Thoughts on Revenge of the Sith (unboxed spoilers)

[Merijeek]

Saw it at the midnight showing, and I've got to say I loved it.

Anyways, some random things that did occur to me.

I loved the look on Dooku's face when Palpatine is telling Anakin to kill him. Priceless.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed that this is the second time we see Palpatine sitting in a throne and watching an apprentice and a potential apprentice battle it out.

I also liked the symbolism that Palpatine was literally tearing apart the Senate in his battle with Yoda. Quite apt.

I think pretty much all the big questions got covered in this movie. Only one I can see is how Leia remembers her mother, and I would guess that it's either Force-type prenatal memories or her thinking Bail's wife is actually her real mother.

I'm sure there's more, but I've only got 4 hours until I need to be at work.

A couple questions.

First off, when Yoda tells Obi-Wan that the Padawan was killed by a lightsaber and Obi-Wan bends down to get a closer look I could swear that the kid in the foreground moved. Anyone else notice that? I'm not totally sure, but I'm certain I'll remember to look next time I see the movie.

Second, when Padme was on her way to her burial, did she still look pregnant? If so, that's pretty clever of everyone involved. But then again, maybe it was just an unflattering dress.

Oh, and a note to George and all the other directors out there...stop with the closeups in melee battles!

-Joe

[Cuckoorex]

Well, they tried to answer the question of why some Jedi can appear again in spirit form, implying that Qui Gon "rediscovered" some secret of immortality and passed it on to Yoda, who in turn passed it on to Kenobi...and yet at the end of ROTJ, Anakin also joins the ranks of the "spirit Jedi"...are we to believe that he, too, "rediscovered" it on his own? I guess so...

[Asylum]

That movie was all that with an order of fries and a large Coke.

Overall I'd probably rank ROTS third in series behind ANH and ESB.

Some of my random thoughts:

Yoda's a badass (thought this during the last movie, but it's nice to have some confirmation in your life).

Lucas still can't write romantic dialogue (I physically winced during the early scene between Anakin/Padme in their apartment).

Lucas must've given more direction to his actors because ROTS had the best acting of any movie he's directed that I've seen.

I would've liked to have seen more of General Grevous (sp?). He was a badass.

After watching this movie I can totally buy Anakin going to the dark side and becoming Darth Vader. After watching the first two movies I had my doubts about whether or not Lucas could pull this off convincingly, but I must admit that if I was in Anakin's shoes I could potentially see myself doing the same thing.

Merijeek, I can't answer your first question, but as for your second, I definitely agree that Padme looked pregnant at her funeral.

[FriarTed]

I just got back from seeing it a little over an hour ago-

Only one complaint- needs more Christopher Lee!

And I do wish Governor Tarkin had more than a distant cameo- they did get a superficially-decent Peter Cushing-type tho.

[Mahaloth]

And I do wish Governor Tarkin had more than a distant cameo- they did get a superficially-decent Peter Cushing-type tho.


Scorpius!

It doesn't get any better than that.

[Electronic Chaos]

It was alright. There were a couple way over the top scenes though. The first being when Sideous is killing Mace Windu...and directly afterwards. The audience actually laughed.

The second was as Darth Vader raised in his robotic form to learn that "he killed Padme."

"Nooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Also, they needed James Earl Jones for the voice of Vader. Nobody else could pull it off.

And one more thing. I saw this speculated by someone else in another thread, but who else thinks that Sideous/Palpatine created Anakin by manipulating the midichlorians, with the intention of making the Perfect Apprentice?

[spectrum]

I didn't see the padawan twitch.

I didn't like the montage ending. Same problem LOTR had. Jesus, just end the movies. We don't have to go visit the hometown of every blasted character in order to be swept up by the gestalt of the conclusion. The end of Attack of the Clones was far less broad, but still far more powerful. I would have ditched Alderaan, and probably Padme's funeral.

The first part of the duel with Sidious (the Windu one), when he wipes out the other three Masters, was fairly lame. The rest of that fight was pretty cool.

I was very, very concerned about the turning. I thought the seduction of Anakin was handled very, very well. You could feel him siding with Palpatine as the movie moved forward. Given the way he'd been treated, I didn't blame him for turning on Windu and the others — except, of course, for Obi-Wan.

Does anyone else think that, on some level, Palpatine truly did care about Anakin? He was very kind to him, even after being revealed as evil. He was very fatherly towards Anakin on Mustaffar.

[sciguy]

Oh....my.....god!

Was definitely a much better movie than the last two prequels. Although I think I may disagree with Asylum, I'm wondering if the better acting we see is due to less directing from Lucas. He's pretty good with story concepts, but I've never been that impressed with the films where he's directed. Although I'll admit I haven't yet seen THX-1138 (it's coming up on Netflix, though) and it's been a long while since I've seen American Graffiti.

It was cute how 3PO got a memory wipe, but R2 didn't.

The construction of the Vader suit was almost worth the price of admission by itself. And Anakin's scarred body was even worse off that I could've thought. :shudder:

The lightsaber battles were most impressive. Sadly, although I tried every jedi mind trick in the book, bladder pressure forced me away from my seat for part of the Anakin/Obi-wan fight. And I missed Yoda's escape through the senate tunnels. But even so, that was probably the fastest piss I've ever taken.

I was hoping for an actual appearance by Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon.

After seeing the film, I'm sticking to my theory (formulated after reading the novelization) that Sidious influenced the "virgin birth" of Anakin. The power he described to Anakin included manipulating midichlorians to cheat death and create life. I think Maul and Dooku were always just placeholders for Sidious's engineered apprentice, fathered by the Force itself.

I think the Jedi were pretty dense about the interpretation of "bring balance to the Force". Even while Obi-wan was fighting Anakin/Vader at the end, the idea that culling the Jedi order down to balance against the two Sith just seemed to bypass him.

Finally I think the storytelling and characterization in the novel was much better than the film. The novel really pulled you inside the heads of the characters, especially during the fight scenes. Although that's probably an unfair comparison, since that kind of introspection is really hard to pull off in a movie.

[Murcielago]

Breif thoughts before going to bed...

Great action sequences, from the opening space battle to the final showdowns.

Though the Anakin/Padme bits still make you drop your head to your hand, Kenobi and Palpatine keep you interested in the characters.

Yoda dropping Palpatine's two red-robed guards was priceless.

[Ender_Will]

Just got back from the west coast midnight show.

Thought it was great. The betrayal of the Jedi was one of the best scenes I've seen in a long time. The scenes with Palpatine converting Anakin were incredible. I'm gonna agree with everyone else that the romantic stuff between Anakin and Padme were horrid.

Yoda is such a badass, it's not even funny. As Murcielago just said, Yoda dropping the two red-robed Imperial Gaurds was awesome. As was his survival of the

Personally, I liked the allusions/duplicates/whatever to the original trilogy, both the Anakin/Dooku fight mirroring the Luke/Vader battle from ROTJ and Owen and Beru watching the twin sunrise a la Luke in ANH. Too many clouds for Tattooine though.

Yeah, Padme was definitely pregnant in the funeral.

Don't know if I'm alone on this one, but it might well have had the best visual effects I've ever seen, especially in the opening space battle.

I could go on about how much I was digging the evolution of the spacecraft into what we're all familiar with from the original three, or how cool Chewie and Tarkin's ultra-brief cameos were, or Obi-Wan taking down Grevious was, but I'm off to bed, try to sleep before my final in seven hours.

And honestly, when it comes to studying or the premiere of Star Wars...No question. Finals come around every semester, but there's only ONE first showing.

[Ender_Will]

Third paragraph was supposed to say something about his survival of the Clone betrayal. Wish there was an edit function...

[GuanoLad]

We don't have to go visit the hometown of every blasted character in order to be swept up by the gestalt of the conclusion.Yes we did! This is not only the last Star Wars movie that had to tie up a lot of loose ends, and that was almost the only way to achieve them, but they also had to set up the 20 year gap until Episode IV.

The montage was a prerequisite, and handled perfectly.

[galen ubal]

<snip..>
Also, they needed James Earl Jones for the voice of Vader. Nobody else could pull it off.
<..snip>

Actually, he was - check out IMDB's complete cast list (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121766/fullcredits).

[Tracy Lord]

I'll type up a longer response when I'm more lucid, but for now I'm chipping in to say that I didn't think the Anakin/Padme stuff was that bad. Or, rather, that half of it wasn't that bad. Hayden Christensen is a much better actor than I'd given him credit for, and he really holds up in the Scenes of Saccharine Drek. When Padme tells him she's pregnant (terrible delivery by Ms. Portman across the board, alas), he goes through a whole range of "I made a baby!" "Holy crap, this is going to screw our lives up like none other!" "We made a baby!" "Jesus Christ, what are we going to do?!" and ending up on "I love this woman so much" and then sweeping her into this great embrace. When they give Christensen fewer lines and more face-acting time, he's golden.

[Excalibre]

I suppose I'm the only one who thinks so . . . but, sucks, it does.

This movie, to me, is the worst of the prequels, because while the first was nigh-unwatchable, it had a plot reminiscent of a breakfast cereal commercial. The second had no plot to speak of. But this one - it actually had a good story behind it. High melodrama, in my opinion. And despite every other flaw, it could have been good if the two leads had been capable of carrying off their roles. But they weren't. I couldn't sense any chemistry whatsoever between Christensen and Portman. And it's ironic that given the crappiness of these two leads that they had the youngest (second-youngest? Was Jodi Foster younger?) Academy Award nominee ever in the cast - with no lines.

I tried to sit and enjoy it, and some piece of awful dialogue ruined scenes for me time and again. Or some other idiocy: the Wookiee are supposed to be primitive - so they fight with blasters shaped like crossbows. Anakin and Obi Wan are fighting several feet above actively-churning lava. Not only were their bodily fluids not boiled off, but Obi Wan wasn't even visibly sweaty, and Anakin wasn't either until one of the final close-ups. Count Dooku and Chancellor Palpatine were hanging out in the most exposed section of the ship during an enormous space battle, and when the ship crashed into a planet, burning off about half of it in the process, that little spire somehow survived.

I also wonder how the dead baby Jedi made their way into the movie. It happened a few minutes after the scene in which all the Jedi died (one of the few with any pathos, possibly because no one was talking.) Despite my liking that scene, apparently the sadness didn't stick with the audience in the theater, who were laughing moments later as Yoda fought off his attempted killers. I'm thinking - test audiences didn't feel sad enough? Let's throw in some dead children.

I was also rather irritated by the unsubtleness of some of the dialogue - Anakin actually says, "You are either with me - or you are my enemy." Gosh, that's sure something to think about. I wonder what you could have been referencing, George Lucas.

It was sad to see Ewan McGregor valiently struggling against the bad dialogue. Thank goodness Samuel L. Jackson had so much screen time; he's one of those actors with a presence that works no matter what he's saying.

By the end, I was expecting no major character to have any hands left. How many behandings must there be in a movie? If it had happened once in Episodes 1-3, it would have been an interesting parallel to Luke's hand in the original trilogy. But every other seen involved a hand dropping into an abyss. Is this some hamhanded (so to speak) attempt at symbolism? Did Lucas think he was establishing some sort of motif?

That's all I can think of to hate the movie for, at the moment. I have to admit that my irritation was enhanced by the idiot sitting next to me, whose name I believe is Gaspy McGaspalot. Gaspy, it seems, somehow missed the first trilogy. Because every time anything happened, she gasped in shock. Every five seconds. Apparently, she wasn't aware that Anakin Skywalker was going to turn evil. Or that the Chancellor wasn't nice. Or that Darth Vader wore a black suit. Or that he had a Death Star in Episode IV.

Plus, in the scene where Anakin wakes up from a nightmare, did anyone notice the jewelry Padme was wearing, and the strings of pearls sewed onto her nightgown? WTF? She would have strangled herself in her sleep!

I liked a couple bits. I liked when R2D2 squirted oil at the droids and killed them. And I thought CGI-Yoda finally looked pretty good. And I did like the overall story, even if a competent director could have done so much more with it.

Ahh, well, at least I still have my (non-updated) videos of the original trilogy . . .

[Lord Ashtar]

If I had to nitpick things I didn't like, I'd have to go with the fact that we still don't really know why Leia has memories of Padme and Luke does not.

Other than that, my brother and I were wondering why Palpatine's face got all messed up. We were speculating before the movie that maybe he was using the Force to keep his face normal looking most of the time, which weakened him, which was why nobody noticed that he was an ultra-powerful Sith lord. Turns out it was his own Force Lightning.

I felt they could've used a few more minutes in Anakin's actual turn, but it still worked as it was done. I did, however, love the way that Palpatine was telling him (telepathically, no less) that if he died, Anakin would have no way to save Padme. Then, after he turned he was all, "Well, I don't actually know how to keep people from dying, but I'm sure we can figure it out together." So, so evil.

I'm sure I'll have more later. But definately add me to the list of people who thought this movie kicked serious ass.

[Mahaloth]

If I had to nitpick things I didn't like, I'd have to go with the fact that we still don't really know why Leia has memories of Padme and Luke does not.



Doesn't she just remember her adoptive mother?

[carlb]

Doesn't she just remember her adoptive mother?
In ROTJ, Luke asks Leia, "What do you remeber about your mother - your real mother?". I think this pretty clearly establishes that both Luke and Leia know she was adopted. I don't think we can chalk this up to anything but a big, gaping hole of a continuity error on Lucas's part.

I just realized as I was typing this that when Mark Hamill speaks this line, I think he sounds a little like Hayden Christensen.

Speaking of whom, he was much better this time around. I saw him emote! And I really liked Ian MacDiarmid's performance, especially the scene at the "Opera." He goes a little over the top once he's in full-on Emperor mode, but I thought he was really good.

You know, call me a nerd, but Ewan McGregor almost brought tears to my eyes in his last scene with Anakin/Vader. I thought he did anguish very well.

[Excalibre]

Doesn't she just remember her adoptive mother?
Couldn't she also just plain mistakenly think so because of grief? You can't take a character's words so literally - movie characters are not reliable narrators any more than people in real life are. People have bizarre beliefs in real life all the time. It's not necessarily a continuity error when the same thing happens in a movie.

[Cuckoorex]

I think that all of the prequels lacked souls. By that, I mean I never got a sense of genuine comraderie between any of the characters that was on any level comparable to the chemistry that we got to see in episodes 4-6 (especially TESB). Sure, the effects are way better, the lightsaber battles are cooler, but I couldn't really bring myself to care about these characters that much. Maybe part of it was knowing that Anakin would become Vader, but I never thought that his relationship with Padme was a deep, mature love — it still seemed like teenage angst and stilted dialogue — which is fine if that's what Lucas was going for, I guess.

I thought that Anakin's conversion was actually done a little too abruptly. I know that they've been building up to it through the previous movies, but he goes from being loyal to the Jedi to vowing to destroy them in about a ten-minute span.

I thought that the scenes of the Jedi being taken out were just wrong. We have by now gotten used to seeing a single Jedi with a lightsaber taking on dozens of battle droids and effortlessly turning aside a barrage of blaster attacks and using the force and so on, but the clone troopers are able to get the drop on them and take them out with hardly any resistance? And don't the Jedi have some kind of Jedi equivalent of Spider-sense or whatever? You mean that they were taken completely unawares? That didn't play out the way I hoped it would.

Yoda gives up because he fell? He tells Obi-wan that they must succeed in destroying the Sith, but he runs away after taking a little tumble? He has the ability, via the Force, to manipulate giant pieces of machinery but he can't slow his own descent? What, if the Jedi willingly jump down from a great height they're OK, but if they fall from that same height, they're screwed?

A good movie, but not great, IMO. I'll take TESB over any of the prequels.

[Merijeek]

Yoda gives up because he fell? He tells Obi-wan that they must succeed in destroying the Sith, but he runs away after taking a little tumble? He has the ability, via the Force, to manipulate giant pieces of machinery but he can't slow his own descent? What, if the Jedi willingly jump down from a great height they're OK, but if they fall from that same height, they're screwed?


Actually, I think it was more a matter of Yoda just plain not winning and knowing it was going nowhere. How much longer could they keep it up before he was facing a couple hundred clone troopers as well?

Jedi can survive falls just fine. How would YOU handle falling a couple hundred feet? Probably not well enough to then crawl through who knows how many ducts. :)

-Joe

[Merijeek]

Other things that occurred.

1. When we see flame-broiled Anakin right before he gets his surgery I saw that he was missing most of his LEFT arm. When did that happen? Part of his triage or something?

2. I thought we were going to either hear from or see Qui-Gonn. Was it cut? Did I miss it? Anyone who read the book able to shed some light?

3. Regarding Palpatine's story about Ye Olde Sithe Mastere. I very much got the impression that the Sith Master murdered in his sleep was Palpatine's master. True or false? I also got the impression that Palpatine, using Olde Sithe Mastere's trick to get the midichlorians to create life absolutely used them to create Anakin.

4. I'm sure I'll think of more.

-Joe, virigne birthe

[Dob]

I liked it. It was better than the other prequels, but still not close to the originals.

thoughts:

Anakin turned to fast for me. He goes from cutting a hand off, to killing all the jedi, just to much.

The "love" scenes were BAD. Cringe bad.

Ewan is a great Obi-wan! Best actor probably in all the movies. Loved him

Yoda kicked ass. When he knocked those guards out the whole theater laughed and clapped...perfect.

I dont like the fact that Dooku died so easy. I mean he fought Yoda and Yoda couldnt kill him, but Anakin does after Dooku knocks out Obi-wan? But then Obi-wan kicks Anakin's ass...just didnt make sense to me.

[Soapbox Monkey]

3. Regarding Palpatine's story about Ye Olde Sithe Mastere. I very much got the impression that the Sith Master murdered in his sleep was Palpatine's master. True or false? I also got the impression that Palpatine, using Olde Sithe Mastere's trick to get the midichlorians to create life absolutely used them to create Anakin.

Palpatine was talking about his master. But notice that although he promised Anakin he could teach him the power to manipulate life, once Anakin had turned, we learn that Palpatine really didn't know anything about it.

[Speaker for the Dead]

Other things that occurred.

1. When we see flame-broiled Anakin right before he gets his surgery I saw that he was missing most of his LEFT arm. When did that happen? Part of his triage or something?

3. Regarding Palpatine's story about Ye Olde Sithe Mastere. I very much got the impression that the Sith Master murdered in his sleep was Palpatine's master. True or false? I also got the impression that Palpatine, using Olde Sithe Mastere's trick to get the midichlorians to create life absolutely used them to create Anakin.


1. I think Obi-Wan cut it off at the same time he cut off his legs.

2. I thought that, but as the movie went on, I also got the feeling that none of it was true, and Sidious was simply lying to Anakin to get him to turn. I think he was very relieved when Padme died (in the kind of neat self-fulfilling prophesy) and he didn't have to figure out something he knew he couldn't/didn't know how to do.

[Stephe96]

Here's my question: why doesn't R2-D2 remember that he can fly in the original "Star Wars?" That would've helped him get away from, say, those Jawas and whatnot....

