I consider myself somewhat of a Star Wars fan. Sure, I haven’t worn a Star Wars costume since I was in kindegarten and my mother dressed my sister and me up as C-3PO and R2D2 for Halloween, but I liked the original three movies. They helped shape my childhood. I even liked The Phantom Menace. Episode II was pretty good, but after seeing Episode III, I take it all back. I want to pretend that I didn’t see any of them. In fact, I refuse to beileive that George Lucas had anything to do with the first three (Episodes IV-VI). I think he had close advisor feeding him all his ideas. Whoever it was should have come back. If you haven’t seen Episode III, Don’t!
They’ll be plenty of people claiming that Lucas finally got it right. They’ll say Darth Vader’s turn to the dark side was perfect. They might even make decent arguments, but they’re wrong. Episode III is bad, real bad. If you never see it, you’ll be better off because of it.
Dialogue
The dialong is stilted and like the rest of the movie just plain bad. From the first words to the unending references of young jedi’s as “younglings”, I kept flinching, trying to dodge the verbal assault being thrown at me, and like everyone else hoping it wouldn’t ruin the movie. Sure, if you can get past the dialogue — Wait, no, the dialog is a fundamental part of any movie. If you have to convince yourself to get past it, it’s either not in your language or bad. This movie had bad dialogue.
Acting & Casting
George Lucas took otherwise good actors and turned them into abominations. Ewan McGregor and even Yoda seemed fake. The beautiful Natalie Portman became unattractive and not due to the pregnancy but because of Lucas’s poor vision. Granted casting problems like Hayden Christensen began in other movies; it came to full light here. George Lucas has made poor decision after poor decision, and the fuition of those bad choices took full effect in Revenge of the Sith. It wasn’t pretty.
Action
The movie was pretty packed with action. The constant fighting was all that moved the otherwise dull movie along. The action could have saved it, if it weren’t so badly done. Lightsaber battles were little more than whilrling blurs of neon light. Any one of the many fights looked exactly like every other one. Even the Emperor’s force duels with Yoda were tedious. No subtly existed. In fact, Lucas would have done well to take note of the final duel in the Samurai Trilogy where only one stroke of the sword was dealt: sometimes more is not good. The blaster fights were incomprehensible jumbles. And the death of the legions of Jedi’s were worse than tragic; they were boring.
Plot
While the movies might contain one of the best stories of our generation, it will be hard to find it. Major holes were in the movie’s plot. We all know that Anakin turns evil, but it was supposed to be how that made it interesting. I’m still kind of missing that part. It seems like a simple nightmare was all it took. Characters in this movie die without reason. The plot just tumbles along hoping that what we know about the outcome is enough to patch it together. It isn’t.
I have no doubt that the movie will break many records. Lucas and company will make tons of money, and many will exclaim the Star Wars movie they’d been hoping for. Don’t be fooled. Just watch the movie, and you know deep down that it is bad no matter what amount of flipping and sommersaults the characters pulled off. I give the move a well-deserved 1 out of 5 (disappointement). My only hope is that an aspiring indie-director will rewrite the movies, make them on a shoe-string budget, and give the story the rightful telling that it desrves.
May 22nd, 2005 at 5:18 pm
Warning: Spoilers
Well written post. I agree on many of your points, and have a legal pad full of my own complaints, but overall I really, really enjoyed the film. And this is coming from someone who hates CG and absolutely LOATHES ep. 1 and 2, and went into the movie knowing he was gonna be pissed off and hate it.
My biggest complaint is when any kind of human, droid, or alien as CG moved and broke all laws of physics. Like Legolas saddling the horse in movement in TTT, it’s just looks bad and uncomfortable. I still hate fast Yoda, and the fight in the senate room was just dumb and corny. R2 did his trademark “yaaooooooow!” way too many times in succession. And the light saber battles were really drawn out and too many people knew how to fly with the special corkscrew attack.
However, I think it was incredible how they tied everything up to ep. 4; even how they sent Yoda and Obi into exile. And the acting was much better in this one than the phone-ins from 1 and 2. And oh man, the wookie colony with the OD stormtroopers? That was just plain awesome. And how did anyone not get emotional when Obi Won gave his speech to Anakin after he severed his limbs? During the second and third act I actually found myself really hoping that Anakin would turn around and see the light, even having full knowledge of his own fate. But how can you blame him with the jedi council acting like such jerks to him. This almost makes me hate jedi.
Overall, I give it an 8.5 out of 10.
ps- I thought the female jedi was pretty hot
May 22nd, 2005 at 5:19 pm
Interesting points, Albie.
