'Revenge of the Sith' reviews (Spoilers)

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

As soon as I saw that comment I knew instantly that GKE would respond to it, and I knew how he'd do it, too.

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The predictability is what makes them fun. Best accompanied by acohol to allow for the proper expressions of groaning and giggling.

The presence of the Sith unbalances the Force, which is manifested in the Jedi's decreased ability to use the Force.

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Wait.. .are you saying that a Jedi is less powerful because there are Sith around? How did you come to that conclusion?

Let's keep in mind that we don't know where this prophecy came from, who made it and in what context. If it was made by a Jedi, than he would consider the very existence of Sith to be an "unbalance." If made by another source, it could very well mean a balance between light and dark.

Perhap's the Jedi put too much stock in that prophecy (as did, ironically, Anakin in his own prophecy of Padme's death), making them trust Anakin against their better judgement.

He's part of a force that is a mixed group of humans and a much older race. They're trained by the older race. They scout around on the fringes on known civilization and watch for the return of an ancient super-powerful enemy. They're called Rangers.

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Were Tolkien's Rangers trained by the Elves? I don't remember that. Also, I don't think there were any elves in the Rangers, so they weren't a "mixed group."
And that's just about your comment. I could also list the many differences between the two (religious aspect of one lacking in the other, self-sacrificial reverence for their leader, etc).

Emporor: "Join me, turn to the dark side - I have no idea how to save your wife, but hey we might figure it out in the short time before she gives birth and dies"
Anakin: "OK, sod the Jedi, I'm with you. I will kill anyone you want, including children, because there is tiny chance we can save my wife"

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Yes, I didn't like this either. I don't like the pop-psychology "I lost my mommy!" underpinnings either.

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

GaribaldisHair :

Wasn't meant to stand up to any lasting scrutiny... I was leaning towards the opposite philosophies similarity rather than a direct comparison as if they were stood side by side.

I s'pose I should be more careful with my posts - especially when there are types from Hull around!

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

Wait.. .are you saying that a Jedi is less powerful because there are Sith around? How did you come to that conclusion?

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In AotC Yoda said to Palpatine when asked if Yoda thinks things will lead to war, "The Darkside clouds everything." Illuminating that a major increase in Darkside activity has caused difficulty in the ability to perceive the future.

And then later, he and Mace talk.

Yoda: "Blind we are, if creation of this clone army we could not see."

Mace: "I think it is time to inform the Senate that our ability to use the Force has diminished."

Yoda: "Only the Dark Lords of the Sith know of our weakness. If informed the Senate is, multiply our adversaries will."

It's sutble (as is most of the depth of Star Wars), but it makes perfect sense to me that the reemergence of the Sith and their increased wielding of the Darkside is unbalancing the Force, which is what has weakened the Jedi.

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

Man, this is not fair- between Yoda's backward talking and other painful dialogue no wonder I can't remember actual plot points.

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

[Wait.. .are you saying that a Jedi is less powerful because there are Sith around? How did you come to that conclusion?

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Yoda & Co. had made comments that they suspected that there were Sith at work because they were having trouble sensing and seeing through the Force as well as they usualy could. Whether this was because the mere presense of Sith disrupts the Force or because the most likely cause would be that Sith were (to use a more technological sounding metaphor) actively deploying counter-measures to avoid detection ...... is ...... open to interpretation.

Edit: I started typing this before the last 2 replies had shown up.

Were Tolkien's Rangers trained by the Elves? I don't remember that. Also, I don't think there were any elves in the Rangers, so they weren't a "mixed group."

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It's been a loooong time since I have read the books, but my memory of my impressions is that:

Tolkien's Rangers were much less institutional than B5's. It was more a word to described people who performed a particular function than an organization with an official list of members. My impression was that there were also elves who performed that basic scouting job, so they also would be considered Rangers. Since it wasn't such a formal group, there wouldn't be a Ranger Acadamy from which one would graduate and then be inducted into the Rangers. So the elves weren't training them in that sense like the Minbari were training theirs. However, I did always appear obvious to me that all of the Rangers learned quite a bit from the elves that they would not otherwise have been exposed to, things that other humans were almost never exposed to, and that the elves who performed that scouting / Ranger function trained / practiced in those skills more than most other elves. So in that sense they were being trained, albeit infomally, by the elves.

But, I will happily defer to people whose memories of the details of the books are less dusty than mine.

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

From Mindwalker (05/26/05):

"And finally, the fun details, the glimpses of the Star Wars universe that, like the Force, binds the whole thing together. Chewbacca's there, helping Yoda out. If you're looking at the right part of the screen in one scene, you'll see the Millennium Falcon coming in for a landing at Coruscant spaceport. And Grand Moff Tarkin, governor of the Death Star, even makes a cameo. There's a lot of stuff like this, again not really overdone, but ladled out in a thick enough portion to make geeks like me quite happy. "

I agree, I loved all the little details, but I didn't notice the Falcon or Moff Tarking! I'll have to watch for that next time. I was actually hoping that we'd see the Falcon, all shiny and new, being won by someone in a betting game.