[Electronic Chaos]

I dont like the fact that Dooku died so easy. I mean he fought Yoda and Yoda couldnt kill him, but Anakin does after Dooku knocks out Obi-wan? But then Obi-wan kicks Anakin's ass...just didnt make sense to me.

I'm pretty sure Dooku took a fall purposefully. Granted, I don't think he knew he was going to die. Palpatine probably told him "I need your help turning Anakin, so after you take care of Obi-Wan, make sure to take a dive."


Palpatine was talking about his master. But notice that although he promised Anakin he could teach him the power to manipulate life, once Anakin had turned, we learn that Palpatine really didn't know anything about it.

Actually I'm pretty sure he did. He just wanted to make sure that the only thing with any possibility of turning Anakin back to the light side had no chance of surviving.

The Emporer is a magnificantly deceptive bastard.

[Merijeek]

Here's my question: why doesn't R2-D2 remember that he can fly in the original "Star Wars?" That would've helped him get away from, say, those Jawas and whatnot....

Why didn't the radio work in my 1988 Volvo two years ago?

-Joe

[Patty O'Furniture]

why doesn't R2-D2 remember that he can fly in the original "Star Wars?" That would've helped him get away from, say, those Jawas and whatnot....

He hever got his fuel tanks recharged.

Could I be a writer or what?

[Lord Ashtar]

3. Regarding Palpatine's story about Ye Olde Sithe Mastere. I very much got the impression that the Sith Master murdered in his sleep was Palpatine's master. True or false? I also got the impression that Palpatine, using Olde Sithe Mastere's trick to get the midichlorians to create life absolutely used them to create Anakin.
I'm certain it was Palpatine's master who died in his sleep. Another thought I had was that his master was the one who created Anakin and Palaptine thought, "If I kill this guy in my sleep, not only will I become Sith Master, but I'll have a really kick ass apprentice." So perhaps it was Palpatine's original master who was Anakin's father.

[drm]

I found the relationship between Anakin and Padme completely unbelievable. I just didn't see how Padme could like him at all. He was a whiney pissant right from the first movie. Despite this, I thought the two characters were pretty well put together. I liked how Anakin was a touch ambiguous. He had a reason for turning besides the ultimate quest for power.

The dialogue, in spots, was terrible and I laughed out loud in a number of places. I tried to be polite though, they were mostly short bursts. There was so much potential in certain spots...

Despite that, I really liked the movie. The middle section during the rebellion and onward I was completely gripped, especially when the Jedi were being killed. I had my heart in my throat.

As should be obvious from my first comment, I found the reason for Padme's death a little unbelievable as, as stated before, I couldn't see how there would be any real feelings there. The real reason should be something along the lines of death because she was ashamed in her taste in a husband. That was only a small quibble really. It really wasn't the thrust of the ending and overall I was very pleased by it. All plot lines were tied together nicely and somewhat believably.

As far as the acting is concerned, Ewan seemed to do the best with what he was given. Sam was pretty good as well (as he always is). Natalie seemed robotic at times but was more than passable. Hayden was okay but that's about all I'll give him.

My mark on IMDB will probably be 7/10.

Oh, ILM and Skywalker Sound did a remarkable job. A little more bass than necessary at times but nothing major.

[AdmiralCrunch]

I don't know if this deserves a new thread, but here are some unanswered Star Wars questions that I have.
1) What's up with Dagobah? Where does the Dark presence come from in the cave? Why does Luke say there's something familiar about this place?
2) Why doesn't R2-D2 use any of his cool powers in the old trilogy? Flying and spraying oil are useful little tricks.
3) Why don't Yoda and Obi-Wan take Leia and Luke to train them? They need all the help that they can get in fighting the Sith. Even if they couldn't train them in the Force for fear of being hunted down, they could still teach them to control emotions and be restrained.
4) How does Leia remember her "real" mother?
5) How long does it take to build the Death Star? The first one takes at least 17 years, but the second is fully operational after only 4 or so years.
Finally, just an opinion. Would Mace Windu have killed the Emperor if Anakin hadn't shown up? I know he had forseen it, but it looked like using all that lightning took something out of him and he wasn't holding back at all.

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

General rambling:

Hayden Christensen

[Electronic Chaos]

4) How does Leia remember her "real" mother?


Princess Leia: Luke, what's wrong?
Luke: Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?
Princess Leia: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.
Luke: What do you remember?
Princess Leia: Just... images really. Feelings.

I'm thinking the real reason is sloppy writing by Lucas. But this could be explained by the fact that Leia is Force-sensitive, and perhaps uses this to divine the past and "remember" feelings about her mother. Maybe things she picked up on in the womb...that sort of thing.

[Chronos]

The one thing cooler than Yoda kicking butt was Artoo kicking butt. Especially since he did it in such an Artoo-ish way. But Yoda just casually felling the two scarlet-robes was great, too.

I thought that the acting was better than I and II across the board; Portman in particular did a much better job in this one than previously. She still didn't come across as a great actress, but I wasn't cringing at her delivery. Even in the terrible romance scenes, one does get the impression that part of the reason they're so terrible is that the relationship (such as it is) is falling apart.

It seemed pretty obvious to me that Plagus was Sidious' master. Plagus taught his apprentice everything he knew... Sidious' mentor taught him everything he knew. Besides, how the heck else would Sidious know of Plagus?

The bit that puzzled me was why a droid would be always coughing and wheezing, and walk with an arthritic hunch. I'm told that Grievous wasn't actually a droid, but an organic with a bunch of droid parts, but in that case, why does the opening crawl say he was a droid? And even if his lungs were original equipment (which would explain the cough), wasn't his musculoskeletal system mechanical? So why can't he stand up straight?

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

Well that's embarrassing.

Round 2:

Hayden can't act to save his godddamned life. One of my seatmates is all "Look what he has to work with", but I point out that Ewan McGregor and Sam Jackson had the same crap, but they sold it.

No feminine hygiene commercial in the middle of this one. No giant tick rides. Thank God for that.

It's been almost 30 years, and that man still cannot write a believable love scene. Every time Padme and Anakin were speaking to each other, I was cringing. Deep-seated embarrassment for the poor actors.

The space battles were fantastic this time around and the effects were good. He doesn't have the all-digital set thing quite right yet. The Jedi Temple still looked off to me. Much better than in 1 and 2 though.

Padme had a lot of really (really) bad hair and lighting. She's ordinarily so gorgeous, but during the scene on the balcony, near the beginning, she turned toward Anakin when he says something like "you're so beautiful". She had this nasty hair mess and a really awful hag face, and it was mostly the lighting and makeup. My seatmate was again smacking me -- between Anakin telling her how beautiful she was and her shooting him with her hagface, I was giggling uncontrollably.

Also (because I'm only 12 inside) when Palpatine asked Anakin whether the Jedi Council had done something "to make [him] feel dishonest", the only thing I could think was "SHOW ME ON THE DOLL WHERE HE TOUCHED YOU".

Yoda with the guards? Funny as hell. Everyone cheered that where I was.

R2 with the ass-kicking? Also funny as hell.

Overall, much, much better than the first two. I was dreading what he had for us in this one, but I was pleasantly surprised.

[Merijeek]

The bit that puzzled me was why a droid would be always coughing and wheezing, and walk with an arthritic hunch. I'm told that Grievous wasn't actually a droid, but an organic with a bunch of droid parts, but in that case, why does the opening crawl say he was a droid? And even if his lungs were original equipment (which would explain the cough), wasn't his musculoskeletal system mechanical? So why can't he stand up straight?

Grievous is definitely a cyborg. His meaty bits were shown quite clearly several times.

The exact phrasing in the crawl is "fiendish droid leader, general grievous". More clear Lucas writing - it could mean that he is a droid that is a leader or a leader of droids.

The cough is explained by the meat lungs.

As for the hunch, who knows? Maybe whatever Grievous originally was (before being cyborged) is normally hunchbacked so those are the devices he chose off the rack?

I was kind of disappointed in General Grievous just because, well, he was kind of a wuss. It seems like almost all he ever did was run away. Compare that to the psycho killer from the cartoons...

-Joe

[Rashak Mani]

After watching this movie I can totally buy Anakin going to the dark side and becoming Darth Vader.
YOU CAN ?! I thought it was totally unconvincing ! Pathetic is closer to what I feel about the changing to the dark side.

The romance was unconvincing too... dumb script.

[SpartanDC]

I loved it, and I know that unlike the other two prequels, my love for this movie will not fade once my rose-colored fanboy glasses go away. Here's why: I actually cared about the plot, and found the non-action scenes as interesting as the action ones. When I made myself watch Episode II a couple nights ago, I was pretty much just waiting for the end (I'm like this when I watch ROTJ, too). When I watch this movie at home at some point, the only scenes I'll probably get up to use the bathroom/make a sandwich during is that awful scene that opens with Padme brushing her hair. Ugh, George, what made you think that sounded good?

Also, I thought Hayden did a really good job this time around. Despite having bad dialogue to work with, he tried his hardest to create some chemistry between him and Natalie Portman, and sometimes they even pulled it off (no thanks to her... she seemed intent on delivering most of her lines like she was deliberating in the Senate). And he plays conflicted and downright evil very well, to the point that even though I knew he'd become Darth Vader, I found myself hoping that, somehow, it wouldn't happen. Like, I was genuinely happy he told Mace Windu that Palpatine was a Sith lord. But Palpatine, of course, had to keep f'ing with his mind and heart.

Related to that, loved the wordless scene of Anakin and Padme both looking out the windows. Very, very nice music there that set the mood perfectly.

I've already seen it twice, and I've choked up both times during the Jedi purge montage and the end when Obi-Wan says "You were my brother! I loved you!" Excellent work from Ewan.

Loved the opera scene, too, and all the Anakin/Palpatine scenes. Ian McDiarmid rocked in this movie, and frankly I'm glad he played the Emperor as being ridiculously over the top, because that's how he is in ROTJ, too.

Anyway, a fitting end and a deserving one.

[Balthisar]

Complaints: theater was way the hell too loud. Like painful to the ears at times loud. Not George's fault, I guess. Also, the whole thing was dubbed in Spanish (but incredibly well done; Darth Vader even sounded like Darth Vader!)

So, I went to the 12:01 am showing here, too (we're on Arizona time here, whatever that is). I'll have to go watch Episode IV again, but I'm almost ready to say that this was the best Star Wars ever. Come on, it wrapped up everything nicely, the effects were great, and I have the advantage of not really having to experience the US acting that everyone seems to hate. As soon as I have a chance, I promise to see it in English. Remember that beggers can't be choosers.

As for Anikan's conversion to the dark side: it was completely credible. You know how everyone says evil's so evil 'cos it doesn't know it's evil? That applied really nicely in Anikan's fall. From his perspective, his plotting, Jedi masters are trying to effect a coup d'etat. Compounded with his wife's impending deadly childbirth and the Chancellor's manipulation, I have no trouble sympathizing and totally understanding and possibly even supporting what he did (remember, he's not an omnicient viewer as are we).

[ISiddiqui]

From another thread:

LOVED IT!

What a fabulous movie! As I was saying, all the prequals were leading up to this and it sure did not dissapoint. The CGI which looked somewhat cheesy back in TPM is jaw dropping here. This is the best looking movie I've ever seen. It blows LOTR trilogy out of the water. The action is non stop and the dialogue isn't bad (as good as the original trilogy). McGregor is perfect as Obi-Wan, Christensen plays Anakin well, and McDiamid is excellent as Palpatine.

I would have liked to have seen Anakin's fall more streached out, but the movie was over 2 hours as it was! That said, I was satisfied that keeping Padme alive turned him.

And I like the visual touches at the end. Padme's burial procession shows that they faked the twins dying when Padme did.

And how much fun to see a proto-Death Star?

I'd have to say this is perhaps the best Star Wars movie aside from ESB.

I give it an A!

Also I liked Palpatine's 'aging'. It seemed he planned it way to make him look more weak (the whole goal was for Anakin to betray Mace Windu) and to show the Senate how he'd been betrayed by the Jedi.

[ISiddiqui]

I thought that Anakin's conversion was actually done a little too abruptly. I know that they've been building up to it through the previous movies, but he goes from being loyal to the Jedi to vowing to destroy them in about a ten-minute span.

Well I thought it was convincing. Anakin brought the news to Windu and then Windu tells him to wait in the Council like a good little boy. Anakin feels the Jedi don't respect his power. And while in the Council he gets scared that the only person who truely knows him (Padme) will die soon. That conglomeration of feelings leads him into the wrong path.

I thought that the scenes of the Jedi being taken out were just wrong. We have by now gotten used to seeing a single Jedi with a lightsaber taking on dozens of battle droids and effortlessly turning aside a barrage of blaster attacks and using the force and so on, but the clone troopers are able to get the drop on them and take them out with hardly any resistance? And don't the Jedi have some kind of Jedi equivalent of Spider-sense or whatever? You mean that they were taken completely unawares? That didn't play out the way I hoped it would.

I think they were shocked and had no idea what was going on. Their own forces had turned against them and they lost focus of battle and where flabbergasted this was happening.

Yoda gives up because he fell? He tells Obi-wan that they must succeed in destroying the Sith, but he runs away after taking a little tumble? He has the ability, via the Force, to manipulate giant pieces of machinery but he can't slow his own descent? What, if the Jedi willingly jump down from a great height they're OK, but if they fall from that same height, they're screwed?

As stated earlier, Yoda realizes the battle cannot be won. Palpatine is too powerful to fall to Yoda. So he decides to fight another day.

[SpartanDC]

We have by now gotten used to seeing a single Jedi with a lightsaber taking on dozens of battle droids and effortlessly turning aside a barrage of blaster attacks and using the force and so on, but the clone troopers are able to get the drop on them and take them out with hardly any resistance? And don't the Jedi have some kind of Jedi equivalent of Spider-sense or whatever? You mean that they were taken completely unawares? That didn't play out the way I hoped it would.

To add to ISiddiqui's reply, it had also been established since Episode II that the Jedi's ability to use The Force had been diminishing. Since this move, Order 66, was totally driven by the Dark Side, it's completely understandable that the Jedi had no clue what was going on.

As wrong as it was for Anakin to turn and help dismantle the Jedi, the Jedi Order did have flaws (namely pride and naivete, or however that's spelled), along with the Republic itself. Anakin was indeed powerful enough to see this, but Palpatine's manipulations ensured that he went about "correcting" those flaws the wrong way.

[ISiddiqui]

As wrong as it was for Anakin to turn and help dismantle the Jedi, the Jedi Order did have flaws (namely pride and naivete, or however that's spelled), along with the Republic itself. Anakin was indeed powerful enough to see this, but Palpatine's manipulations ensured that he went about "correcting" those flaws the wrong way.

Quite right! This is why I don't think the Jedi were idiotic to take him on when they thought he'd "bring balance to the Force". There probably were plenty of Jedi who thought things were not going as they should and Anakin would help bring the Force to what it should be and end the arrogance of the Council... unfortunetly they let him be controlled by Palpatine (part of their arrogance and naivety).

[SlyFrog]

As stated earlier, Yoda realizes the battle cannot be won. Palpatine is too powerful to fall to Yoda. So he decides to fight another day.

Once again showing the ultimate message of the Star Wars films; no matter what is said, in reality the Dark Side is stronger than the Light Side. Strongest Dark Side guy is stronger than the strongest Light Side guy (I don't give a crap about Mace Windu, and there are plenty of theories why he was not stronger).

Corollary - For Light Side to defeat Dark Side, Light Side practitioner must go slightly apeshit Dark Side himself, at least for a period of time, during the fight.

Why oh why must they make the Dark Side practitioners stronger? Wouldn't it be nice to see the example of the true Light Side master whose serenity and quiet strength actually allows him to beat somebody of equal stature? I suppose Obi-Wan, in the last part of the 3rd movie, is a half-way decent example. That's about it as far as I can tell.

[Ludovic]

.Strongest Dark Side guy is stronger than the strongest Light Side guy...In the same way that Sauron was "stronger" than Gandalf (yeah, non-interference, I know...)

[ISiddiqui]

Corollary - For Light Side to defeat Dark Side, Light Side practitioner must go slightly apeshit Dark Side himself, at least for a period of time, during the fight.

That depends. After all, you've already talked about Obi-Wan. He didn't flirt with the Dark Side at all during the fight with Anakin, at least as far as I can tell. Palpy is stronger than anyone in the movies though... with the possible exception of Luke (and that's in the Extended Universe).

[Excalibre]

In the same way that Sauron was "stronger" than Gandalf (yeah, non-interference, I know...)
See, it's an interesting point . . . almost every fantasy epic has opponents stronger than any of the good guys (but then, it's hard to construct a story otherwise.) However, strength is also always implicitly associated with worthiness and "specialness" - thus, the bad guy is always stronger, because he has powers that the good guy is just too damn moral to use.

[MaxTheVool]

And despite every other flaw, it could have been good if the two leads had been capable of carrying off their roles. But they weren't. I couldn't sense any chemistry whatsoever between Christensen and Portman.


I agree that the love scenes and dialog weren't GREAT. But then, I didn't think they were terrible, either. But more importantly, the Annakin-Palpatine and Annakin-Obi Wan relationships were just as central, if not more so, and I thought they were both fine.


And it's ironic that given the crappiness of these two leads that they had the youngest (second-youngest? Was Jodi Foster younger?) Academy Award nominee ever in the cast - with no lines.

Anna Paquin? Haley Joel Osment?


Or some other idiocy: the Wookiee are supposed to be primitive - so they fight with blasters shaped like crossbows.

A traditional Wookie weapon. Or at least, one that Chewbacca used in Return of the Jedi. It was a bit weird then, and is still a bit weird now, but is doing nothing but carrying over continuity from the original trilogy.



Anakin and Obi Wan are fighting several feet above actively-churning lava. Not only were their bodily fluids not boiled off, but Obi Wan wasn't even visibly sweaty, and Anakin wasn't either until one of the final close-ups.

(a) they're Jedis
(b) they little platforms they were riding were design to be rid around by people on lava, and had little force screens supporting them that you could see from time to time. It would make sense for those force screens to have thermal insulation of some sort



Count Dooku and Chancellor Palpatine were hanging out in the most exposed section of the ship during an enormous space battle, and when the ship crashed into a planet, burning off about half of it in the process, that little spire somehow survived.

Now you're just plain wrong. They found palpatine in the spire, but then (in a lengthy action sequence involving the floor turning sideways and an elevator shaft) brought him back down to the main part of the ship, then were captured and taken to the cockpit where Grievous was.



By the end, I was expecting no major character to have any hands left. How many behandings must there be in a movie?

Four characters get hands chopped off, by my count:
-Dooku
-Grievous
-Mace Windu
-Annakin

If you think about it, that's probably a pretty likely way for a lightsabre-duel-to-the-death to end.


Plus, in the scene where Anakin wakes up from a nightmare, did anyone notice the jewelry Padme was wearing, and the strings of pearls sewed onto her nightgown? WTF? She would have strangled herself in her sleep!

Yeah, that was weird.




Oh, and by the way, back when Episode II came out, there was a tidbit up on starwars.com with a fake news article about how the flying jets on an R2-series astromech droid have only a limited lifetime.

