was fun to watch.

6. The implication that Palpatine's old Master created Anakin was kind of cool.

7. No lines for that damn Gungan! :D

The "Bad"

1. The interaction of the characters did not sell IMNSHO. The light hearted joking between Anakin and Obi-Wan made me roll my eyes :rolleyes:. Obi-Wan saying "..You where like a brother to me..." doesn't make it so. Padmé's "I love you" matched with Anakin's "No I love you" conversation left me thinking, If this 'pimp' can get play off of that kind of' talk with a girl that hot, I should be married to a supermodel :LOL:.

Contrast this with the characterization of Han, Luke, and Leia.

2. The Emperor's Lightsaber battle. What the freakin' heck was that about?! :( An old friend of mine taught me basic sword play (mostly with Rapiers), and for the life of me I can't figure out what the heck he (Palpatine) was trying to do! The art of sword play they *seem* to be using in Star Wars was a cross between a Katana and a Rapier. But he was just kind of poking the Jedi with it and swinging it like a baseball bat. And handling them, four of them (Jedi)!

After that awesome battle between Dooku and Yoda in AotC, I was hoping for so much more from the Yoda/Emperor battle.

3. The cutting between scenes got kind of needless. Granted Lucas does do this in all the other Star Wars movies, but I thought it seemed a bit excessive this time. It never stayed in "the moment".

4. The battle on the Dreadnaught. Why would a ship in space take a nose dive in the zero G vacuum of space? And for that matter why would it matter which way a Starship wih artificial gravity is facing in a zero G environment, relative to the people on the inside.

Some of you may say "Star Wars ain't known for playing by the rules". I know, but I'd at least think he'd (Lucas) would play by his rules. In Empire the Falcon did many a barrel rolls with no effect on the people inside.

5. Anakin's fall to the Dark Side felt very forced. I unstand what Lucas was trying to say with it, that whole 'sell your soul to the Devil' thing to save Padmé's life.

It *happened*, but it wasn't even half of what the attempt to convert Luke to the Dark Side was. I so believed Luke trying to fight his 'dark side' in RotJ, Anakin seemed to be far more OK with it. Sure he said, "What have I done?" but his actions flew in the face of his words. Luke's actions and words where side by side, not to mention Mark Hamill's performance was there to. Anakin's "I pledge myself to you" line didn't sell, IMNSHO.

6. We never got to see Anakin use any Dark Side powers outside of the Sith Choke. He's this crazy powerful Sith, and we got jack from him.

7. Darth Vader's line of "Noooo!!!!!" when he finds out that Padmé has died did not feel like the Vader from the classic Star Wars. In Empire when something went wrong or he if he was pissed he never freaked out in his voice, he took action. The closest Vader came to having a hissy fit was in SW:ANH when he said "Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans, and bring me the passengers - I want them alive!"

All in all, I thought this was the worst of the new. I thought Ep I was the best, then II, and III just tanked.

Now I've read everyone's reviews, and mabye I'll watch it again and see it in a new light, but as it stands right now I hated SW:RotS.

I sooooo wish Lucas had let someome else write the new Star Wars. He let Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan write the screenplay for Empire and let Irvin Kershner direct it.

Gee, go figure. Lucas didn't write or direct Ep V, and it was the best darned movie he ever made IMHO.

I now hope Timothy Zahn's The Thrawn Trilogy do not get made as movies. Because Zahn did a video interview where he said that he'd like to see his books made as movies.

There's a lot more I didn't like but I'm a slow typer, so I'll call it quits for now.
 
Re: \'Revenge of the Sith\' reviews (Spoilers)

He let Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan write the screenplay for Empire and let Irvin Kershner direct it.

Actually, Lucas hated Brackett's original draft for 'Empire' and was on the verge of firing her when she died of cancer. That's when he brought in Kasdan.
 

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