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

The Rangers in Tolkien's world were the remnants of the Men of the West - Numenoreans - and were called the Dunedain. If you remember the start of the first film with the fight against Sauron, lots of the humans there would have been from the North. This Northern kingdom was destroyed and the survivors became the Rangers, who were greater men than normal if you like - similar to Aragorn. The Southern kingdom - Gondor - survived but the bloodlines of the Numenoreans were diluted and the king killed.

So the Rangers continued to fight evil in the North until the time was right for the rightful and only surviving heir to both kingdoms to claim the thrones. They protected this heir.

They were closely allied with the elves who remembered the old alliances, and worked with them, but I always took the term 'Ranger' to directly mean 'Dunedain' which means men of the west.

So no elf Rangers, but some elf rangers maybe? ;-)

I might have read those books too often...

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

From ChiliBeserker (05/31/05):
"The turn to evil was pretty weak, yeah. If they had either shown it in a bit more convincing fashion .. or a bit more as of Anakin was being overpowered by the force / was ending up semi-scizophrenic and having his true personality pushed out by the "stronger" Darth Vader .. but what we saw was a guy making choices .. choices that only made me wonder about just how that fucking moron could end up being the ultimately scary Darth Vader from the original trilogy. Since yeah, Vader was evil as hell .. but he was scary evil, not whimply evil."

What's wrong with him making choices? Isn't that what Londo Mollari did as he went further and further down to road to destruction?

I also agree that Anakin's turn to the dark side went a bit too quickly on the screen but, after all, he had "loved" Padme since he was a kid and she was the most important thing in the galaxy to him. If turning to the dark side was the only way to save her, then I'm not surprised he did that. And, I think swearing allegiance to Palpatine is not a surprise, either. He'd been under someone's wing his whole life, after all, so that might be where he's most comfortable.

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

I always took the term 'Ranger' to directly mean 'Dunedain'

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I guess I always took those two terms to be less synonymous and more as two sets of people with a significant percentage of overlap.

But like I said before: It's been a long time, so I may well not be remembering details of phrasing etc.

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

Gandalf says it best:

"Only a Ranger!" cries Gandalf. "My dear Frodo, that is just what the Rangers are: the last remnant in the North of the great people, the Men of the West"


I love that stuff... anyway, this is off topic - back to Star Wars chaps!

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

I agree, I loved all the little details, but I didn't notice the Falcon or Moff Tarking! I'll have to watch for that next time.

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I noticed the Falcon on the first viewing, although I thought for sure that it wasn't the Falcon, what with it being such a huge galaxy and all. I knew Tarkin was supposed to be in the movie, so I kept waiting the whole damn time for him to appear. When the end started to near I started to think his appearance had just been a rumor. Thank goodness I was proven wrong.

I was actually hoping that we'd see the Falcon, all shiny and new, being won by someone in a betting game.

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You were expecting to see two toddlers sitting around a table with poopy pants drinking Jawa Juice?

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

Han's supposed to be 29 in ANH or thereabouts, so he'd be out of diapers -- but yeah, the Falcon is running around the galaxy without Han or Lando at the helm. That ship's probably got one of the most interesting histories out there.

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

I had a thought that I haven't seen yet: Palpatine told anakin/darth that he had killed Padme, with the incredible Frankenstein "NNNNOOOOOO"



When he found out Luke was his son, he had to have realized that the Emporer lied to him about Padme being killed by him. How did that reflect?

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

1. Oh my god, the spaceship is going to crash, killing anakin, obi wan & the emporer (sorry, senator). Oh no, how silly of me, they must all survive because they are in eps 4, 5 & 6.

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As PillowRock said, they have to survive because they're three of the main characters and it's the freaking beginning of the movie.

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Obviously there's that too, that's the point I was trying to make.

2. Anakin vs Obi Wan, and Emporer vs Yoda - big long fight scene. Hmm, who will win? Well I reckon Obi Wan will defeat anakin but anakin will be horribly disfigured somehow (probably involving that red hot lava) and the other fight will be draw. Wow good guess, how did I know THAT would happen.

OK, you get the idea. We all knew what was going to happen. Nothing new of any concequence was revealed. 2 hours of my life wasted!

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How in the world did you stand watching Babylon 5? We knew things were going to happen in it before we saw them happen too. It's the context that makes it entertaining, not the revelation of the events themselves.

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I think you have answered your own question there. We knew *some* of what was going to happen in B5 but not how or why.

Starwars was about how Anakin became Vader - we already knew he was seduced by the dark side and that Obi Wan, Yoda & the Emporer all lived for 30 years or so after the event. We also know that Padme dies when Leia was very young. We basically knew all the details before the film had started and nothing new was revealed during the film.