[Dio2112]

Best. Star Wars movie. Ever.

Utterly mind blowing. Now we can forget that Episodes I and II ever happened. 3, 4, 5, and 6 are the complete epic.

Totally different feel from the first 2 prequels. The most Star Wars-y feel since Empire Strikes Back.

Still stunned 14 hours after seeing the midnight premier. Gonna see it twice more tonight.

And those reviewers who said the acting was wooden, did we see the same movie? I thought it was pitch-perfect, only one line I would have changed (the "You're beautiful." "Only because I'm in love." exchange).

Gut wrenching scene at the end with Obi-Wan almost crying his lines over a burning Anakin. "You were the Chosen One. You were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them. You were my brother." Cinema gold.

The CGI was flawless, totally seamless--way, way, way ahead of its time technically. This movie is like Return of the Jedi in that it will take many years for another picture to look as good in the SFX department.

The montage of Jedi being cut down by Order 66 felt like that part in The Godfather when Corleone has all of his enemies killed in one long montage with epic music playing. When Ki-Adi-Mundi is leading a charge on that cold and barren planet, and turns around wondering why his clones aren't following him, and is then slaughtered in a hail of gunfire--pathos beyond description. What a lonely, sad way to die.

I was very concerned that this movie would make the Dark Side seem "cool". Haha what a misplaced concern. The Dark Side is way not cool. It's sick, twisted psychopathic, "Consume you it will." The perversion, the psychopathic sickness of what it does to you is no fun at all. Watching Anakin carry out his Sithly duties, knowing full well he can't go back, knowing he's made a terrible choice but he can't retract it--the tears he sheds as he goes about the evil he is now required to commit. What a sock in the gut. Wow, just wow.

The emperor. When he's telling Anakin about how he killed his master, Darth Plageuis--shades of Hannibal Lecter there. He almost laughs at how his master taught him everything he knew, and then Sideous casually wasted him in his sleep. Sideous looks down to the right and smiles as if he's fondly remembering the night of his betrayal.

I could go on and on. I'm 37 years old, having seen ANH and ESB in the theater at ages 9 and 12, and never thought it was possible to regain that same feeling I had coming out of those 2 movies. The first 2 prequels let me down so badly, I had no expectations whatsoever for this one. George, I owe you an apology. It is clear that this was the movie you wanted to make all along. Rock on!

[ISiddiqui]

The CGI was flawless, totally seamless--way, way, way ahead of its time technically. This movie is like Return of the Jedi in that it will take many years for another picture to look as good in the SFX department.

Indeed. I have never seen a movie with visuals as breathtaking as RotS. My Lord, this was HOW the CGI was supposed to look in TPM and AotC. I wouldn't mind, at all, Lucasfilms touching up the CGI from EP1 and EP2 to look as good as RotS looks for a second trilogy set.

I couldn't believe that it looked that great. It leaves LOTR's special effects in the dust. If they don't win an Oscar for that, then there is no hope left for those awards.

[SpartanDC]

I was very concerned that this movie would make the Dark Side seem "cool". Haha what a misplaced concern. The Dark Side is way not cool. It's sick, twisted psychopathic, "Consume you it will." The perversion, the psychopathic sickness of what it does to you is no fun at all. Watching Anakin carry out his Sithly duties, knowing full well he can't go back, knowing he's made a terrible choice but he can't retract it--the tears he sheds as he goes about the evil he is now required to commit. What a sock in the gut. Wow, just wow.
Agreed... I was surprised at how sad this movie made me, and Lucas did a great job of instilling the whole movie with a sense of dread. Can I assume that you, like me, were pissed off at the fans who cheered when Anakin turned to the Dark Side or when he led the troops into the Jedi Temple?

People! You don't root for the bad guys!! Shit like that is why I hate the people who dress up and stage lightsaber battles in front of the screen beforehand. They lose sight of the story and just focus on the "badass" stuff. I'm actually thinking of starting a thread about it.

[ISiddiqui]

Agreed... I was surprised at how sad this movie made me, and Lucas did a great job of instilling the whole movie with a sense of dread. Can I assume that you, like me, were pissed off at the fans who cheered when Anakin turned to the Dark Side or when he led the troops into the Jedi Temple?

People! You don't root for the bad guys!! Shit like that is why I hate the people who dress up and stage lightsaber battles in front of the screen beforehand. They lose sight of the story and just focus on the "badass" stuff. I'm actually thinking of starting a thread about it.

That's why I liked my theater. So quiet you could hear a pin drop during the scenes of Anakin turning and the fight scenes in the last third of the movie (with an 80% filled theater). You could feel everyone in the place feeling the dread. Though there were plenty of laughs earlier, such as when Yoda threw the red uniformed guards aside... but almost nothing after that until the end (which had applause).

[Rufus Xavier]

I liked it. It is flawed, but overall it certainly satisfied me. I have some thoughts to share:

1. Poor 3PO. He has absolutely nothing to do in this film but stumble around and worry about things. But at least he isn't being forced to be the comic relief.

2. Hooray that Jar-Jar has no lines!

3. When Greivous' ship breaks in half near the end of the opening sequence (which is, all told, an incredible piece of filmmaking), all I could think of was the poor people on the surface of Coruscant. When that back half of the ship hit the ground, I'm guessing about 150,000 people died instantly.

4. I'm glad I got to see Alderaan, even if only for a minute.

5. The fight between Obi-Wan and Vader in this movie is a lot more impressive than the one in the original Star Wars. In fact, in general, the fighters in all the fight and battle scenes in this movie seem to move with a lot more speed and agility than they do in the original trilogy.

[Arhat]

Ok, what the hell was up with Kashyyk? For one thing, I'm upset that there wasn't more screentime with the Wookies. I was promised Wookies dammit! And I thought Kashyyk was supposed to be a forest planet where the Wookies all lived in the canopy and the jungle floor was a dark, dangerous place. So why does the battle of Kashyyk take place on the water near what appears to be prime coastal real estate?

[drm]

Anna Paquin? Haley Joel Osment?

Keisha Castle-Hughes (nominated for best actress leading role, Whale Rider) played Queen of Naboo.

[ISiddiqui]

5. The fight between Obi-Wan and Vader in this movie is a lot more impressive than the one in the original Star Wars. In fact, in general, the fighters in all the fight and battle scenes in this movie seem to move with a lot more speed and agility than they do in the original trilogy.

From what I read, Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen worked for 2 months on fencing and fitness before the film. It seems to have paid off.

[Casey1505]

Well that's embarrassing.I thought you were just fantasizing about him for a minute and accidentaly hit submit.

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

The CGI was flawless, totally seamless--way, way, way ahead of its time technically. This movie is like Return of the Jedi in that it will take many years for another picture to look as good in the SFX department.But it wasn't. The animation job on the unmasked clones was embarrassingly awful. I've seen better in video games. It was most noticeable in the group that was standing around Obi-wan's ship before he took off to find the general. Their movements were all wrong, and their heads were too big for their bodies. On top of that, the footage of Temuera Morrison that was texture-mapped onto the heads of the clone warriors was terribly done. I found that whole scene to be really jarring, and it left me wondering why he do what they've done to have one actor play several characters for forever -- clever camera angles and digital insertion -- instead of building them all in a computer. (Of course, the answer is that George Lucas loves using ILM for everything when sometimes it'd be better to look beyond.)

It was largely a great technical achievement, but it was in no way "way, way, way ahead of its time technically." The effects were much better than in the other prequels, but they still had their flaws.

[Soapbox Monkey]

Ok, what the hell was up with Kashyyk? For one thing, I'm upset that there wasn't more screentime with the Wookies. I was promised Wookies dammit! And I thought Kashyyk was supposed to be a forest planet where the Wookies all lived in the canopy and the jungle floor was a dark, dangerous place. So why does the battle of Kashyyk take place on the water near what appears to be prime coastal real estate?

I personally laugh my ass off whenever Lucas decides to go against what fanboys have decided is the "truth." I love it when EU ends up being wrong. :p

[Robot Arm]

Good, but not great.

The montage of Jedi being cut down by Order 66 felt like that part in The Godfather when Corleone has all of his enemies killed in one long montage with epic music playing. When Ki-Adi-Mundi is leading a charge on that cold and barren planet, and turns around wondering why his clones aren't following him, and is then slaughtered in a hail of gunfire--pathos beyond description. What a lonely, sad way to die.I was thinking of the same scene, with the opposite conclusion. All the murdered Jedi got to fight for a few seconds before being overwhelmed, but it's a whole lot more cold and ruthless to stick a shiv (or fire a blaster) in someone's back when they're not even looking. If you want to show that the dark side is evil, that would have been the way to do it; but Lucas likes action better than feelings.

The dialog was awful.

And I was disappointed by the final duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin. I really disliked the kid by that point, and wanted Obi-Wan to lay more of a beating on him. Which I think would have worked better with the plot, anyway; to have Anakin losing the fight but pressing on harder and harder out of anger. And the way it ended. They're shown as being almost perfectly matched, even throwing each other across the room in unison. And even though these guys can leap 40 feet in the air, have been fighting from a conference room to a catwalk to a huge piece of equipment sinking in a river of lava as it heads for the falls, suddenly it's "Aha, give up, I am slightly uphill from you!"

And call me old fashioned, but the CGI still ain't as good as a puppet. When Yoda was poking Luke with a stick in The Empire Strikes Back, or wrestling with Artoo over a flashlight, there was a physical presence of him interacting with his environment. Yoda now has lots of nifty moves so he can start trashing bozos, but there just isn't any sense that he's really there.

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

I thought you were just fantasizing about him for a minute and accidentaly hit submit.
God, that's even worse than the accidental Tab + Space that actually happened. Bleh.

[sturmhauke]

I was kind of disappointed in General Grievous just because, well, he was kind of a wuss. It seems like almost all he ever did was run away. Compare that to the psycho killer from the cartoons...
Well, he was apparently badly wounded by Mace Windu when he "kidnapped" Palpy, hence the cough. Maybe he was biding his time until he could get some repairs or whatever.

I liked the movie a lot. I'll have to mull it over before I decide how it compares to the originals, but it's much better than Eps I and II.

[SlyFrog]

People! You don't root for the bad guys!! Shit like that is why I hate the people who dress up and stage lightsaber battles in front of the screen beforehand. They lose sight of the story and just focus on the "badass" stuff. I'm actually thinking of starting a thread about it.

Tell that to the people in the theater where I saw Heat. The ones (as in enough to be considered "the theater") who cheered when they executed the cops. That was genuinely creepy.

[cainxinth]

Where was the heart, the whimsy, the soul? The original trilogy is transcendent, a permanent piece of American pop culture. These new ones tried hard but never really came close if you ask me. Thankfully George did get better with each one, but in the end I think I’ll be forever qualifying when someone asks me if I’m Star Wars fan… I’m an original trilogy purist.

As for the minutia:

Yoda looked perfect close up, Gollum perfect, but still visibly CG when viewed from afar. I think ILM is only the biggest effects house now, and Weta is the best.

Portman can act, I saw her do it in Garden State, therefore the blame goes to George for her third in a serious of bland, listless performances.

Grevous was dope. But what’s what the obviously bad guy names? Grevous, Sidious, Maul, Tyrannus? George aint the king of subtlety in filmmaking.

I did think George wrapped things up nicely though. The end story for the prequels actually flows coherently into the originals.

[rocking chair]

i kept thinking, would this have happened if qui-jon lived and trained anakin? or if another jedi had stepped into the father role for him.

he knew the council and obi-wan thought he shouldn't have been trained. that qui-jon and obi-wan had argued over him. he grabbed on to qui-jon when he left his mother, qui-jon became his rock. then the rock was gone.

although he and obi-wan have a good relationship, it isn't father-son, more older-younger brother. he didn't forget the arguement and knew obi-wan started his training due to his promise to qui-jon than any feelings for him.

he needed a new rock. palpatine became that rock. he believed in him from the first with no hesitation. he became the father figure.

then when everything starts to break apart....

i can see where he would place his trust in the wrong person and do things that bit by bit would destroy his soul.

yoda is the one who has padme buried looking pregnant. further protection for the twins.

[Metacom]

OK. Overall I liked it, but there were some flaws. Especially (as many others have said) the dialog.

My "laugh out loud at Lucas's crappy writing" moment was when the medical droid said "She's lost her will to live" like it was some sort of standard diagnosis. It sounds straight out of a Monty Python sketch: "Doctor, what's wrong with me? Will antibiotics help?" "No, sorry. You've lost you're will to live. You're going to die." "Maybe a different diet? More excercise?" "No, none of that will help. No will to live. I'm surprised you haven't dropped dead yet." ....

Also, what the hell was up with Yoda telling Obi-wan that he was going to teach him to commune with Qui-gon? "Going into exile you are; teach you to speak to dead people I will; bored you not will be on desert shithole." Did Obi-wan spend 20 years hanging out talking to dead people while Luke matured?

Oh, and Anakin definately could have been better cast. He wasn't in the same league actor-wise as Ewan McGregor and stood out like a sore thumb when they were together.

[Robot Arm]

I have a question.

What were the Sith getting revenge for?

Okay, Darth Maul was killed, but he took out Qui-Gon, so that's pretty much a toss up. Count Dooku did the "Look, Ma" thing, but it was Sidious who sold him out. And big-picture-wise, the Sith have been calling the shots since the beginning of Ep I, and probably before. Where's the revenge?

[Merijeek]

Good, but not great.

I was thinking of the same scene, with the opposite conclusion. All the murdered Jedi got to fight for a few seconds before being overwhelmed, but it's a whole lot more cold and ruthless to stick a shiv (or fire a blaster) in someone's back when they're not even looking. If you want to show that the dark side is evil, that would have been the way to do it; but Lucas likes action better than feelings.


Admittedly, I was pretty tired at the end of the day, but did we see a single Jedi fight back?

Starfighter: Sorta, I think he tried dodging for a second
Speederbike: Not at all
Blue Twi'Lek in jungle: Not at all
Ki'ai'Mundi: Not at all, maybe blocked a shot or two, but sure as hell doesn't count as fighting for a few seconds

Who did I miss?

-Joe

[Merijeek]

I have a question.

What were the Sith getting revenge for?

Okay, Darth Maul was killed, but he took out Qui-Gon, so that's pretty much a toss up. Count Dooku did the "Look, Ma" thing, but it was Sidious who sold him out. And big-picture-wise, the Sith have been calling the shots since the beginning of Ep I, and probably before. Where's the revenge?

There used to be many of them and they were essentially wiped out by the Jedi. People on the wrong end of a genocide tend to take it all personal and stuff.

Then again, I guess you have a pretty good question in that how is someone without knowledge of the EU supposed to know that? I suppose it could be seen as the poor lil' Sith were being repressed by the Jedi or something.

-Joe

[ISiddiqui]

I don't understand all this gnashing over the "Will to Live" line. It seemed the medbot couldn't find anything medically wrong and so surmised that the reason she was dying was because she hadn't the will to live. It sounds better than "I don't freaking know!" and people have been known to survive situations doctors say they shouldn't because they've had "the will to live", why doesn't it work the opposite way?

Also from some posts it seems people thought the original trilogy's dialogue was Shakespeare ;). The dialogue of Ep 4, 5, 6 was just as corny, ham-fisted, etc. It's part of the whole space serial stereotype. The dialogue on RotS was just as good as that of the original trilogy. I mean, really, the original trilogy captured us, but lets not delude ourselves and call it great filmmaking with great dialogue and acting.

[ISiddiqui]

There used to be many of them and they were essentially wiped out by the Jedi. People on the wrong end of a genocide tend to take it all personal and stuff.

Then again, I guess you have a pretty good question in that how is someone without knowledge of the EU supposed to know that? I suppose it could be seen as the poor lil' Sith were being repressed by the Jedi or something.

-Joe

Wasn't it mentioned in earlier movies that the Jedi 'wiped out' the Sith? So I guess the context for those not in the know comes from that.

[Robot Arm]

Starfighter: Sorta, I think he tried dodging for a second
Speederbike: Not at all
Blue Twi'Lek in jungle: Not at all
Ki'ai'Mundi: Not at all, maybe blocked a shot or two, but sure as hell doesn't count as fighting for a few seconds

Who did I miss?
Okay, maybe the one on the speederbike. But the dodging and blocking a few shots are exactly what I'm talking about. It's assumed within the movie that none of them had any realistic chance to get away (although the ability of Force powers to adapt themselves to the needs of the plot is impressive), but they all saw it coming. That scene would have played out so much more cold-blooded if they'd been killed without even knowing what hit them.

But Lucas makes action movies, and characters in action movies die in action. Maybe the scene the way I envision it would have been too chilling. There was already controversy that this movie was too intense for some kids as it was.

[ISiddiqui]

But Lucas makes action movies, and characters in action movies die in action. Maybe the scene the way I envision it would have been too chilling. There was already controversy that this movie was too intense for some kids as it was.

Yeah, apparently a lot of moms were mad about Lucas showing Anakin about to kill the kids. Though I don't know if anyone would have complained more about them getting stabbed in the back instead of marginally fighting back before succumbing. It's probably as you said and was about the action.

[Excalibre]

I don't understand all this gnashing over the "Will to Live" line. It seemed the medbot couldn't find anything medically wrong and so surmised that the reason she was dying was because she hadn't the will to live. It sounds better than "I don't freaking know!" and people have been known to survive situations doctors say they shouldn't because they've had "the will to live", why doesn't it work the opposite way?
People in made for TV movies might do that, but not in real life. I was amused by this line as well.


Also from some posts it seems people thought the original trilogy's dialogue was Shakespeare ;). The dialogue of Ep 4, 5, 6 was just as corny, ham-fisted, etc. It's part of the whole space serial stereotype. The dialogue on RotS was just as good as that of the original trilogy. I mean, really, the original trilogy captured us, but lets not delude ourselves and call it great filmmaking with great dialogue and acting.
Are you serious?

The dialogue in Eps 4-6 wasn't perfect - but it honestly was orders of magnitude better. And I can't even begin to express the difference in the acting. I feel like you weren't even watching the same movie as me here. The acting in Ep 3, though, is what killed the movie for me. I will forgive just about any sin for good acting, especially since I really did like the story behind this installment. But I couldn't even begin to see any real connection between Christensen and Portman. I couldn't muster up the slightest sympathy for their characters. Ewan, of course, held his own, and the story was gripping enough to make the movie watchable in spite of it. But you're overstating the quality of this one, and seriously understating the original trilogy. Plotwise, they were sometimes silly, even ridiculous. And Mark Hamill wasn't exactly Laurence Olivier (but still, way better than Christensen) - but Carrie Fisher? Harrison Ford? Do you really think they weren't way better than Christensen and Portman?

All a matter of opinion, I guess. But I think the original three have stood up to history in a way that Ep 3 just can't.

[Excalibre]

By the way, it's "Grievous". Not "Greivous" or "Grevous" or "Grevious". Didn't you people ever have spelling tests as children?

:)

[Ezekiel25:17]

it could have been good if the two leads had been capable of carrying off their roles.

