Short answer: I loved it. This movie was woven from the same fabric of the Star Wars I remembered. It tied everything together, and left nothing to criticize except minutiae that can only be dreamt up by fanboys such as myself. Which is largely going to be the content of this review, if I can even call it that. The usual warning against spoilers applies, but I’m sure the only people reading this are the ones who have seen it anyway.

ILM made me believe again

I’m not going to drag out any Jar Jar Binks jokes. He wasn’t in this movie, and I’ll leave it at that.

I don’t think I was mentally prepared for what was shown during the opening scene where Obi-Wan and Anakin are piloting their fighters towards the capital ship where Palpatine is being held captive. This whole sequence reached new heights of realism, and I felt my stomach drop as the camera panned out from one cruiser to an entire battle. The movie was populated with exotic locales with equally stunning visuals, the most tantalizing being the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk. I’ll get to that later.

The “romance” of Anakin and Padme

I still don’t buy it. It seems like an extremely unbelievable relationship, where Padme still allows herself to care for a man that single-handedly exterminated a tribe of sandpeople. He’s also far too brooding and aggressive, making me wonder if Padme wasn’t emotionally unstable herself. Even though the delivery of the “love has blinded you?” conversation was like receiving a beating from an enraged wookiee, this theme makes its way into almost every bad thing that happens in the movie. I suppose the spirit of the conversation is acceptable, but Lucas could have thought up a much more subtle way of presenting it.

Aside from those stilted attempts at romance, Hayden Christiansen does a much better job in this film conveying Anakin’s inner conflict. There are a few powerful scenes, in fact, where he did a fantastic job without saying any lines at all.

Parallels, Parallels, Parallels

This is a classic device that Lucas loves to employ in these films.

The most powerful scene in the film was when Anakin defied Mace Windu’s orders and went to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s quarters. He watches Windu and Palpatine locked in combat, with Palpatine pleading for mercy – and Anakin’s help. Knowing that Palpatine can help him, Anakin must choose to stay loyal to the Jedi order, or save Palpatine and begin his journey to the Dark Side. I felt this joined perfectly with the end of Return of the Jedi, where Anakin must make another, similar choice: save his son by killing his master, or lose his humanity to the Dark Side forever. Now that I’ve seen Episode III, throwing Palpatine down that electrical shaft must have felt pretty good for Anakin. If you think about it, Palpatine is the reason he’s in that armour.

Despite General Grievous’ limited screen time, I found his character to be one of the most interesting. He was developed as a villain who enjoyed collecting the lightsabers of slain Jedi as part of the Clone Wars cartoon series. Grievous is mostly a machine (built by the separtists for all we know), but still retains some living tissue. I found this comparable to what happens to Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader at the end of the film.

At the end, you see Owen and Beru Lars holding baby Luke as they look over a dune into the twin Tatooine sunset as Luke did in the beginning of A New Hope. While it was a nice gesture to fans, it felt like they were trying too hard to squeeze that one in.

The Cutting of Appendages

We had a good laugh over this one after the movie. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but suffice to say that a Jedi that doesn’t lose his hand in the Star Wars Trilogy is lucky indeed.

• Count Dooku loses both hands to Anakin Skywalker
• General Grievous loses two arms to Obi-Wan Kenobi
• Mace Windu loses his hand to Anakin Skywalker
• Anakin loses another arm (and his legs!) to Obi-Wan Kenobi

Not enough Kashyyyk

Perhaps the new expansion for Star Wars Galaxies will pick up where the film left off, but I felt that this location was far too underdeveloped considering it’s the home of one of the saga’s main characters. Moreover, we only learn Chewbacca’s identity when Yoda leaves – and that’s only because he refers to him by name. Based on the novels and comics, Wookiees were a highly oppressed race. Even the recent Republic Commando explores the capture and enslavement of Wookiees by Trandoshans. Revenge of the Sith does nothing to address this, and instead treats Kashyyyk as simply another planet contended for by the Republic and the Separtists.

The visuals of Kashyyyk were impressive, and it was fascinating to see Wookiee technology in action. I’m just disappointed there wasn’t more of it.

The Instant Aging of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine

I thought the scene where Mace Windu battles Palpatine was brilliant. I learned in the comic books (Dark Empire, specifically) that using the Dark Side rapidly ages you. It becomes evident that Palpatine was stronger in the Dark Side than we anticipated, but I imagine that he used quite a bit of his power to remain hidden from the eyes of the Jedi and disguise his true intentions. Could it be that this sudden release of Force lightning drained his powers, such that he could no longer maintain his disguise? This also lends a bit of realism to Anakin’s condition at the end of Return of the Jedi, where it looks like he aged about 40 years.