As with all things in life, ultimately it somes down to opinion - I was just sharing mine.

Comparing Starwars to B5, well B5 is an intelligent drama show for adults, Starwars is... well it's not in the same league really. Maybe I just expected too much from it? To me it was just eye candy - action scenes for the sake of action scenes, many of them did not really advance the story or were just padded out.

Technically, he did bring balance to the force. At the end of the film, there were 2 Jedi and 2 Sith - sounds pretty balanced to me

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Every single time I read someone pumping this out, it sounds like a superficial viewing and an attempt at being "clever".

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Wooa there, chill out dude - I was just trying to end my post with a little light hearted humour!

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

I tend to agree with the sentiments here that Anakin's turn was both too quick and a complete copout.

Essentially it boiled down to "save me to save your wife". Bleh. What about anger, jealousy, hate, etc?

I saw on the previews the scene of Anakin fighting Dooku on the bridge of the ship with Palpatine looking on and I thought for sure that was where he was going to turn, as it mirrored the scene in which the Emperor tried to turn Luke in RotJ. I thought for sure that seen would involve the Emporer egging Anakin on to use his anger and hate for the added power to kill Dooku, completing his turn to the darkside.

What we got instead was a severly stripped down version of this with Palpatine "kidnapped", no mention of the dark side or the things leading to it, and essentially nothing at all since the next hour and 15 mins of screen time Anakin spent being all good-guy and telling everyone how much he loved them.

I also thought that it was kind of pointless to have Darth Maul and Count Dooku as two different people. Why have Maul die in the 1st film? If they don't then you have your identifiable villain for the series that makes a bigger mark when Anakin kills him in cold blood, because I really don't think anyone gave a damn about killing dooku, an undistinguishable inunique roleplayer that had maybe a combined 20 minutes of screentime throughout the whole series.

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

Starwars was about how Anakin became Vader - we already knew he was seduced by the dark side and that Obi Wan, Yoda & the Emporer all lived for 30 years or so after the event. We also know that Padme dies when Leia was very young. We basically knew all the details before the film had started....

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So, you knew everything going in. Any displeasure from feeling your time was wasted is your own fault.

Maybe I just expected too much from it?

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I think people's expectations throughout the production of the entire prequel trilogy is a significant element to their disliking of the films. As Qui-Gon said, "Your focus determines your reality."

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

Why have Maul die in the 1st film?

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Why have Tarkin die in ANH?

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

Because that movie needed some sense of accomplishment to be self contained. How would Maul have lived and still been an effective character? There was no one there strong enough to make him run away, or any other reason for him to do so.

I saw the flick a second time over the weekend in a digital theater and I enjoyed it quite a bit more the second time around. There were no expectations to compete with and I could just take the movie as it came. The chese was less painful, Palpatine definately seemed like he was speaking of his own master in the Plageous story, and I was able to follow the lightsaber moves better.

I still didn't catch whether Yoda simply dropped his lightsaber or if it was destroyed.

People say Annakin turned to the darkside too easily but at least there was some motivation given. I never got what was supposed to be so tempting about the Emperor's offer to Luke in Jedi. He can't offer to let the rebellion win, he can't really offer to save Luke's friends, he never really demonstrated new powers he could achieve until after Luke made his decision, there was obviously no dental plan, and he never even offered to bring some non-sister chicks around. Not even a, "Come to the dark side, we've got better pastries." Given that I'm amazed Palpatine even offered to keep Anniken's wife alive as incentive.

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

Why have Maul die in the 1st film?

Why have Tarkin die in ANH?

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In both cases the movies needed a sense of closure as in the good guys kind of won. In A New Hope the main reason Tarkin died was that Lucas wasn't sure how well Star Wars would end up doing. In the case that it didn't do so well the movie had a real closure in having a main baddie die, in this case, Tarkin. Having Vader survive left the possibilities for sequels. When the movie was initially released it was only titled Star Wars and didn't include Episode IV in the opening crawl. It was only after the film went so well that when it was re-released a couple years later that Episode IV A New Hope was added when he knew there would be sequels.

I saw the flick a second time over the weekend in a digital theater and I enjoyed it quite a bit more the second time around.

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I just saw it for the fourth time today and for the first time in a nondigital theater. You could definitely tell the poorer quality in sound.

I still didn't catch whether Yoda simply dropped his lightsaber or if it was destroyed.

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He dropped it. It fell to the bottom of the Senate floor.

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

New thought...Episode II and III make a big deal out of the fact that Jedis aren't supposed to be in a relationship or make babies. A big stinking deal...yet...it never goes anywhere. Despite the fact that Anakin and Padme are living together, no one ever finds out. What a waste, to make such a big deal about how it's forbidden and then not even bring it up. The Jedi making an issue out of his relationship with Padme could have been....no not could have been..shoulve have been brought up. That at least would have given him some real motivation to be angry.