I'm not about to defend the romantic scenes, but I will say that I never thought of Padme and Ani as "the leads." She is merely a device to produce the twins, just as Qui Gon was a way for Obi Wan to take on Anakin's training against Yoda's wishes. The Lead characters of this film are Anakin and Obi Wan, and it's their relationship that drives the film.

With regard to Kashyyyk and the Expanded Universe, at Celebration III (Star Wars Woodstock) Tim Zahn said "The way myself and the other Star Wars writers look at it, we're just kids playing in George's driveway. If he backs out and runs over our toys, we can't really complain."

I was at the midnight last night as well, and I've spent most of the day trying to decide how I felt. It was visually stunning, and not once did I look at something and notice whether it was CGI or not. The dialog was atrocious, but not terribly more so than the original trilogy. None of the acting caused me any physical pain, though Ms. Portman came close. Ulitimately, I guess we all knew Anakin was going dark, and we knew why (mostly because he's being manipulated by an incredibly sinsiter man) the reason we, or at least I, came was to see how Obi wan could allow/facilitate in his fall. That part of the film was enough to sell me.

I still haven't decided about Revenge of the Sith. I might not have liked it, but it was cathartic.

[Excalibre]

Whether or not she was a lead (and no, she wasn't, but she was [or at very least ought to have been] a key character), Natalie Portman (who was indeed okay in Garden State), during the scene where she learned of Anakin's betrayal, got a look on her face that reminded me of nothing so much as a child crying because they couldn't have an ice cream cone.

[Green Cymbeline]

Second, when Padme was on her way to her burial, did she still look pregnant? If so, that's pretty clever of everyone involved. But then again, maybe it was just an unflattering dress.
Well, usually a pregnant woman's stomach takes a while - like weeks - to go down. It doesn't just go away right after the birth. So of course her belly was still round. However, it was also crucial that she appear pregnant because the babies were taken and hidden and no one else was supposed to know they are alive. If she didn't look pregnant, Darth Vader might catch on that they were born and go looking for them...

Speaking of which, a question: When does Darth Vader learn his children are alive? Who tells him and when?

[ISiddiqui]

Speaking of which, a question: When does Darth Vader learn his children are alive? Who tells him and when?

I believe Palpatine in Ep V tells him about Luke, and then Luke's feelings tell him about Leia.

[Aeschines]

Couldn't she also just plain mistakenly think so because of grief? You can't take a character's words so literally - movie characters are not reliable narrators any more than people in real life are. People have bizarre beliefs in real life all the time. It's not necessarily a continuity error when the same thing happens in a movie.
No, that's not how story-telling works. If it turns out to be a mistake, then it has to be pointed out somewhere as a mistake, otherwise it's unclear whether it's the writer's mistake or not.

Another example, if a character in Star Wars says "We're traveling at the speed of light," when obviously that would not be fast enough to get them where they are going (hypothetical example, althought "light speed" if it really means 1c is too slow), then one just thinks the screenwriter didn't know what he was talking about.

[Speaker for the Dead]

See, it's an interesting point . . . almost every fantasy epic has opponents stronger than any of the good guys (but then, it's hard to construct a story otherwise.) However, strength is also always implicitly associated with worthiness and "specialness" - thus, the bad guy is always stronger, because he has powers that the good guy is just too damn moral to use.
I think the problem is assuming that "stronger" is measured entirely in one's ability to fight well. It's natural that the Dark Jedi have better combat skills, since they don't do much besides killing. The Jedi, however, use their abilities for a lot of other things: healing, watching the future, diplomacy, and collecting knowledge, for example. Movies about Jedi doing normal Jedi things would be dull--few people want to see Obi-Wan sent to Raltiir to organise a relief effort--which is why it seems that all Jedi do is fight.

When you have an organisation (the Sith) that is so volatile that it can only have two members (a master and apprentice struggling for power), I don't think it can be called "strong" in comparison to an order that protected the Republic for so long.

[Yookeroo]

Yes we did! This is not only the last Star Wars movie that had to tie up a lot of loose ends, and that was almost the only way to achieve them, but they also had to set up the 20 year gap until Episode IV.

The montage was a prerequisite, and handled perfectly.

Plus after such a downer of a movie, you need a bit of hope at the end.

Loved the movie.

[bdgr]

Also (because I'm only 12 inside) when Palpatine asked Anakin whether the Jedi Council had done something "to make [him] feel dishonest", the only thing I could think was "SHOW ME ON THE DOLL WHERE HE TOUCHED YOU".
.

Oh hell. I woke up my son I was laughing so hard at this. He came in "Dad whats so funny?"

I had to minimize the window.

ROFLMAO...

Thanks, that made my day.

[ISiddiqui]

Are you serious?

The dialogue in Eps 4-6 wasn't perfect - but it honestly was orders of magnitude better. And I can't even begin to express the difference in the acting. I feel like you weren't even watching the same movie as me here. The acting in Ep 3, though, is what killed the movie for me. I will forgive just about any sin for good acting, especially since I really did like the story behind this installment. But I couldn't even begin to see any real connection between Christensen and Portman. I couldn't muster up the slightest sympathy for their characters. Ewan, of course, held his own, and the story was gripping enough to make the movie watchable in spite of it. But you're overstating the quality of this one, and seriously understating the original trilogy. Plotwise, they were sometimes silly, even ridiculous. And Mark Hamill wasn't exactly Laurence Olivier (but still, way better than Christensen) - but Carrie Fisher? Harrison Ford? Do you really think they weren't way better than Christensen and Portman?

All a matter of opinion, I guess. But I think the original three have stood up to history in a way that Ep 3 just can't.

Yes, I'm 100% serious. I simply don't understand why people hold up the dialogue and acting of the original trilogy. The prequals were not that much worse, and RotS I consider equal to the originals in those qualities. Mark Hamill was utter dreck in the Luke role (he just didn't have a romance so you would have seen his failings to a greater degree). The original trilogy was far more action-y than Ep 1 & 2. McGregor and McDiarmid were better than any acting in the originals. The dialog was cheesy and hamfisted in the originals.

I think you are overrating the originals, which, really, were not good filmmaking. On a filmmaking level, compared to a modern movie trilogy, I'd compare it with the "Mummy" flicks. Super fun, but not great filmmaking. The think about Star Wars is that it captures us because of the ultimate good v. evil fight with the Force as the mysticism that draws us in.

Dialogue and acting wise? Not much better than the prequals and not that much better than RotS at all.

[sciguy]

Ok, what the hell was up with Kashyyk? For one thing, I'm upset that there wasn't more screentime with the Wookies. I was promised Wookies dammit! And I thought Kashyyk was supposed to be a forest planet where the Wookies all lived in the canopy and the jungle floor was a dark, dangerous place. So why does the battle of Kashyyk take place on the water near what appears to be prime coastal real estate? No kidding. I mean everyone knows that every single planet has only a single type of ecosystem. The concept of having tall trees and an ocean? Inconceivable! ;)

Although based on stuff in KOTOR and Star Wars Galaxies (Kashyyk is in the new expansion), I think the "deadly forest floor" is one of those broken toys Zahn talked about in Ezekiel25:17's post.

[Aeschines]

I think that all of the prequels lacked souls. By that, I mean I never got a sense of genuine comraderie between any of the characters that was on any level comparable to the chemistry that we got to see in episodes 4-6 (especially TESB).Yeah, very forced. The characters say it, but it's hard to feel it.
I thought that Anakin's conversion was actually done a little too abruptly. I know that they've been building up to it through the previous movies, but he goes from being loyal to the Jedi to vowing to destroy them in about a ten-minute span.Yes, totally not credible. He says "What have I done!" when he chops off Mace's hand, but the struggle ends there. Dumb.
I thought that the scenes of the Jedi being taken out were just wrong. We have by now gotten used to seeing a single Jedi with a lightsaber taking on dozens of battle droids and effortlessly turning aside a barrage of blaster attacks and using the force and so on, but the clone troopers are able to get the drop on them and take them out with hardly any resistance? And don't the Jedi have some kind of Jedi equivalent of Spider-sense or whatever? You mean that they were taken completely unawares? That didn't play out the way I hoped it would.Excellent point.
Yoda gives up because he fell? He tells Obi-wan that they must succeed in destroying the Sith, but he runs away after taking a little tumble? He has the ability, via the Force, to manipulate giant pieces of machinery but he can't slow his own descent?Yeah, as when his finger nails were scraping against the Senate Pod--"Use the Force, Yoda!" I mean, really. Suddenly Yoda is defeated, he's running away. I didn't understand why. You've got to show that stuff, George.A good movie, but not great, IMO. I'll take TESB over any of the prequels.Yeah, my feelings exactly. I'll post my overall impression in a bit.

[ExTank]

Okay, this one rocked. Totally.

Yes the dialogue is still crappy in places; that's a Lucas signature.

Yes, there was definitely some chemistry lacking between characters; see above.

Yes, it was visually stunning; again, see above.

We all know that most of the cast are fine, if not great performers (check out Hayden Christensen's meltdown in Shattered Glass if you doubt this young man's thespian abilities), so once again, Lucas' ham-handed directing is the reason, IMO, that we have such stilted performances. Still they were an improvement over Eps. I & II. And if anyone ever saw much of Farscape, they know we definitely missed some good bits with Wayne Pygram as Tarkin!

McGregor definitely emotes as Anakin slides inexorably towards his doom.

The betrayal and extermination of the Jedi was chock full of pathos; for me, it was the second most heart-wrenching scene in the movie.

Once again, R2-D2 steals the show; or if not, gets a lot more audience reaction than many of the main characters. I loved his "hopping" out of the fighters. To hell with the Skywalker clan; these movies are about R2-D2! :D

Actually, most of the funniest bits were with the droids, especially the battle droid's panicky, arm-flailing running-in-circles, and their interaction with R2.

The banter between Anakin and Obi-Wan at the beginning (Palpatine's rescue) was pretty good, too.

All-in-all, I can't say Lucas "redeemed" himself with this movie; but he definitely went a long way towards "coming back" to The Light Side.

[Aeschines]

Palpatine was talking about his master. But notice that although he promised Anakin he could teach him the power to manipulate life, once Anakin had turned, we learn that Palpatine really didn't know anything about it.Yeah, that seemed weak to me.

[VarlosZ]

Once again showing the ultimate message of the Star Wars films; no matter what is said, in reality the Dark Side is stronger than the Light Side. Strongest Dark Side guy is stronger than the strongest Light Side guy (I don't give a crap about Mace Windu, and there are plenty of theories why he was not stronger).
No, I think Speaker for the Dead nailed it. The Sith may be (slightly) better suited to one-on-one combat, but that's an awfully narrow criterion for deciding that the Dark Side is "stronger." Just how strong can you really be if you're forever being betrayed by your master, or killed-in-your-sleep/thrown-off-a-ledge by your apprentice?

And why aren't we counting Windu? Not to put too fine a point on it, but he fucked up Palpatine pretty good. Maybe the Emperor just took a dive to get Annakin to join him, but it seems awfully risky, and I think it's more plausible that he really got beaten.

[Khan]

Yeah, as when his finger nails were scraping against the Senate Pod--"Use the Force, Yoda!" I mean, really. Suddenly Yoda is defeated, he's running away. I didn't understand why. You've got to show that stuff, George.Yeah, my feelings exactly. I'll post my overall impression in a bit.

Yeah, there were more than just a couple situations in this movie where a simple force jump could have saved a lot of trouble.

I was pleased with the film, overall. The dialogue wasn't terrible, but it wasn't really good. I think it was utilitarian in that it exposed the story and nothing more. Even so, Ewan MacGregor did an awesome job. Obiwan and Yoda made this movie.

And lines like, "if you're not with me, you're my enemy" were none too subtle, of course, but it never occurred to me until I read this thread again just how much palpatine could have been manipulating things, setting up the Jedi as assasins and such. He had them right where he wanted them.

My biggest disappointment, though, was with the vaderfication of Anakin. I thought his injuries would be more thorough and deep; as in he would have been partially immersed in the lava, and volcanic gases and such had scorched his lungs making it necessary for him to breathe like that. Then the medical procedures just had him writhing around while they grafted new limbs and then clad him in fetish leather. I was hoping they'd be more invasive, having to replace organs and completely permeate his being. It all struck me as too "clean."

Even though I wasn't too happy with that, one of the most effective things in the movie was from Anakin's point of view when his vision went from blurry to clear just as that mask was being placed over his face. I thought that was really powerful: it reflected the "what have I done" in that it was dawning realization interrupted by something else.

At any rate, what the hell was up with Obi-wan's parrot lizard? That thing was just bizarre.

[Marley23]

Overall, very good. I think I was most impressed by the scope and complexity of Palpatine's deceit. He got everyone. Fooled the Senators, the trade federation dopes, the Jedi (whose vanity he described quite well), Anakin, everybody. Before he switched into hammy, gross mode, Ian McDiarmid did some very good, subtle evil acting. The scene where he talked about killing his old master was the high point for me. I agree with the OP about Christopher Lee's face at the end of the duel, and I did notice the two 'apprentices' fighting in front of Palpatine. Nice job of echoing the original films. (Incidentally, there was one line - one out of three movies - where Padme said something and I thought "oh, she actually sounds like Leia's mom there." I think it was at the end of her scene with Obi-Wan, does anyone else know what I'm thinking of?)

I can't say this makes all the crap in the last two movies worth it, and this one was not without its share of clunky moments. But for the most part it rose to the occasion, and that's something I didn't think Lucas was capable of.

[Aeschines]

No one is arguing here that Episodes I and II were any good. So I doubt my argument here will be very controversial.

The story arc across the three trilogies is all wrong.

It's not just that Ep I & II sucked as movies, they also wasted story-telling space in the whole trilogy. Contrariwise, Ep III had too much stuffed into it. Lucas totally blew it. He wasn't even close to being on the reservation. And he thereby wasted a great story-telling chance.

How it should have been done.

Ep I would should have been about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in the "good old days" of the Republic. Annikin should have been a minor character. Not the slave of a monster, not the subject of a prophecy, not the product of a virgin birth--just a very talented Jedi teenager in whom Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan gradually take a special but normal interest. Keep/it/simple/stupid.

The plot should be about a believable Sith resurgence/invasion. None of this childish BS about "only two there be, master and apprentice." The Sith should be what the EU said they were: an advanced, evil civilization that the Jedi once defeated, and who once had their own empire separate from that of the Republic. It's a good background story, use it.

Palpatine can continue to infiltrate the Republic, as he has. Qui-Gon can still die in Ep I, leaving Obi-Wan to train Annikin.

I always thought the Clone Wars were wars the Republic fought against Clones. That's what the name would indicate, wouldn't it? I haven't enjoyed the whole clone setup in the prequels at all. I think it would be better to have the Sith create the clones to attack the Republic, or perhaps have a third force (maybe even Separatists) use the clones to attack the Republic with the Sith entering as surprise players. The whole idea of battle droid armies was a terrible idea from the beginning and totally violated the spirit of the original trilogy!

At any rate, Ep I ends just before the Clone Wars start in full. What's different? Annikin is a teenager, and there will be one movie that is just Clone Wars instead of one movie that just barely shows the beginning and one that shows the end (i.e., the actual films).

In the new Ep II, the focus is on Obi-Wan and Annikin in the Clone Wars. Here Annikin can start to turn--gradually--to the Dark Side by taking an interest in Sith teachings, feeling the power of the Dark Side and using it effectively in battle, etc. Delicious ambiguity could be gotten by seeing him use the Dark Side for good at first... but then gradually becoming seduced. Elements of the current Ep III would naturally fall back into the new Ep II.

The new Ep III would be more or less the same movie, but done more maturely and credibly.
-----

I liked the movie. It was neato eye-candy and there was some good action. People talk about the bad dialog, but I think that's letting Lucas off easy. The situations are poorly conceived on the pyschological and theatrical levels--no dialog good or bad can save them.

Overall, you can't judge the movies separately because of the story arc problem. Overall, the story is childish, ill-conceived, and really quite foolish. Lucas screwed the pooch.
-----

In contrast, with Ep IV and V you have a truly great story arc that makes up for, yeah, some crappy dialog and a mediocre Hamill screen presence. Ep VI is a pretty execrable piece of work, but still the story arc was fully functional. That's why the OT transcends its flaws.

[Marley23]

The story arc across the three trilogies is all wrong.
Can't argue. They still had Anakin wrong, but in this movie he came closer to being right. Still too childish and petulant, and in II they brought out his murderousness so quickly - and then had Padme just ignore it. That was a huge problem for me. But they got closer, and times in this movie they did get it right. He was manipulated, he was greedy, he wanted control... those were all correct.
Ep I would should have been about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in the "good old days" of the Republic. Annikin should have been a minor character.
I understand you're thinking, but that doesn't work. For an arc of three movies, you need to have a central character, and as the character who changed, grew up, learned about the Force and all that, Anakin was it in this series. In the last series it was Luke, obviously. You can't put the hero of your epic on the sidelines for one-third of the story. It would have been like making Empire and Jedi about Chewbacca, or The Two Towers and Return of the King about Gimli. If you take my meaning. You need to get your hero out there, otherwise you've wasted a whole movie on exposition and introducing other things which are less important.

[Aeschines]

I understand you're thinking, but that doesn't work. For an arc of three movies, you need to have a central character, and as the character who changed, grew up, learned about the Force and all that, Anakin was it in this series. In the last series it was Luke, obviously. You can't put the hero of your epic on the sidelines for one-third of the story. It would have been like making Empire and Jedi about Chewbacca, or The Two Towers and Return of the King about Gimli. If you take my meaning. You need to get your hero out there, otherwise you've wasted a whole movie on exposition and introducing other things which are less important.

Now that you explain it, I think you're right. I think it's hard to stretch this story across three movies. I think it's a two-fer.

Or maybe Anakin as youth-to-teen/pre-Clone, Clone Wars, Seduction would work. I am confident about my plan for Ep II and III, Ep I is the trickiest.

Maybe a Sith resurgence/defeat in Ep I, Palpatine's infiltration and Clone Wars in Ep II, and Sidious emerging/Anakin falling in Ep III.

[Marley23]

Now that you explain it, I think you're right. I think it's hard to stretch this story across three movies. I think it's a two-fer.
That may be right. I do like some of your ideas, especially Anakin not being a cute little kid. There were elements moving in the background of the first two movies, ominous things like Palpatine securing power, that got obscured by stupid, cute things.

How about this scheme: in the first movie, you get the political maneuverings and stuff, but Anakin is only a kid for part of the story. Skip all the pod race and winning the freedom crap, that was just a setup for video games. The angst of having him separated from his mother, still a big deal. The age gap with Padme, which they never resolved (I guess she just ages way slower??), less of an issue. He's prophesied to be The Chosen One and is angsty about it. We can watch the flaws develop in his personality. We know who he's going to turn into, so if you start hinting that he'll go bad sooner, it's not a problem.