The more I think about this moviem the more I realize how much I hate it. Granted, the scene with Obi-wan killing Anakin was pretty cool. The fight that lead up to it just sucked. Jumbing from platform to platform makes for an interesting vido game, but in a movie it’s just plain dumb.
The other part that bothered me was when Yoda went into exile. Why? The Emporor didn’t beat him. Not even almost. In fact, I thought Yoda had finally gotten the upper hand when he fled for apparently no reason. even if the Emporer did soundly kick yoda’s butt. Why not return with Obiwan and take him on two on one?
I could go on and on, but what’s the point?
May 22nd, 2005 at 5:52 pm
I’m not really a Star Wars fan, so my opinion doesn’t hold a lot of warrant, other than coming from someone who likes cool things.
I thought, visually, this was hands-down the most impressive and prettiest looking movie I’ve ever seen. The art direction of the cities and lands and creatures was really inspired. I was pretty much in sensory overload the whole movie.
Things that were stupid were Sam Jackson (everytime he came on screen I prepared for the worst) and fast Yoda. Fast Yoda, to me, is the equivalent of someone deciding to remaster Karate Kid and making Mr. Miagi move 100 times fast than the speed of light. It was just unnecessary and embarrasing to watch. And what’s with the way he talks? Ugh, I hate it.
Other than that though, what REALLY made this movie for me, was that lizard Obi was riding on in that underground village. What WAS that thing?! I’ve never seen, nor will I ever see, anything so cool for as long as I live. That thing was nuts: it was as big as a house and ran balls-out like it didn’t give a crap about anything and just slammed into stuff like it was nothing and had awesome sound effects and was just badass altogether. I can’t say enough cool things about that lizrd guy, cept it sucks that he (WARNING: SPOILER!) died. Or at least I think he died, cause sure as hell Obi would have jumped back on after they fell in the water and stayed on that guy for the rest of the movie, even when he went to see Natalie Portman deliver some babies.
May 27th, 2005 at 1:52 am
I’m a SW fan, but…Thank god there are other people in the world who aren’t fooled by the crappiness of this movie. I was beginning to think I was the only one.
Well-written review, keep up the good work.
May 27th, 2005 at 6:43 am
Thanks Ray, I too was beginning to think I was delusional, but as I can see from your comment there are others.
I think that Lucas crushed people’s expectations SO much that anything he produced would have gotten good reviews.
December 16th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
wow, I personally found that movie to be irrefutably the best star wars movie in the series. I don’t know how you can hate the dialogue so much, i thought it suited the theme pretty well. You gotta keep in mind that star wars is set not only in a new location but also in a different time so their lingo’s pretty different from ours. You’re not gonna catch a star wars thug sayin “‘sup hommi! how’s the hood?” hehe
I thought the super speed saber fights were intense, considering they weren’t sped up in post production at all. all the stunts were real (except for the super jumps of course) which was pretty cool.
As far as you not getting the story and the so called plot-holes. That’s probably ‘cuz you weren’t payin attention ‘cuz everythin was pretty clear. I’m sure you walked into the cinema and you said to yourself “this is gonna be a bad movie” you go in with that mentality and you automaticallly come out sayin “that was a bad movie”
i thought the actors were great, very emotional, very strong, very natural. take hayden. you could see him playin anakin but in real life he’s completely different from the character. that’s what acting’s about not playin a character you’re closely related to, that’s just lame.
I agree with ya on the droids moving funny though, but i thought the main problem was c-3p0, he looked like he was floating around. but i think you’re thinkin too much. it’s a movie, not a real life event, stop lookin at the unimportant things like “oh look, he has a pimple on his face” and focus more on the things that really matter. everything in the movie makes sense from why anakin goes loco to why every character dies. Can’t deny that one. if you were just there not payin attention and probably talkin to your friend or whatever then that’s your fault, but don’t flame the movie ‘cuz it was really well done
December 17th, 2005 at 4:33 pm
Wha? “irrefutably the best star wars movie in the series”? Except that the hordes of people who have already refuted the point.
No, I didn’t have any preconceived notions. I gave it a fair chance, but it sucked. All three of the earlier-made movies were lightyears better. The Phantom Menace had much better fighting, and Episode 3 just plain sucked.
Take the instant where Obi-wan slices off both Anakin’s legs and remaining arm. Cool moment, kinda, but from an action standpoint, it sucked. You really didn’t get a grasp of what was happening. You see a blur of lightsaber and then stuff is missing. It doesn’t even make sense how you could cut all that off with one swipe.
Look at a movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon where on-screen fighting is pretty much redfined or a movie like Hero or tons of other Asian action flicks and you can really understand how horrible the action in this movie really was.
So, they’re mythical Jedi, but the best Lucas could come up with was to blur them a little to make them jump high and give them little speed boosts. Forget about it.