Order 66

The chilling scene where Palpatine gives the instruction to eradicate every Jedi really resonated with me. Going into this film, we knew that the Jedi are all but extinct during the time period of the original trilogy. Though the logistics of killing all of those Jedi at a time where they were everywhere was hard for me to grasp. And now I know.

The clones were Palpatine’s idea all along. Programming them with this “back door”, if you will, Palpatine was able to execute every Jedi at once, essentially eliminating the possibility of a Jedi resurgence. Brilliantly done.

The Lightsaber Duels

Was it just me, or were the duels just so evenly matched that they became boring? I believed the emotional exchange between Obi-Wan and Anakin before their duel, and Anakin’s paranoia making him hurt the woman he loved. All of this was building up to Obi-Wan’s near-tears confession on the banks of that river of molten lava, with Anakin broken and his eyes filled with hatred. The climax of this battle was worth it, but I was expecting a battle that was more furious and emotionally charged. After all, this duel is what long time fans of the series were waiting for.

To be honest, I doubt anything could have come close to the duel between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul at the end of Episode I. This suprised everyone, and for good reason. As Lucas himself has said, the original trilogy showcased the lightsaber skills of old men. The prequel trilogy was meant to illustrate lightsaber battles of Jedi in their prime. Perhaps the novelty of the lightsaber has worn off, and it became little more than swordfighting, but I still think the lightsaber duels in Revenge of the Sith could have been injected with a little more excitement.

The reconstruction of Darth Vader

The movie made it feel like he went right from the shores of a molten river to the operating table – with spare parts waiting. Did Palpatine run a body shop too? I would have also liked to see where the inspiration for the body armour came from. Clearly the clone troopers were based on the Mandalorian armour worn by Jango Fett. It wouldn’t have been that hard to slip something in.

“NOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo!”

Revenge of the Sith may catch a lot of flak for this completely over-the-top scene, but if you remember in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke says the exact same thing in response to Vader’s startling revelation that he is Luke’s father. Furthermore, I didn’t find this reaction as important as Palpatine telling Vader that he had killed Padme in anger.

“My wife and I have always wanted to adopt a baby girl.”

This line from Bail Organa stuck out in my mind because it was in one of the last scenes in the movie. I was curious to see how Lucas would explain how the homes of Leia and Luke were determined. It’s clear why they needed to be separated – but why did Leia go to Alderaan to be a politician (clearly taking after her mother), and Luke sent to live out his young life as a simple farmboy on Tatooine (somewhat following the path of his father). I was disappointed to learn that it was simply a matter of Bail Organa saying “we want a baby girl”, and Yoda saying “put Luke with his family”. It just seemed too haphazard, and this is one of the scenes that could have used more dialogue. Was Luke sent to Tatooine because of his Force-sensitivity? Obi-Wan, an equally powerful Jedi, exiled himself there to watch over Luke. This was probably a wise choice given that the Empire wouldn’t be troubled by an outer-rim planet run by the Hutts. I would have even been happy with Bail Organa saying “we’ve always wanted a child.” Lucas picked the wrong character to start talking about specifics.

The construction of the Death Star

The Death Star prototype was hinted at in the final scenes of Episode II. Anyone that’s read Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy Trilogy knows about the Death Star prototype in the Maw installation. Tarkin personally oversaw its construction, and I’m assuming that’s who was on the bridge of the ship with the Emperor and Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith. However, as we know from the Star Wars timeline, there’s at least 20 years in between Episode III and IV, and I find it hard to believe that it took that long to build after seeing the second Death Star built in the 2 years between Empire and Jedi. Taking the Jedi Academy Trilogy as fact, then, which Death Star were we looking at? The prototype? Or the one that would destroy Alderaan? In any case, this was a great way to tie up the movie. Like the newly appointed Vader, the Death Star was ominously waiting to utilize its power to terrorize the galaxy.

Judged by the standards set by its prequel predecessors, Revenge of the Sith is the strongest of the three. Indeed, it suffers from the same calibre of acting and draft-quality dialogue, but there was a certain cohesiveness to the film’s presentation that kept it running along smoothly, satisfying even the jaded Star Wars fan in me that was fearing the absolute worst. Now that the story arc of Anakin Skywalker is complete, I doubt that Lucas will leave this series alone. There’s already confirmation of a cartoon series and live-action TV series in the works, and making another movie could certainly be done as long as it follows a new set of characters. While I wouldn’t put it past Lucasfilm to recreate Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia in CG for Episodes VII and beyond, there’s something about the original trilogy that branded the actors into our fan subconscious, and it would be hard to accept anything else. I’d be more interested to see the results of a reconstructed Jedi Academy, as described in the novels and games. There’s plenty of room there to cover many different themes and storylines, while still drawing from the mythos that will keep fans interested. Though thinking of the dramatic possibilities in a film about a bunch of misunderstood, angst-filled Jedi initiates leaves me a bit queasy.

born to die one thousand times