[Tarrsk]

I left the theater with an overwhelming sensation of "meh." While Lucas absolutely nailed certain parts, they were outweighed by some pretty horrific errors. To wit:

-Sure, the battle scenes were pretty, but they were so damn busy. So much stuff moving around in frame that you couldn't actually focus on what the hell was going on. Compare this to the Battle of Hoth: you rarely see more than a single AT-AT and some tiny snowspeeders in any given wide shot, but the lack of busy-ness actually makes it easier to follow the primary action onscreen.

-The lightsaber battles were very disappointing, primarily due to the cinematography, which consisted almost exclusively of cramped shots in which the action was obscured (again) by the business of the close-range lightsaber flashes. Compare this to the Darth Maul duel in Episode 1, which interspersed wide shots to give a sense of the surroundings.

-There is still ZERO chemistry between Anakin and Natalie Portman... errr... Padme (and don't get me started on the awful dialogue). I've heard the argument that the original trilogy's lead actors weren't that great either, but I'm not sure I buy it. There was a sense of genuine camaraderie between Luke, Leia, and Han that is completely absent in the monotone exchanges between Anakin and Padme.

-General Grievous: the most pointless villain of both trilogies. Why bother introducing a brand-new character if you're only going to kill him off halfway through the movie with no development whatsoever? Oh, right, because Count Dooku action figures don't sell as well as the Coughing Chicken Cyborg from Hell.

-Speaking of which, why the hell was he coughing, anyway? Well, apparently, this is something explained in the Clone Wars television series. Okay, great, at least a reason exists. Nonetheless, it is completely inexcusable to make such a big deal of Grievous' physical condition in the film without ever once explaining how it occured OR having it play a role of some sort. As it is, Grievous just comes off as having nearly as annoying of a voice as Jar Jar Binks.

-Wrapping up half the plot threads in the last 5 minutes of the film was a really bad idea. It's like Lucas wrote the entire movie, then realized, "Oh damn, I forgot to explain why Leia lives on Alderaan, Threepio doesn't remember the Lars family, Obi-wan can come back from the dead, and Yoda goes to Dagobah. Better tack on some exposition."

-Vader screaming "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" (complete with outstretched Arms of Angst) is just terrible.

Now to be fair, there were plenty of things I enjoyed, as well. After all, when all is said and done, I did enjoy ROTS far more than either of its predecessors. So, the positives:

-Palpatine's seduction of Anakin was generally well-done, although I thought the actual "turning" went too quickly. The scene at the opera was particularly well done.

-Ewan MacGregor shows time and time again why he is by far the best actor in the prequel trilogies.

-The droid jokes are, for the most part, actually funny this time around (Artoo taking down the droids, Artoo getting kicked over, Threepio's consternation at his impending memory wipe, etc).

-Yoda casually knocking out the scarlet-robed Imperial Guards with the Force was the badass moment of the film.

-Anakin fared much better this time around. Although the scenes with Portman were wooden at best, he was downright creepy as he accepted the mantle of Sith apprentice, and downright terrifying as he prepared to murder the younglings. I think he made a more convincing Darth Vader than the stumbling, screaming automaton we see briefly at the end of the film (though neither is a patch on the Vader of the original trilogy).

-The "Order 66" montage was chilling. Watching the clonetroopers gun down the Jedi with brutal efficiency drove home Palpatine's treachery, especially intercut with the shots of Anakin doing the same thing, and Yoda's reactions as he feels the deaths of the Jedi through the Force.

Overall, I think my final scores for the Star Wars films run as follows:

The Phantom Menace: 4/10
Attack of the Clones: 5/10
Revenge of the Sith: 7/10
Star Wars: 9/10
The Empire Strikes Back: 10/10
Return of the Jedi: 8/10

[Aeschines]

Ratings? Cool.

Menace: 0/10.
Clones: 0/10.
Sith: 6/10.
Star Wars: 9/10.
Empire: 10/10.
Jedi: 6/10.

0's too low for the first two movies? I think not, as they actually worked to destroy the franchise instead of build it. They are true abominations.

[Metacom]

Vader screaming "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" (complete with outstretched Arms of Angst) is just terrible.
Agreed. That was just lame.

I think that scene would have been far more effective and chilling if his personal reaction had been more muted. One of the things that makes the Vader suit so imposing is that there aren't any facial features or mood indicators. If he'd just stood there while his anger (through the foice) destroyed the things around him has his respirator clicked it would have been a far more effective scene, IMO.

[easy e]

Palpatine was talking about his master. But notice that although he promised Anakin he could teach him the power to manipulate life, once Anakin had turned, we learn that Palpatine really didn't know anything about it.

I'm thinking Palpatine did and just didn't tell Anakin. If Lucas hadn't added that "she's lost her will to live" bit, I would've thought it was Palpatine, not Anakin's choke hold, that ended up killing Padme.

[shijinn]

bleh. unsurprisingly, most of what i want to say has already been said. especially what Cuckoorex said in post #20 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6174474&postcount=20) . there are so many things wrong that obviously could have been done better; the feeling i got was that i'm watching a movie version of a novel, where stuff like anakin's turning was a watered down version of the original. (good idea, poor execution)

yoda giving up on his mission is just crap, especially amidst the surging lava backdrop of obiwan and vader's duel to the death.

oh, it happened with darth maul and now mace vindu. when you have a lightsabre, there is no need to swing your arm back to deliver the death blow, just poke and stir dammit!

artoo kicking butt (and being kicked) was about only one in a few scenes that i liked.


... I dont like the fact that Dooku died so easy. I mean he fought Yoda and Yoda couldnt kill him, but Anakin does after Dooku knocks out Obi-wan? But then Obi-wan kicks Anakin's ass...just didnt make sense to me. it is this ('"only empire stormtroopers can be this accurate" and have them shoot off target when it is convenient' attitude) that made the ease of the mass jedi write-off difficult to swallow. they're Jedi dammit! not stormtroopers! about the only thing i wanted from this movie was a mass showdown with the jedis, and all i got was this lame code 66 nonsense. and they didn't even do it properly as others have logically suggested.

... And even though these guys can leap 40 feet in the air, have been fighting from a conference room to a catwalk to a huge piece of equipment sinking in a river of lava as it heads for the falls, suddenly it's "Aha, give up, I am slightly uphill from you!" ... exactly. they screwed up the darth maul death and now this. they seriously needed someone with better choreography, like Yuen Woping.

... I don't understand all this gnashing over the "Will to Live" line. ... because it sounds odd/impressive? this ability to will yourself to death when there's nothing wrong with you heath-wise?

... that got obscured by stupid, cute things. ... i think star wars the franchise is as much about stupid, cute little things as anything else. wookies, ewoks, droids etc..

[silk1976]

Yes, I'm 100% serious. I simply don't understand why people hold up the dialogue and acting of the original trilogy. The prequals were not that much worse, and RotS I consider equal to the originals in those qualities. Mark Hamill was utter dreck in the Luke role (he just didn't have a romance so you would have seen his failings to a greater degree). The original trilogy was far more action-y than Ep 1 & 2. McGregor and McDiarmid were better than any acting in the originals. The dialog was cheesy and hamfisted in the originals.

I think you are overrating the originals, which, really, were not good filmmaking. On a filmmaking level, compared to a modern movie trilogy, I'd compare it with the "Mummy" flicks. Super fun, but not great filmmaking. The think about Star Wars is that it captures us because of the ultimate good v. evil fight with the Force as the mysticism that draws us in.

Dialogue and acting wise? Not much better than the prequals and not that much better than RotS at all.

Fully agreed with Siddiqui on this one. I never understood why people revere the original trilogy as much as they do. Entertaining? Yes. Good acting? Definately NOT! The only actor from the original trilogy who actually went anywhere was Harrison Ford. The prequels have been ever bit as entertaining to me as the originals. Most likely because I was in college by the time I saw the prequels, rather then seeing them as a kid.

I think back to movies/tv shows I saw as a kid - Knight Rider, etc and they bring up fond memories. If I watch a show like that now that I didn't see as a kid, it would suck. I think for a lot of people, the original trilogy is more about nostalgia then actual good acting and good script.

Ever watch a movie that everyone else says is great, but you watch it and it doesn't seem too great? Spinal Tap was that way for me - but the thing is I watched it when 1) I was older and 2) I was by myself. Not to conducive to funny. On the other hand, I saw 'Gone in 60 Seconds' with a friend who has a sense of humor similar to mine, and it was great. However, I recognize that when I see it now, it's funny parts are rooted mostly in the nostalgia of it rather then actually being funny.

Anyhow - thats just my take on the original trilogy. I do have a few questions/comments after watching Sith though:

1) In Episode IV, how does Leia know of Obi-wan? Did I miss something? She puts the schematics of the death star in R2D2 with a message to Obiwan.

2) How is it that the clone army, fighting for the Jedi, suddenly takes orders from a sith lord to execute order 66? Its not like when the order was given, it was the chancellor giving the order - he was in full sith get-up. Did the emporer get to a few major battalion leaders and convince them that the Jedi were evil similarly to how he convinced Anniken? And why didn't the underling clones resist?

3) This occured to me after reading this thread and about the possibility that Palpatine created Anniken for the sole purpose of creating an apprentice: I think this would have been the case. Palpatine tells Anniken that that sort of power is considered 'unnatural'. Anniken is created by the force in an 'unnatural' manner and turns to the dark side - essentially what created him. However, his son, Luke, is created the normal way and doesn't turn to the dark side when tempted. Although I suppose Anniken eventually turns back to the light in ROTJ - so maybe that theory doesn't quite hold water.

4) This one had too much eye candy. Too distracting.

5) I have a whole new level of respect for McGregor's acting. As has already been said - his anguish when fighting Anniken couldn't have been better.

[MrDibble]

Fully agreed with Siddiqui on this one. I never understood why people revere the original trilogy as much as they do. Entertaining? Yes. Good acting? Definately NOT! The only actor from the original trilogy who actually went anywhere was Harrison Ford.
Yeah, that Alec Guinness, what a hack...

[Max Carnage]

The bit that puzzled me was why a droid would be always coughing and wheezing, and walk with an arthritic hunch. I'm told that Grievous wasn't actually a droid, but an organic with a bunch of droid parts, but in that case, why does the opening crawl say he was a droid? And even if his lungs were original equipment (which would explain the cough), wasn't his musculoskeletal system mechanical? So why can't he stand up straight?

Haven't read the whole thread yet so it may have been answered, but in the Clone Wars cartoon, vol 2, Grevious was boarding his getaway ship when Obi-Wan (or one of the Jedi) force-gripped the cyborg's chest cavity, crushing it a bit before the door closed and Grevious got away. Hence the breathing difficulty.

[Snickers]

Yay! Ye gods, that was better than I had any right to hope for. Way to redeem yourself, George.

But, sadly, he did drop the ball. Anakin's turn was far too fast. See, I think Anakin's clunky and unsophisticated love for Padme actually kind of works - he's obsessed with her, but doesn't really understand what love is. And this obsession goes a long way to explaining his fall. However, when Sidious says, "Well, I don't really know, but we'll find out together," and Anakin just accepts it, that was a major failing. It doesn't fit with his character at all. The *only* reason he turns to Sidious is because Sidious has this knowledge, and it should be a huge blow when he finds out he's been lied to. Huge. But it barely registers. If I'd been Anakin, and I'd done exactly the same things, and I heard Sidious say that, I'd been all "What! F*cker!" and would've chopped him in half right there and then. This was a major betrayal, and nothing happens. Such an opportunity lost, there.

And the Vader yelling, "No." Um, yeah. That was bad. Vader's so chilling precisely because he has so little emotion. Tho' he does have a penchant for killing people who fail him because of incompetence, when he's fairly beaten, he just accepts it. There's no rage there at all. And that's what makes him such a powerful character - he controls his rage so tightly, he's so cold. Having him yell, while possibly in character for Anakin, is not in character for Vader. I agree that only the hiss of the respirator while he silently destroys everything around him would've been much more powerful in that scene.

Nice touch, however, making Sidious genuinely care about Vader - that came through neatly when he rescues Anakin from the lava river. And many, many mad props to George for *not* having Anakin fall into the lava as I'd heard growing up - that little theory was just too unbelieveable, at least for me.

But yeah, I need to see it again. And I got a free t-shirt! The theatre I saw it at hired a place called "Master Replicas" and they had storm troopers that threw t-shirts into the crowd. I snagged one, and yeah, I'm wearing it with pride today. I'm revelling in my nerdity, at least for this week.

[Snickers]

...The only actor from the original trilogy who actually went anywhere was Harrison Ford...

Yeah, that Carrie Fischer sucks too. It's not like she's done anything of note.

1) In Episode IV, how does Leia know of Obi-wan? Did I miss something? She puts the schematics of the death star in R2D2 with a message to Obiwan.

I'm guessing her father told her to deliver the plans to Obi-wan if she found herself in dire circumstances. Her father and Kenobi worked together fairly closely (in this last movie, at least), and seemed to share the same world view. And Bail Organa knew where Obi-wan was hiding.

2) How is it that the clone army, fighting for the Jedi, suddenly takes orders from a sith lord to execute order 66? Its not like when the order was given, it was the chancellor giving the order - he was in full sith get-up. Did the emporer get to a few major battalion leaders and convince them that the Jedi were evil similarly to how he convinced Anniken? And why didn't the underling clones resist?

Because the Chancellor is ultimately their commander-in-chief. Yeah, the Jedi generals are their immediate leaders in the battle, but their orders originate with the Chancellor. I don't think their training allows them to differentiate commands from the Chancellor in Senate dress and the Chancellor in Emperor-wear - the orders came from the same person, regardless of how he's dressed.

[Draelin]

Hopefully, I'll have little enough work to do today that I'll actually get the chance to read the rest of this thread, so bear with me if I repeat anything. :)

I saw the midnight show on Wednesday ... and left so excited that even though I didn't have to be at work until noon yesterday, I couldn't sleep at all. My heart rate accelerated as soon as the Fox logo came up, and didn't stop until dawn.

This is probably gong to sound ridiculously girly, but I don't care--I cried from the moment Anakin figured out Palpatine was the Sith Lord. I couldn't believe it affected me that deeply, and I still feel a little teary when I think about it for too long. (Won't stop me from seeing it again tonight, though.)

Even more girly--dear gods Anakin is hot. :)

I loved the idea that R2 never got a memory wipe. In the later books, it's made clear that all droids are supposed to have periodic wipes to keep them functioning correctly, and C-3PO and R2 are unusual in that their owners will not allow it. In fact, by the Thrawn trilogy, Luke's X-Wing cannot be operated by any droid but R2 because R2 has more or less developed his own damn language. The idea that he remembers everything and could tell Luke and Leia so much if they only asked him will make me itchy for the rest of my life.

A few weeks ago, there was a thread asking opinions on what order to present the films to the next generation. Without a doubt, I say start with IV and end with III. Firstly, the Vader-as-father/Twins Revelations will be rather unimpressive if the prequels are seen first, and second, thinking of Vader as the ultimate evil and then seeing the heartbreak that provoked his turn ... *sigh* I'm going to cry again.

[Duke of Rat]

"Going into exile you are; teach you to speak to dead people I will; bored you not will be on desert shithole." Did Obi-wan spend 20 years hanging out talking to dead people while Luke matured?



And Obi-wan lives for 20 years on the same desert shithole as Luke, son of Vader, and never even knows it? Or doesn't have any curiosity if he does know? He has his father's lightsaber handily stashed away. A billion planets out there, and Obi-wan and Luke just happen to be on the same desert shithole and don't know each other.

I'm not a big Star Wars geek, this has probably been answered someplace.

[Metacom]

Well.. It's kind of answered in the movie, in the scene where Obi-wan gives Luke to Owen and Beirut (or whatever their names are). :)

[Draelin]

And Obi-wan lives for 20 years on the same desert shithole as Luke, son of Vader, and never even knows it? Or doesn't have any curiosity if he does know? He has his father's lightsaber handily stashed away. A billion planets out there, and Obi-wan and Luke just happen to be on the same desert shithole and don't know each other.
Obi-Wan knows Luke is there, he's there in the first place to watch over him. In Episode IV, it's clear that Luke knows who Obi-Wan is (as Ben Kenobi, of course), but they're not exactly close. And that Uncle Owen has done his best to keep Ben the hell away from Luke.

[Misery Loves Co.]

Apropo of nothing, other than I'm a sword-fighting geek and someone earlier was bored by the number of hands getting chopped off:

Lucas and choreographers based the lightsaber fighting style in large part on kenjutsu, the sword fighting art of the Samurai. For example, the pose that a couple of the Jedi adopt where they stand face-on with the sword held above and behind their head is typical of kenjutsu and not one you'd find in many other martial arts

It just so happens that one of the primary targets for kenjutsu is the hands - Musashi (legendary Japanese swordsman) spends a great deal of time in his "The Five Rings" describing ways of separating people's hands from their wrists.

I thought that in particular, the two-fer that Anakin gave Dokku was pretty sweet.

FWIW.

[SlyFrog]

No, I think Speaker for the Dead nailed it. The Sith may be (slightly) better suited to one-on-one combat, but that's an awfully narrow criterion for deciding that the Dark Side is "stronger." Just how strong can you really be if you're forever being betrayed by your master, or killed-in-your-sleep/thrown-off-a-ledge by your apprentice?

So good is stronger, because it has the ability to hang around in an effete-manner until evil kills evil? Except that in most cases when that happens, evil isn't really destroying evil, it's just new evil taking over for old evil?

My problem is I'm not seeing the criterion for determining how the Light Side is ever stronger (other than the power of love, which will turn evil to good, and solve good's problem for it).

And why aren't we counting Windu? Not to put too fine a point on it, but he fucked up Palpatine pretty good. Maybe the Emperor just took a dive to get Annakin to join him, but it seems awfully risky, and I think it's more plausible that he really got beaten.

I'm in for the dive theory. Palpatine give the beat down to multiple jedi at one time, and smacks down the 800 year old green master, but Windu had him? Seems to convenient.

That being said, that is my presumption. I admit that Windu could be deemed a bit of an exception, depending on your point of view.

[Rufus Xavier]

The way I interpreted the "will to live" piece was this:

When Padme finds out that the love of her life has turned evil, and then he injures her maliciously, her world is shattered. A person's state of mind has a lot to do with how one recovers from serious injury. I think Padme really didn't want to live in a world where her two great loves, Democracy and Anakin, have been subverted to evil purpose, and that made it harder for her to recover. The scene where she starts crying as the now-Emperor declares "Empire!" to thunderous applause in the Senate really drives this point home, and it's probably Portman's best scene.

My take on order 66 was that this was something that was programmed into the clones' brains during their development, so they had no choice but to obey.

I also want to add that I thought Mace Windu's death was pretty freakin' spectacular.

[Sampiro]

I wonder if it was an intentional nod to Sir Alec "Obi Wan I" Guinness's Oscar winning role when Anakin, after causing Windu's death, says "Oh god what have I done..." (or something similar). Those were the words of Guinness in Bridge on the River Kwai when [major spoiler- don't read if you haven't seen the movie]

he kills the soldier who attempts to blow up the bridge his men built for the Japanese war effort

[Skammer]

First of all, I have a theory about Leia's memory of her mother. There's nothing in the movies to support this, but I like to think that Leia's adoptive mother, the Senator's wife, dies a few years after Leia is adopted. Later, he re-marries another woman, who happens to be a queen like Padme's mother. That's why she becomes known as 'Princess' Leia.

In EpVI, when Luke asks her about her 'real' mother, Leia is actually recalling her first adoptive mother - whom she always assumed was her real mother.

Probably not what Lucas had in mind but it fits what we're shown.

I'd also like to chime in to agree that the acting in the prequals wasn't stellar, but the acting in the originals (aside from Guiness and Ford) was really bad also, and the dialogue was terrible. I re-watched the original trilogy last week and the dialogue was really cringe-inducing - I hadn't noticed when I was ten years old. But, that's okay for these space-opera type movies.

Overall, I was very pleased with EpIII. Nice way to end the epic.

[Draelin]

First of all, I have a theory about Leia's memory of her mother. There's nothing in the movies to support this, but I like to think that Leia's adoptive mother, the Senator's wife, dies a few years after Leia is adopted. Later, he re-marries another woman, who happens to be a queen like Padme's mother. That's why she becomes known as 'Princess' Leia.
Bail Organa, in addition to being a Senator, is the Viceroy of Alderaan, which is what makes Leia a princess, not whoever her mother is.

In EpVI, when Luke asks her about her 'real' mother, Leia is actually recalling her first adoptive mother - whom she always assumed was her real mother.
Unfortunately, we really don't have enough info on this. Leia knows she's adopted, but who knows when she was told.

I re-watched the original trilogy last week and the dialogue was really cringe-inducing - I hadn't noticed when I was ten years old.
I can't argue too strenuously on this ... mostly because when my friend and I did the prerequisite re-watch last week, I laughed so hard I nearly choked when Obi-Wan calls Vader "Darth" on the Death Star like it's his first name. :)

[Balthisar]

As for the "nooooo!" I totally bought it. Yeah, Anikan was called Darth Vader. Yeah, Anikan was dressed like Darth Vader. But Anikan was not yet the same Darth Vader that we knew and loved 18 odd years later. He was still Anikan dressed in a Vader suit, and I think we should all be able to buy the fact that Anikan would have screamed his "no" in that manner. Anikan had almost 20 years to become cool to the world.

[Draelin]

He was still Anikan dressed in a Vader suit, and I think we should all be able to buy the fact that Anikan would have screamed his "no" in that manner. Anikan had almost 20 years to become cool to the world.
I'm going to agree with this. I didn't have a problem with the "Nooooooo!" Yes, it would have been pretty cool if he had destroyed the room in silence, but Anakin was still just a kid, really, and one who had just discovered that he betrayed everyone and everything he cared about for absolutely no reason. Padme, the child, and the entire Jedi order except for Obi-Wan were all (as far as he knew) dead, and he had accomplished nothing.

[Balthisar]

2) How is it that the clone army, fighting for the Jedi, suddenly takes orders from a sith lord to execute order 66? Its not like when the order was given, it was the chancellor giving the order - he was in full sith get-up. Did the emporer get to a few major battalion leaders and convince them that the Jedi were evil similarly to how he convinced Anniken? And why didn't the underling clones resist?
Oops, meant to add that the Sith commissioned the clones in the first place, in the guise of being a normal, secret Jedi purchase. I think Order 66 may have even been bred into them kind of thing. It's only by "lucky chance" that Obi-wan stumbled onto them, and was able to use them to "save the Republic" in the close wars.

It was all part of Palpantines grand plan from the very beginning. The end of episode 2 was the perfect foreshadowing for knowing that at some point the clone army would serve Palpatine. The whole point of episode 2 was to see how the Republic became an empire.

I never realized there was so much ire for episode 2 before, either. I thought it was fantastic compared to episode 1, and that George had redeemed himself at that point.

[Sampiro]

Unfortunately, we really don't have enough info on this. Leia knows she's adopted, but who knows when she was told.

I'm guessing she got a call as Alderaan was being destroyed. "Darling, we're being blown up because you failed in your mission, but don't feel guilty. By the way you're adopted. Love Dad... where's my towel? I..." [beep]

[Orual]

Now that was what I wanted to see! I was worried that I was getting my hopes up to high, and I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

I loved all the proto-X-wings and TIE fighters in that opening battle. In fact, I loved the whole battle. It was busy, but awesome.

I thought Hayden's acting was markedly improved from the last episode, and the scenes with him and Palpatine were very well executed. Ian MacDiarmid was so good at being sneeeeaakky. I was so happy when he told Mace Windu about Palpy being the Sith Lord, even though I knew it would come to naught. His early scenes with Natalie Portman were still goofy, but silly dialogue is to be expected in a Star Wars movie. (People who claim the acting in the original trilogy was so much better seem to be convenienly forgetting a certain scene on a certain bridge on a certain Forest Moon.)

The Order 66 scenes were gave me chills (yes, yes, I am an uber-geek). Anakin with the wee little Padawans was also well done. The moment those clones went for Yoda though... all I could think was "ohhh... you do NOT fuck with Yoda."

Ewan MacGregor simply blew me away. He has given the best performance of the entire Star Wars series, hands down. And he managed to not look too ridiculous riding a dire iguana. That's impressive.

I loved how bunch of Wookiees did that Tarzan-yell thing that Chewbacca did in ROTJ.

I loved Padme's one good line (about liberty dying to thunderous applause).

I loved that odd-plant planet the Twi'lek Jedi died on.

I loved Anakin and Obi-wan's showdown.

I loved the fact that there was Tarkin, and Captain Antilles' ship.

I love that Jar-Jar was silent.

I have a lot of love. I'm seeing it again this weekend.

[MovieMogul]

Oops, meant to add that the Sith commissioned the clones in the first place, in the guise of being a normal, secret Jedi purchase. I think Order 66 may have even been bred into them kind of thing. It's only by "lucky chance" that Obi-wan stumbled onto them, and was able to use them to "save the Republic" in the close wars.
This, of course, is one of the central arguments in the Jedi Are Stupid theory. So, a Jedi that people hardly remember ordered this army of clones. On what authority? Where did he get the money? What was the motivation for creating this army in the first place?

All important questions that the Jedi completely ignore. It's one thing to opportunistically "appropriate" the army to rescue their comrades on Geonosis. But years later, they're still using these clones. Aren't any Jedi remotely suspicious? Doesn't anyone sense something the slightest bit fishy? Based on the films, No. They're like Homer Simpson: "Yoink! Free Army!" And then it's forgotten.

Of course, this makes the Code 66 thing possible, which means that the Jedi's stupid-but-convenient oversight (their "wisdom" notwithstanding) is necessary to facilitate that particular plot point. Really really dumb.

[Patty & Chuck]

I think that all of the prequels lacked souls. By that, I mean I never got a sense of genuine comraderie between any of the characters that was on any level comparable to the chemistry that we got to see in episodes 4-6 (especially TESB). Sure, the effects are way better, the lightsaber battles are cooler, but I couldn't really bring myself to care about these characters that much. Maybe part of it was knowing that Anakin would become Vader, but I never thought that his relationship with Padme was a deep, mature love — it still seemed like teenage angst and stilted dialogue — which is fine if that's what Lucas was going for, I guess.

I thought that Anakin's conversion was actually done a little too abruptly. I know that they've been building up to it through the previous movies, but he goes from being loyal to the Jedi to vowing to destroy them in about a ten-minute span.

I thought that the scenes of the Jedi being taken out were just wrong. We have by now gotten used to seeing a single Jedi with a lightsaber taking on dozens of battle droids and effortlessly turning aside a barrage of blaster attacks and using the force and so on, but the clone troopers are able to get the drop on them and take them out with hardly any resistance? And don't the Jedi have some kind of Jedi equivalent of Spider-sense or whatever? You mean that they were taken completely unawares? That didn't play out the way I hoped it would.

Yoda gives up because he fell? He tells Obi-wan that they must succeed in destroying the Sith, but he runs away after taking a little tumble? He has the ability, via the Force, to manipulate giant pieces of machinery but he can't slow his own descent? What, if the Jedi willingly jump down from a great height they're OK, but if they fall from that same height, they're screwed?

A good movie, but not great, IMO. I'll take TESB over any of the prequels.
Basicly, you have to realize that Lucas' original cut was 3 hours and 10 minutes in length. He screeened it and his exec./ co-producers said that people aren't willing to sit in the theater for three hours.

Under pressure, he cut nearly 40 minutes of footage. Included in this would be an interesting subplot in which Padme, Mon Mothra, and Bail Organa start the beginnings of the Rebellion. Also, was more of Palpatine f*cking with Anakin...saying he saw Obi-Wan leaving Padme's apartment and stuff.

Granted, the turn does seem a bit rushed. Yet, in the original vision, I'm sure it was more realized.

Yet, when you have people telling you that you would risk turning a better profit if you keep the length...you'd cut it too.

[Cuckoorex]

Here's my suggestion for an alternative to the "NOOOOOOOO!" scene:

It starts out the same: Vader is told that he killed Padme, he breaks out of the table while the whole room starts going to shit...but then instead of "NOOOOO!" he just drops down to his knees, head down and fists clenched...the destruction in the room continues and increases in intensity, so that even Sidious is taken aback a little bit. Then things quiet down, and Vader slowly rises to his full height and says, "What is your bidding, my master?" It is evident that with the death of Padme, he has fully abandoned his old life and has nothing left to live for besides service to the Emperor. He is transformed in that moment into the cold, calculating Darth Vader that we meet in ANH.

[Duke of Rat]

Well.. It's kind of answered in the movie, in the scene where Obi-wan gives Luke to Owen and Beirut (or whatever their names are). :)

Ah, I haven't seen this latest movie, I guess I need to before asking dumb questions..

[Cuckoorex]

Basicly, you have to realize that Lucas' original cut was 3 hours and 10 minutes in length. He screeened it and his exec./ co-producers said that people aren't willing to sit in the theater for three hours.

Under pressure, he cut nearly 40 minutes of footage. Included in this would be an interesting subplot in which Padme, Mon Mothra, and Bail Organa start the beginnings of the Rebellion. Also, was more of Palpatine f*cking with Anakin...saying he saw Obi-Wan leaving Padme's apartment and stuff.

Granted, the turn does seem a bit rushed. Yet, in the original vision, I'm sure it was more realized.

Yet, when you have people telling you that you would risk turning a better profit if you keep the length...you'd cut it too.

Then maybe he could have cut something else. Cut some of the space battle at the beginning, maybe cut out the Wookie battle that seemed tacked on, etc. To me it would have been more important to learn about the beginnings of the Rebellion than to see Wookies doing Tarzan yells.

[Draelin]

Then things quiet down, and Vader slowly rises to his full height and says, "What is your bidding, my master?"
Okay, yeah ... you win on the Best Alternate Ending Idea. I'm a big enough geek and a big enough girl to have already been crying at that point, to have cried harder at the yelling .... and that ending might have just left me in a quivering puddle on the theater floor.

[ISiddiqui]

Ooh, ratings:

Menace 5/10
Clones 6/10
Sith 8.5/10
A New Hope: 8/10
Empire: 9/10
Jedi: 6/10

[MovieMogul]

In order of preference:

Empire: 10/10
New Hope: 8/10
Jedi: 5/10
Sith: 5/10
Phantom: 3/10
Clones: 3/10

[Rufus Xavier]

Basicly, you have to realize that Lucas' original cut was 3 hours and 10 minutes in length. He screeened it and his exec./ co-producers said that people aren't willing to sit in the theater for three hours.



Huh? Were the execs drooling idiots? Just 2 years ago, a 3 hour and 20 minute epic, the last movie in a hugely popular trilogy, grossed 377 million dollars.

[SlyFrog]

Here's my suggestion for an alternative to the "NOOOOOOOO!" scene:

It starts out the same: Vader is told that he killed Padme, he breaks out of the table while the whole room starts going to shit...but then instead of "NOOOOO!" he just drops down to his knees, head down and fists clenched...the destruction in the room continues and increases in intensity, so that even Sidious is taken aback a little bit. Then things quiet down, and Vader slowly rises to his full height and says, "What is your bidding, my master?" It is evident that with the death of Padme, he has fully abandoned his old life and has nothing left to live for besides service to the Emperor. He is transformed in that moment into the cold, calculating Darth Vader that we meet in ANH.

I got you up to the, "Then things quiet down," part. Keep everything up to there, but then have him scream,
"KAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHNNNNNN!"

[ISiddiqui]

And the Vader yelling, "No." Um, yeah. That was bad. Vader's so chilling precisely because he has so little emotion. Tho' he does have a penchant for killing people who fail him because of incompetence, when he's fairly beaten, he just accepts it. There's no rage there at all. And that's what makes him such a powerful character - he controls his rage so tightly, he's so cold. Having him yell, while possibly in character for Anakin, is not in character for Vader. I agree that only the hiss of the respirator while he silently destroys everything around him would've been much more powerful in that scene.

I think that what you see there is Anakin heartbroken. I think it is the RESULT of that heartbreaking that Vader turns so cold. He cannot love again because the pain was too much. It was that that turns him into a cold, unfeeling monster.

[Gangster Octopus]

Liked the movie, very entertaining. But I do have a couple of nits:

1. Anakin and Padme live together yet they are supposed to be keeping their marriage a secret? How does that work?

2. We see the beginning of the Death Star, which apparently will take 20 years to complete. Yet in Ep VI there is a new Death Star, I'd say at least 75% complete and partially operational only a few years after the original is destroyed?

[Smapti]

The only thing that really bugged me about this installment is that there's no real sense of the passage of time, and the second half of the movie seems to happen WAY too fast. After Anakin attacks the Jedi Temple, Yoda and Obi-Won are able to return to Coruscant fast enough that there's still smoke pouring from the building and troopers hunting for stragglers. At the same time they're doing that, Anakin is already on Mustafar slaughtering the Separatist leaders. Obi-Won then travels to Mustafar so fast that he's already there before Yoda makes it to the Senate building for his confrontation with Palpatine. Then, after Anakin's immolation, Palpatine travels to Mustafar so fast that Anakin is still alive and CONSCIOUS when he gets there. That kind of flying makes Han Solo making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs look like a walk in the park.

[Orual]

2. We see the beginning of the Death Star, which apparently will take 20 years to complete. Yet in Ep VI there is a new Death Star, I'd say at least 75% complete and partially operational only a few years after the original is destroyed?

It's plausible that Death Star II was under construction before the first one was destroyed.

I am sad that the bits about the beginnings of the Rebellion with Mon Mothma etc. got cut. Hopefully they'll be on the DVD.

[Metacom]

That kind of flying makes Han Solo making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs look like a walk in the park.
Actually, in the latest directors re-cut re-release, Han Solo mentioned making the Kessel Run in 0.6 parsecs, so the travel times in this movie make sense.



;)

[Draelin]

It's plausible that Death Star II was under construction before the first one was destroyed.
Good point there. In addition, the first scene of RotJ implies that the Emperor has the construction of Death Star the Sequel moving at the fastest pace possible ... and he wants it even faster. The Empire took its time building the first Death Star, making sure they got it right. They knew exactly how to go about building the second.

[MovieMogul]

The only thing that really bugged me about this installment is that there's no real sense of the passage of time, and the second half of the movie seems to happen WAY too fast. After Anakin attacks the Jedi Temple, Yoda and Obi-Won are able to return to Coruscant fast enough that there's still smoke pouring from the building and troopers hunting for stragglers. At the same time they're doing that, Anakin is already on Mustafar slaughtering the Separatist leaders. Obi-Won then travels to Mustafar so fast that he's already there before Yoda makes it to the Senate building for his confrontation with Palpatine. Then, after Anakin's immolation, Palpatine travels to Mustafar so fast that Anakin is still alive and CONSCIOUS when he gets there. That kind of flying makes Han Solo making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs look like a walk in the park.Don't forget that Obi-Wan travels along a river of lava, but manages to walk back up to the station in a virtual heartbeat.

[archmichael]

Meh. I agree mostly with Tarrsk.

The two previous movies and revisiting the original trilogy has basically trained to spot problems in this movie.

-Too busy. Yeah, there were tons of fighters in the opening scene. The problem is when you add too much, the human brain has a tendency to just add it to the background noise.

-Background noise is exactly what it was. I had the same sensation as I did watching those other Matrix movies. There is no sense of danger. It's just Ani and Obi out for a pleasure cruise through enemy fighter infested space. Joking with each other. Casually talking. Sure the other clone pilots get killed but no one really seems to bother shooting at the Jedis.
"Hey! Hold you ship still while I knock off those droids with my wing"
"Is there anyone on our six?"
"Who knows! Who cares!"

-Even when they get to the ship, they just kind of stroll through. Yeah they get fired upon, but they seem very bored.

-With all the Hong Kong martial arts cinematography talent we have at our disposal, there is no excuse for having badly shot fight scenes. All you can see is spinning bodies and twirling lighsabers. Sure it's a lot more fancy fighting than the original trilogy, but this movies brought home how much pointless spinning, backflipping, and twirling of sabers there exists.

- Hayden sucks. ExTank mentioned Shattered Glass, as a better example of his range. I don't see how that is possible. He plays a whiny, crying Jedi filled with self pity in this series. In Shattered Glass he plays a whiny crying journalist filled with self-pity who was caught making up stories to get published.

- Love Samuel L. Jackson, but I got pulled out of the movie by him. I sat there wondering why? Oh...he's yelling that's why. Jedi Masters aren't supposed to yell. It was a nice moment that gets used a lot. A good guy who sees that doing an evil like killing the Sith Lord would end up being for the better good. It was just very Samuel L. Jackson.
"You're God damn right, Darth Sidious deserves to die! And I hope he burns in hell!"
"What does Master Yoda look like?!? Does he look like a bitch! Say 'what' again, I dare you. I double dare you!"

- The Obi and Ani moment was ruined for me. From the original trilogy, I thought Darth Vader fell into lava, and somehow managed to survive. I didn't understand that Obi left his good friend and apprentice (albeit one who turned to the darkside) as a half charred triple amputee, to die a slow death from heat exhaustion next to a lava river. Do they have some sort of code against doing putting people out of their misery?

[Tracy Lord]

Good point there. In addition, the first scene of RotJ implies that the Emperor has the construction of Death Star the Sequel moving at the fastest pace possible ... and he wants it even faster. The Empire took its time building the first Death Star, making sure they got it right. They knew exactly how to go about building the second.

That's what I figured, too. By the time they got around to building Death Star II: Electric Boogaloo, they'd already done one.

[MovieMogul]

- The Obi and Ani moment was ruined for me. From the original trilogy, I thought Darth Vader fell into lava, and somehow managed to survive. I didn't understand that Obi left his good friend and apprentice (albeit one who turned to the darkside) as a half charred triple amputee, to die a slow death from heat exhaustion next to a lava river. Do they have some sort of code against doing putting people out of their misery?"I loved you! You were like a brother to me! And now, seeing you in defeat, humiliation, and unfathomable agony...uh, I'll be going now."

[Gangster Octopus]

That's what I figured, too. By the time they got around to building Death Star II: Electric Boogaloo, they'd already done one.
I suppose that could be an explanation, although it seems strange that they would put so many resources into starting to build a second Death Star when the first wasn't even complete. But I can see how they fast tracked the second Death Star, probably cut a lot of corners, shoddy workmanship. If Lando hadn't destoyed it it probably would have started falling apart on it's own. The plumbing, the foundation, the roof probably were all done on the cheap.

[Robot Arm]

The only thing that really bugged me about this installment is that there's no real sense of the passage of time,...Yes! And then add the fact that at the beginning, Natalie Portman surprises Anakin with news of her pregnancy, and that they're still trying to keep it a secret, and in almost the next scene she's wearing a tent. I figure the gestation period for a Naboonian is less than a fortnight.

And some excellent points from archmichael about how more activity in a battle scene usually cuts down on the tension and suspense, instead of enhancing it.

On the plus side, the theater where I saw this must have done a special mix tape for background music while people were coming in and finding seats; including Yoda, by Weird Al, and Bill Murray from one of his lounge singer sketches from Saturday Night Live singing the Star Wars theme with made-up lyrics.

[Merijeek]

I don't understand all this gnashing over the "Will to Live" line. It seemed the medbot couldn't find anything medically wrong and so surmised that the reason she was dying was because she hadn't the will to live. It sounds better than "I don't freaking know!" and people have been known to survive situations doctors say they shouldn't because they've had "the will to live", why doesn't it work the opposite way?

Sure, but it was still kind of a bad line. That and the "NOOOOOOO!" were the things that really bothered me as bad lines.

For example, the part with Padme would have been much better if the droid had said something like, "Medically there's nothing wrong with her. It's as if she just does not want to live." To me, anyways, that sounds much better than the actual line. The actual line, to me, sounds kind of like "Our Will-To-Live-Meter is reading a zero. She's going to die soon".

-Joe, still loved the movie

[archmichael]

Forgot to mention: Guided Missiles!

Someone in a thread asked why there aren't many missiles used in the Star Wars universe. Now we know why. Missiles that explode in close proximity to its target? Bah!!! Why do that when you can create a missile that tracks you, flys past your ship, gets a distance in front of you, explode in a cloud of droids that you hopefully fly through and finally have these droids slowly dismantle your ship.

[Chronos]

At any rate, what the hell was up with Obi-wan's parrot lizard? That thing was just bizarre.No way! The lizard was great! When Obi-Wan needs to ride again, he just whistles, and there it is for him. No questions asked, no hesitation at whomping through heavy blaster fire, just loyalty. I'm a bit ticked that they didn't make it clear if it survived the fall... Lucas had better not have killed it off after all it went through.

And I didn't like the Death Star shot, either... It seemed like pointless fan-service. Yeah, they could have started the second one before the Battle of Yavin, but why? They certainly didn't anticipate the first one being destroyed, and one Death Star is really all you need. And those things are expensive! Granted, this is a Galactic Empire we're talking about here, but still, a battle station the size of a small moon has to strain their resources, much less two of them.

[Merijeek]

Yeah, that seemed weak to me.

What? The Devil offering something for your soul and then reneging? Certainly not!

Care to rethink that one?

-Joe

[ISiddiqui]

Well, about the Death Star. Some people seemed to talk about the wierd passages of time. Where months or days were collapsed into minutes (it seemed). Could it be that the Death Star scene was more like 5 years in the future rather than right after?

[Marley23]

Huh? Were the execs drooling idiots? Just 2 years ago, a 3 hour and 20 minute epic, the last movie in a hugely popular trilogy, grossed 377 million dollars.
Three-plus hours of George Lucas dialogue would have been lethal.

[Tracy Lord]

On the plus side, the theater where I saw this must have done a special mix tape for background music while people were coming in and finding seats; including Yoda, by Weird Al, and Bill Murray from one of his lounge singer sketches from Saturday Night Live singing the Star Wars theme with made-up lyrics.

That is awesome. Our theater showed the preview trailers for all six movies, and staged an Obi-Wan/Vader lightsaber fight with two costumed employees before the movie started. :)

[Metacom]

Three-plus hours of George Lucas dialogue would have been lethal.
I'm trying to imagine the dialogue for the "Start of the rebellion" cut scenes:

Padme: The empire has fallen. What do we do now?

Bail Organa: I don't know. I am so sad.

Mon Mothra: We could rebel!

Padme: Yes! That is a good idea. We'll rebel.

Bail Organa: We can call ourselves "the rebels."

Padme: I miss Anakin. I love him more then life itself.

Bail Organa: That's so sweet.

Mon Mothra: Don't lose your will to live, Padme!

Padme: Perhaps the rebellion will give me 'a new hope.'

[unwashed brain]

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, because quite frankly I grew tired of reading this thread at the top of page 2, but Lucas had me going until one idiotic choice he made took me right out of the moment to the point where I had to look at my friend sitting next to me and say, "you gotta be f*cking kidding me."

The wookie swinging on the vine doing the Tarzan yell. :smack:

You gotta be f*cking kidding me.

Aside from that, I enjoyed the movie, and I ditto the above sentiments that the acting was wooden and the antichemistry between Portman and Annakin was hard to watch. Lucas should really turn those scenes and supporting dialog over to abler hands.

Seemed odd to me how Padme went from her regal, self-assured bearing in the first film to the whiny, sniveling mess we see in RotS.

I was disappointed that Lucas didn't pony up to his big mistake in TPM and find a way to kill Jar Jar Binks off. At least make it a deleted scene on the DVD release. :D

Also, count me as one who wasn't impressed with Sam Jackson's performances in these films. He really could've used an accent or something, because every time I heard his voice I expected him to start going off about how he doesn't eat pork because pigs are filthy animals. ;)

[Gangster Octopus]

Well, the longer the movie the fewer showings you can have during the day.

[AdmiralCrunch]

archmichael
- The Obi and Ani moment was ruined for me. From the original trilogy, I thought Darth Vader fell into lava, and somehow managed to survive. I didn't understand that Obi left his good friend and apprentice (albeit one who turned to the darkside) as a half charred triple amputee, to die a slow death from heat exhaustion next to a lava river. Do they have some sort of code against doing putting people out of their misery?
I think it's the opposite. It would be honorable and jedi-like to kill someone in that situation, but Obi-Wan is overwhelmed by emotion.

[Merijeek]

Because the Chancellor is ultimately their commander-in-chief. Yeah, the Jedi generals are their immediate leaders in the battle, but their orders originate with the Chancellor. I don't think their training allows them to differentiate commands from the Chancellor in Senate dress and the Chancellor in Emperor-wear - the orders came from the same person, regardless of how he's dressed.

Huh. You could be right. My personal thought was that the whole Order 66 thing was hard-coded into the clones' brains while they were gestating.

Seems like a good way to guarantee they do what you want. Especially when you combine it with a "and whatever you do, don't ever try to kill the Chancellor or Emperor.".

-Joe

[Excalibre]

Fully agreed with Siddiqui on this one. I never understood why people revere the original trilogy as much as they do. Entertaining? Yes. Good acting? Definately NOT! The only actor from the original trilogy who actually went anywhere was Harrison Ford. The prequels have been ever bit as entertaining to me as the originals. Most likely because I was in college by the time I saw the prequels, rather then seeing them as a kid.

I think back to movies/tv shows I saw as a kid - Knight Rider, etc and they bring up fond memories. If I watch a show like that now that I didn't see as a kid, it would suck. I think for a lot of people, the original trilogy is more about nostalgia then actual good acting and good script.
Not at all. I have vague memories of seeing the original trilogy as a child, but I didn't remember it well at all, and I was able to watch with fresh eyes when I was quite a bit older. Honestly, I think that good acting - and particularly chemistry between actors - is something subtle that some people simply don't perceive. In a lot of great movies, their greatness comes down to the cast and how they interact. When Harry Met Sally didn't have a script that was so much amazingly better than most of the trivial rom-coms produced. And hell, Meg Ryan is not going to go down as one of history's greats. But she and Billy Crystal were simply so good together that it worked. I don't think there's many other ways in which the movie was different from any of the dozen identical rom-coms that get released every year. Same goes with Silence of the Lambs - silly little drama-thriller, except that Jodi Foster and Anthony Hopkins are amazing actors, and had amazing interaction with each other.

If you can't see what Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke had together (even if Mark Hamill's line deliveries were occasionally not all that great) then it's not quite as striking when it's completely absent. But I'm quite certain of what I saw in this movie, and I wasn't convinced, even for a moment - by Portman or Christensen.


5) I have a whole new level of respect for McGregor's acting. As has already been said - his anguish when fighting Anniken couldn't have been better.
And the give-and-take when a real ensemble works together would have made it a yet more powerful scene. Ewan McGregor is amazing, though. I've never seen him do a poor job with any role. Him and Samuel L. Jackson (who has such a presence even when he's not talking) were the best parts of this movie.


I liked the CGI a lot in this one. Someone earlier said that it felt like Yoda wasn't there in some scenes, but I didn't see that. It's usually my complaint with CGI, too - I'm not sure if their computer models are just inaccurate or something, but there's some physical response that CGI characters don't usually quite nail. When they move, there's no sense of mass to their movements. And for once, I didn't see that.

But visually, I found the movie mostly pretty disappointing. I was irritated at how many times I saw the exact same thing: every landing pad, for instance, looks exactly the same, it's just the bluescreen behind it that changes. So damn much of the movie took place on what was probably the single landing pad set in the filming that it drove me nuts. Same goes with scenes of people sitting next to very high windows in large halls. I kept seeing basically the same idea for a visual repeated over and over and over, and it became distracting and monotonous. Which is such a shock because the original trilogy showed of Lucas' genius for good visuals, and it's one of the few things that wasn't all that bad in the first two prequels.

[BMalion]

Hmmm... I'm clearly outnumbered here, I thought it was lame.

Too, too much. too many spaceships, too many lightsabre fights, which were too bent on showing people spinning and twirling inside cramped rooms.

Really made me appriciate the 1st movie.

"When I left you I was but the learner..."

"No, actually Darth, you were a burnt peice of amputated dog-meat."

So the Jedi are extinguished, their "Fire gone out in the Universe" and yet Obi-Wan can just go into hiding without bothering to change out of his Jedi robes.

Speaking of robes, did Ewan's robe look like it was made of a K-Mart fluffy bathrobe or what?

[sturmhauke]

After some reflection and meditation on these important matters, I have some additional thoughts on the movie.

The entire plotline with the Wookies should have been handled much better or just cut entirely. Wookies are cool and all, but the setup was very poor. Why is Kashyyyk supposed to be such a strategically valuable planet when it appears to be a backwater with relatively low tech levels? And if Lucas was going to bother showing Wookies, he needed to really show them for more than a couple of establishing shots. Instead it's pretty much, "Look, Wookies! Meanwhile..."

I didn't really mind Vader's "NOOOO!" but I would have done more to show Anakin truly becoming Vader. So Anakin whines and starts trashing the place, then Palpatine scolds him. "You are Darth Vader now! You must control yourself!" Vader calms himself, then tries to Force choke Palpy, who then gives him the beatdown. Palpy says, "You are strong, my apprentice, but I am the master." Finally Vader submits.

[ExTank]

I loved the idea that R2 never got a memory wipe. In the later books, it's made clear that all droids are supposed to have periodic wipes to keep them functioning correctly, and C-3PO and R2 are unusual in that their owners will not allow it. In fact, by the Thrawn trilogy, Luke's X-Wing cannot be operated by any droid but R2 because R2 has more or less developed his own damn language. The idea that he remembers everything and could tell Luke and Leia so much if they only asked him will make me itchy for the rest of my life.

There's a story in star wars Tale #3 called "Free Memory" that touches upon that.

[Speaker for the Dead]

Originally Posted by SlyFrog
My problem is I'm not seeing the criterion for determining how the Light Side is ever stronger (other than the power of love, which will turn evil to good, and solve good's problem for it).How about this: the Republic had been at peace for a very long time. The masterful warrior-Jedi of yesteryear had found themselves unneeded, and eventually died out as time went on. By the time of The Phantom Menace, the combat skills of the Jedi were nothing close to what they had been at, say, the end of the Sith Wars.

Originally Posted by Marijeek
For example, the part with Padme would have been much better if the droid had said something like, "Medically there's nothing wrong with her. It's as if she just does not want to live." To me, anyways, that sounds much better than the actual line. The actual line, to me, sounds kind of like "Our Will-To-Live-Meter is reading a zero. She's going to die soon".I like this. The idea that she died because she lost her will-to-live is a great one, in my opinion. It just needed to be communicated better. I think its strength is that it makes Anakin's betrayal even worse. He turned evil to save her life, but ended up killing her in his attempts to prevent that death. How powerful is that?

Originally Posted by ArchiveGuy
"I loved you! You were like a brother to me! And now, seeing you in defeat, humiliation, and unfathomable agony...uh, I'll be going now."I think the past tense is important here. He used to love Anakin like a brother, but after seeing him kill younglings (I think "children" would have made that much more powerful; "younglings" makes me think of animals) and betray the order, he no longer has that love. I think that he actually considered rescuing him, until Anakin said "I hate you." Few Jedi could handle such a slap in the face.

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui
I think that what you see there is Anakin heartbroken. I think it is the RESULT of that heartbreaking that Vader turns so cold. He cannot love again because the pain was too much. It was that that turns him into a cold, unfeeling monster.I agree. For me, however, the problem was the pose. Even the "Noooooo!" wasn't bad. It was his awkward, trying-to-touch-his-elbows-behind-his-back stance that made it strange. What made it worse was his Frankenstein-style walk to the edge of the cliff. The idea is great, but it's so old that it added cheesiness to the scene.

Originally Posted by Gangster Octopus
1. Anakin and Padme live together yet they are supposed to be keeping their marriage a secret? How does that work?I just assumed that both Senators and Jedi were given special living quarters, and that Anakin and Padme did the Star-Wars equivalent of renting a cheap apartment so they could spend weekends together when they were supposed to be away on "business."

[Excalibre]

Basicly, you have to realize that Lucas' original cut was 3 hours and 10 minutes in length. He screeened it and his exec./ co-producers said that people aren't willing to sit in the theater for three hours.

Under pressure, he cut nearly 40 minutes of footage. Included in this would be an interesting subplot in which Padme, Mon Mothra, and Bail Organa start the beginnings of the Rebellion. Also, was more of Palpatine f*cking with Anakin...saying he saw Obi-Wan leaving Padme's apartment and stuff.

Granted, the turn does seem a bit rushed. Yet, in the original vision, I'm sure it was more realized.

Yet, when you have people telling you that you would risk turning a better profit if you keep the length...you'd cut it too.
I doubt I would have wanted to sit through three hours and ten minutes of this movie . . . but I might point out that Return of the King was about 3 and a half hours long. And I believe it did okay, moneywise . . .

I'm just sayin', is all . . .

[Aeschines]

I never realized there was so much ire for episode 2 before, either. I thought it was fantastic compared to episode 1, and that George had redeemed himself at that point.
Clones does better on IMDb (currently 7.0 to 6.4), if that's any consolation.

The difference in degree of rottenness between the two films is an interesting philosophical question. Imagine for a moment that these two films were really the first two of the franchise--how would they have fared? I can guarantee you they would have bombed in precisely the same way as Chronicles of Riddick did: with decent but not mind-blowing special effects and a retarded story (actually, I will take Riddick over Ep I & II any day).

Actually, Clones would never have been made with Ep I being of the quality that it was.

Anyway, what's better about Clones except that perhaps it has less overall rot? Less Jar Jar, less fun with accents and ethnic stereotypes (Shiftless Negro Jar Jar, Plotting Chinaman Trade Fed Mandarin, Evil Hebrew Watto)--wow, less garbage overall, but replaced with... what? There isn't even a Darth Maul to kick some ass around. Nothing, nada.

In some ways, Clones is the worse movie because although it has less to trash it up it also has less to make it exciting, too.

Man, just thinking about those first two flicks makes me ill.

[ExTank]

This, of course, is one of the central arguments in the Jedi Are Stupid theory. So, a Jedi that people hardly remember ordered this army of clones. On what authority? Where did he get the money? What was the motivation for creating this army in the first place?

All important questions that the Jedi completely ignore. It's one thing to opportunistically "appropriate" the army to rescue their comrades on Geonosis. But years later, they're still using these clones. Aren't any Jedi remotely suspicious? Doesn't anyone sense something the slightest bit fishy? Based on the films, No. They're like Homer Simpson: "Yoink! Free Army!" And then it's forgotten.

Of course, this makes the Code 66 thing possible, which means that the Jedi's stupid-but-convenient oversight (their "wisdom" notwithstanding) is necessary to facilitate that particular plot point. Really really dumb.

But they are suspicious, as evidenced by their distrust of Palpatine, and their almost pathological insistence that he abdicate all "Emergency Powers" immediately upon hearing word that General Grievous (the separatist's military genius) is dead.

[Excalibre]

I'm trying to imagine the dialogue for the "Start of the rebellion" cut scenes:

Padme: The empire has fallen. What do we do now?

Bail Organa: I don't know. I am so sad.

Mon Mothra: We could rebel!

Padme: Yes! That is a good idea. We'll rebel.

Bail Organa: We can call ourselves "the rebels."

Padme: I miss Anakin. I love him more then life itself.

Bail Organa: That's so sweet.

Mon Mothra: Don't lose your will to live, Padme!

Padme: Perhaps the rebellion will give me 'a new hope.'
This may be the funniest thing I've ever read . . . :D Very nice.

[Omniscient]

I cannot believe that Samuel L Jackson is getting sucha free pass here. He flat out sucked, ruined big chunks of the movie. The guy can't be anything other than Sam Jackson, aka Jules, which is fine, but he's as for from being a senior Jedi master as they come.

I'm not sure if I feel like he was the impetus of the downfall of the Jedi because Lucas wanted it to feel that way, or if it was because I just thought he was awful and contrary in this role. Sucked, big time!


That said, I still really enjoyed the movie. I've come to expect awful dialogue from Lucas and Co, so I can deal with that. The Anakin/Padme romance makes porno seem deep and heartfelt, I'm fine with that. The "NOOOO!" cliche at the end spoiled somewhat what would have been a legendary scene, and I agree a emotional, but more silent reaction would have been best. I loved the crushing of everything around him, I would have taken that a step further and had him react speechlessly, perhaps with him clenching his fists. I also hated that his arms were strapped down and he broke free. Why? Shouldn't he have just been laying there and gotten up instead of the clunky Frankenstein homage?

Sorry to ramble, but this thread is a struggle to get through and still have a coherent thought to share.

[Tarrsk]

Wow, it's a pretty sad state of affairs when every single suggested replacement for the "NOOOOO!" scene that I've heard sounds better than the one actually used. ;) I especially like Cuckoorex's idea. THAT would've chilled me to the bone. It would be totally consistent with the Vader we see in the original trilogy, and would've served as a great moment of closure: this is the moment when Anakin Skywaler "dies," from Obi-wan's point of view, and when Darth Vader is truly born.

Instead, it was all I could do to stop myself from bursting out laughing.

I think there are three main problems with the "NOOO" scene as filmed.

First of all, obscuring Anakin's face with the mask during this scene makes it far more cartoonish than it should've been- we should be empathizing with his anguish, not snickering at the idea of DARTH VADER screaming at the skies. It would've been far better if Sidious had told him about Padme before the masking- I could've bought that wrecked body screaming "NOOOO" as the combined agony of his wounds and newfound emotional despair become too much for him to bear. Certainly, the one thing Hayden Christensen does really well as an actor is get across screaming fits of anger; I see no reason why he wouldn't have nailed such a shot.

Secondly, the way its filmed just doesn't mesh with the brutal realism of the previous scenes. Sure, it's Star Wars and thus filled with floating gadgets and evil black masks, but the last several scenes (i.e. from Anakin's amputations onward) were powerful because they were shot to emphasize the reality of Anakin's predicament. Simple shots of the metal hand grasping the molten soil, the Emperor tending to Anakin in a way that almost seems fatherly, that haunting intercutting between Anakin's burned body on the medical bed and Padme screaming in childbirth... and then suddenly, we get Frankenstein's monster raising his fists in the air and bellowing like a mechanical King Kong, complete with corny camera pullback. It just doesn't mesh with the tone of the previous scenes, which is all the worse considering that it is clearly supposed to be the most emotionally gripping scene of the trilogy.

Lastly, and most importantly, I couldn't buy Darth Vader worrying about Padme simply because the setup was terrible. I'm talking all three movies now- if a filmmaker wants to make his or her audience care about a tragedy, he has to first make the audience care about the people involved. And honestly, I didn't give a shit about Padme by the end of ROTS, nor did I buy her "shared love" with Anakin. So Vader's "anguish" comes off as unbelievable, and the fact that it's staged in such a melodramatic fashion makes it come off as laughable.

Compare this to Han Solo's encasement in carbonite. At this point, we have grown to care about these two people, the wry scoundrel with the heart of gold, the rebel princess who seems wise in years when it comes to politics and war, and so the moment of their separation is heartbreaking. They've earned that moment through every Han and Leia moment of the last two films. And of course, it helps a lot that despite the emotion of the moment, Han's last words are delivered without melodrama, without histrionics. There's a reason why the "I love you" / "I know" exchange is considered one of the most powerful scenes in the most powerful episode of the Star Wars saga, and it's because it's genuinely resonant in the minds and hearts of the audience. In that sense (for this audience-member, at least), Darth Vader's scream was an utter failure.

[kidchameleon]

And I didn't like the Death Star shot, either... It seemed like pointless fan-service. Yeah, they could have started the second one before the Battle of Yavin, but why? They certainly didn't anticipate the first one being destroyed, and one Death Star is really all you need. And those things are expensive! Granted, this is a Galactic Empire we're talking about here, but still, a battle station the size of a small moon has to strain their resources, much less two of them.

Hey now, R&D is a bitch. Building the prototype takes longer than the next one, think of the first nuclear vessels or whatever. Plus the emperor can't be as blatent on spending in the first days of the empire as later when he's able to dismiss the senate.

[Orual]

Palpatine's thoughts while watching Anakin fight Dooku:

"I like this the style of this chair. Note to self: always have this sort of chair when watching my new apprentice kill my old apprentice."

[Aguecheek]

My thoughts on the "Nooooo" scene:

I personally would've loved to have Anakin lying there, with all the leather and doo-dads attached, immobile on the table with medical droids running around behind him getting the last doo-dad (Dark Helmet) ready. As we can see the Vader he'll become (leather, cape, etc.) and the Anakin he's been (young man's face horribly burned), he turns to the Emperor who's standing there watching and asks in a horrible, burned vocal cord voice about Padme.

Emperor - Oh! I'm sorry. Did I neglect to mention that she died? Nothing to be done. Sad, really.

Anakin's eyes open in horror at what he's done, screams incoherently (put a "nooooo" in if you must, but a plain ol' scream works just as well), and gets his scream cut off suddenly by the mask finally being lowered onto his face.

Do a little montage, showing him lying there for some time. Staring off into space, moving his arms, shaking his head, what have you. Let him stew in what he's done, and what he's doomed to be from now on.

Emperor comes back in, medico droids report that Vader's ready to be fired up. They do so.

Vader stands, turns to the Emperor, kneels, looks up at him. "What...what is thy bidding, my Master?"

[Snickers]

On the Death Star - where is it written that the Death Star was new at the battle of Yavin? I don't remember any references in ANH that it was a new beast. Meaning I don't think it took 20 years to build - I think they just built it in, dunno, 5 years or so and then used it in the interim to terrorize the galaxy. Remember, it had its own propulsion systems. I'm thinking that it was in there to show us how Sidious was going to establish control, not that "here's the thing that you'll get to see 20 years later." It seems to me that the Death Star was a fairly established reality in ANH. But I could be wrong.

I seem to recall that it was stated somewhere that Death Star mark II was a good deal bigger than the first; something like twice or four times as big.

[Lord Ashtar]

Three-plus hours of George Lucas dialogue would have been lethal.
I'm sure you'll get it all on the Ultra-Super-Spectacular-Ultimate-Special Edition DVD.

[Max Carnage]

SWE1:ANH

OB1: "I have something for you. Your father wanted you to have it when you were old enough."

LIAR!!!!!! (of course that wasn't the only thing he lied to Luke about)

So was that Anakin's saber or his own that he picked up at the banks of the great lazy lava river? I assume it was Anakin's, OB figuring "Hmm, don't wanna let a good lightsaber go to waste. Not like he can use a blue one any longer."

[vibrotronica]

I'm really not getting all the hate for this movie. I really enjoyed it, and thought it was much improved over the last two. Do I have some nits to pick? Sure. Here's my big one: The thrown-in exposition at the end where Yoda tells Obi Wan about Qui Gon's return from the dead. That's one of the rules of screenwriting is to only show the most interesting stuff in the story. If somebody comes back from the dead in your story, that's pretty fucking interesting. He should have just left it hanging and not even tried to explain it. It's one of the mysteries of the Force.

But that's a nit, and compared to the vast amount of stuff the movie got right, it's not a big deal.

[vibrotronica]

So was that Anakin's saber or his own that he picked up at the banks of the great lazy lava river? I assume it was Anakin's, OB figuring "Hmm, don't wanna let a good lightsaber go to waste. Not like he can use a blue one any longer." Yes, that was Aanakin's saber, the same one he gives to Luke in New Hope, so he wasn't lying.

[Robot Arm]

The Death Star in Ep. IV is definitely new. I think it's even mentioned in the opening crawl. But think of the scenes with Governor Tarkin and Princess Leia. When he's getting ready to pulverize Alderaan, he tells her that it's a test to certify that the station is operational, and that they've chosen the planet to test on because of her reluctance to tell them where the rebel base is. And after she lies to them, he says that Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, implying that they're also trying to show off the new battle station to keep people in line.

[Max Carnage]

He lied about Anakin ever saying he'd like his weapon passed on to his kid.

[Gangster Octopus]

He lied about Anakin ever saying he'd like his weapon passed on to his kid.
Yes, right after he lied about Vader killing Luke's father.

[spectrum]

I'm really not getting all the hate for this movie. I really enjoyed it, and thought it was much improved over the last two. Do I have some nits to pick? Sure. Here's my big one: The thrown-in exposition at the end where Yoda tells Obi Wan about Qui Gon's return from the dead. That's one of the rules of screenwriting is to only show the most interesting stuff in the story. If somebody comes back from the dead in your story, that's pretty fucking interesting. He should have just left it hanging and not even tried to explain it. It's one of the mysteries of the Force.

But that's a nit, and compared to the vast amount of stuff the movie got right, it's not a big deal.

They cut the scene of Yoda communing with Qui Gon. Which is a shame. Show show show, but instead they chose to tell.

[silenus]

On the Death Star - where is it written that the Death Star was new at the battle of Yavin? I don't remember any references in ANH that it was a new beast. Meaning I don't think it took 20 years to build - I think they just built it in, dunno, 5 years or so and then used it in the interim to terrorize the galaxy. Remember, it had its own propulsion systems. I'm thinking that it was in there to show us how Sidious was going to establish control, not that "here's the thing that you'll get to see 20 years later." It seems to me that the Death Star was a fairly established reality in ANH. But I could be wrong.

I seem to recall that it was stated somewhere that Death Star mark II was a good deal bigger than the first; something like twice or four times as big.

TAGGE: Until this battle station is fully operational we are
vulnerable. The Rebel Alliance is too well equipped. They're more
dangerous than you realize.


MOTTI: Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a
useless gesture, no matter what technical data they've obtained. This
station is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use
it!


TARKIN: This bickering is pointless. Lord Vader will provide us with
the location of the Rebel fortress by the time this station is
operational. We will then crush the Rebellion with one swift stroke.

--A New Hope

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

It was worth waiting in line three hours to see, and simply blew episodes I and II out of the water. I thought almost all of the lose ends were wrapped up well, although I feel the whole Sifo Dyas (or however it's spelled) issue was left hanging. How did he die? What happened to him? Who paid for this clone army? If Palpatine arranged it, why wasn't he checking up on it every now and then?

And [Ewan M] managed to not look too ridiculous riding a dire iguana. That's impressive.
I loved that lizard. I thought he and Anikin bonded awfully quickly, though.

I loved Padme's one good line (about liberty dying to thunderous applause).
Best line in the whole movie.

In the later books, it's made clear that all droids are supposed to have periodic wipes to keep them functioning correctly...
The droids are running Microsoft Windows? That explains sooooo much!

In Episode IV, how does Leia know of Obi-wan? Did I miss something? She puts the schematics of the death star in R2D2 with a message to Obiwan.
It's clear in Episode III that Bail Organa (Leia's adopted dad) and Obi-Wan know each other quite well. If she has to bail out fast with the plans, of course Organa would send her to Obi-Wan.

And I didn't like the Death Star shot, either... It seemed like pointless fan-service. Yeah, they could have started the second one before the Battle of Yavin, but why? They certainly didn't anticipate the first one being destroyed, and one Death Star is really all you need.
What, you've never heard of backups? ;)

[ISiddiqui]

Oh, I also liked some of the small references to other movies.

My favorite was when Obi-Wan shot Grievous with a blaster and threw it away calling it an "uncivilized weapon", referencing, of course Alec Guiness in Ep 4 calling the lightsaber a civilized weapon for an uncivilized time (IIRC).

[Merijeek]

Palpatine's thoughts while watching Anakin fight Dooku:

"I like this the style of this chair. Note to self: always have this sort of chair when watching my new apprentice kill my old apprentice."

"Cackling. This whole little diversion would be much more satisfying if I were cackling. Can't give things away, though. I'd better wait till next time."

-Joe

[sturmhauke]

Ya know, the whole "civilized weapon" thing strikes me as a bit hypocritical. Obi-Wan cuts some dude's arm off at the Mos Eisley cantina, which isn't very civilized. The bit with the blaster was still funny though.

[Gangster Octopus]

BTW, was I the only one who went a little googly eyed when they showed people walking into the musical/opera/bubble presentation thing. There was a pretty well-endowed woman/alien in a white dress. Wonder how that looks in IMAX.

[VarlosZ]

So good is stronger, because it has the ability to hang around in an effete-manner until evil kills evil? Except that in most cases when that happens, evil isn't really destroying evil, it's just new evil taking over for old evil?

My problem is I'm not seeing the criterion for determining how the Light Side is ever stronger. . .
I'm not saying that the light side is stronger, only that the two are balanced. The Dark side is good at the whole murder/conquest thing, while the Light side is good at the opposite. To call the former "strong" and the latter "effete" is arbitrary. Or, as Yoda said: "Wars not make one great."

I'm in for the dive theory. Palpatine give the beat down to multiple jedi at one time, and smacks down the 800 year old green master, but Windu had him? Seems to convenient.
Well, there's clearly some indeterminacy in the battles. Obi-Wan loses to Dooku (badly) twice, Anakin defeats Dooku pretty easily, but then Obi-Wan beats Anakin fair and square. Was Anakin taking a dive? Of course not. It's probably that Anakin would win that fight, say, 60% of the time (for example).

Likewise, just because Yoda loses to Palpatine (with enemy reinforcements arriving, by the way) doesn't mean he's weaker, just that he lost that particular fight.

[Merijeek]

BTW, was I the only one who went a little googly eyed when they showed people walking into the musical/opera/bubble presentation thing. There was a pretty well-endowed woman/alien in a white dress. Wonder how that looks in IMAX.

Except for clapping at the beginning and end my theater was completely silent.

The Twi'Lek in the white dress being the exception. There were a whole lot of, "wow, would you look at that" comments when she showed up...

-Joe

[Orual]

"Cackling. This whole little diversion would be much more satisfying if I were cackling. Can't give things away, though. I'd better wait till next time."

-Joe

Hee.

"Now, let me see how creepily i can say'Good, good!' ... That worked well. We'll keep that."

[Snickers]

Yep - good call on the Death Star quotes. I'd forgotten those lines. Better re-watch ANH!

[sturmhauke]

"I like this dark and strangely lit theme, with the red robed guards standing stock still. I shall have to improve on that motif."

[sturmhauke]

TAGGE: Until this battle station is fully operational we are
vulnerable. The Rebel Alliance is too well equipped. They're more
dangerous than you realize.


MOTTI: Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a
useless gesture, no matter what technical data they've obtained. This
station is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use
it!


TARKIN: This bickering is pointless. Lord Vader will provide us with
the location of the Rebel fortress by the time this station is
operational. We will then crush the Rebellion with one swift stroke.

--A New Hope
VADER: Don't be too proud of this technological photoplay you've constructed. The ability to control a medium for 20 years is insignificant next to the power of a good Chick Flick.

- from TIE-tanic (http://fm4.orf.at/daddyd/197312) (scroll down a bit)

[MovieMogul]

But they are suspicious, as evidenced by their distrust of Palpatine, and their almost pathological insistence that he abdicate all "Emergency Powers" immediately upon hearing word that General Grievous (the separatist's military genius) is dead.They are suspicious of Palpatine, but they are definitely not suspicious of the clone army they find on Kamino. They never question its origins, its funding, its reason for existing. They just take it, no questions asked.

Which is why they are morons.

[MovieMogul]

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]Best line in the whole movie.[/uqote] :confused: Best line? Try worst delivery.

Natalie can now proudly inherit the title of Worst Star Wars Actor. 3 films with Padme certainly outweigh 1 film with Little Ani (particularly since she's supposed to be the cause for The Fall).

Horrible.

[SlyFrog]

I'm not saying that the light side is stronger, only that the two are balanced. The Dark side is good at the whole murder/conquest thing, while the Light side is good at the opposite.

And the opposite is what? Running/protecting a competent government? Protecting the people from murder/conquest? It apparently isn't good at that. I think you've fallen for the whole Lucas shtick - if I say it's stronger (or even equall), without really showing or defining how, people will just believe it, because it fits with the whole, "Good guys win somehow" ethos.

To call the former "strong" and the latter "effete" is arbitrary. Or, as Yoda said: "Wars not make one great.

It's the opposite of arbitrary. It's observing the movies, and what actually happens in them, and making a judgment based on what actually happens.


Well, there's clearly some indeterminacy in the battles. Obi-Wan loses to Dooku (badly) twice, Anakin defeats Dooku pretty easily, but then Obi-Wan beats Anakin fair and square. Was Anakin taking a dive? Of course not. It's probably that Anakin would win that fight, say, 60% of the time (for example).

As I said, I'll give you that Obi-Wan (who beat the crap out of his own apprentice who had far less experience) and Windu (unless the Emperor took a fall, which is quite likely in my opinion) are possible exceptions. Neither of them are, in my opinion, very strong exceptions to the rule that the Dark Side generally appears to kicks the Light Side's ass in the Star Wars movies.

Likewise, just because Yoda loses to Palpatine (with enemy reinforcements arriving, by the way) doesn't mean he's weaker, just that he lost that particular fight.

Sure, maybe he would have beaten him on another day. But I don't know that. All I know is that he lost that fight.

[Tracy Lord]

Best line in the whole movie. :confused: Best line? Try worst delivery.

Natalie can now proudly inherit the title of Worst Star Wars Actor. 3 films with Padme certainly outweigh 1 film with Little Ani (particularly since she's supposed to be the cause for The Fall).

Horrible.

I gotta agree with you there. I know Miss Portman's on record as saying that she doesn't like the Star Wars franchise, couldn't wait to get out, space operas are dumb, yadda yadda...

...but honey, DO YOUR JOB. Which includes, I believe, somewhere in the fine print, NOT SUCKING.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Oh yeah -- I forgot to mention that the scene where Yoda brushes off Palpatine's two red-robed guards was absolutely fantastic. The whole theater erupted in applause.

[Tracy Lord]

And the opposite is what? Running/protecting a competent government? Protecting the people from murder/conquest? It apparently isn't good at that.
[snip]
It's the opposite of arbitrary. It's observing the movies, and what actually happens in them, and making a judgment based on what actually happens.

I have to disagree with your statement that the Jedi aren't good at competent government. From the movies we have:

* The Jedi soundly kicked the Sith's asses a few thousand(?) years ago
* They structured the Galactic Republic and kept it on its feet and flourishing for the same few thousand years
* The Sith effected a minor resurgence, which was stamped out in under 50 years.

Seems to me the Jedi come out on top in the long run.

[sturmhauke]

My take is that an individual Sith gains power faster than a Jedi, because he is willing to do anything to gain power. However, using the Dark Side heavily takes a physical toll, and clearly the Sith are too competitive to survive in large numbers, so it balances out overall.

[SpartanDC]

And the Vader yelling, "No." Um, yeah. That was bad. Vader's so chilling precisely because he has so little emotion. Tho' he does have a penchant for killing people who fail him because of incompetence, when he's fairly beaten, he just accepts it. There's no rage there at all. And that's what makes him such a powerful character - he controls his rage so tightly, he's so cold. Having him yell, while possibly in character for Anakin, is not in character for Vader.
But that's exactly the point. Hearing of Padme's death is what really kills Anakin Skywalker completely. His love for her was the only really good left in him, since he had given himself over to hating everyone else. What you're seeing there are the death throes of Anakin Skywalker.

[Casey1505]

Vader's "NOOOOOO!" seems destined to be used in commercials for Happy Meals or something worse:

"Available for a limited time only, offer void in West Virginia, Idaho, New Hampshire, and The Death Star. (cut to Vader: "NOOOOOOOOO!")

[scott evil]

The entire plotline with the Wookies should have been handled much better or just cut entirely. Wookies are cool and all, but the setup was very poor. Why is Kashyyyk supposed to be such a strategically valuable planet when it appears to be a backwater with relatively low tech levels? And if Lucas was going to bother showing Wookies, he needed to really show them for more than a couple of establishing shots. Instead it's pretty much, "Look, Wookies! Meanwhile..."

I know what you mean. I was waiting to see Maala, Itchy, and Lumpy. Well, maybe not Lumpy, because he wouldn't have been born yet.

[Gangster Octopus]

Not to mention clumsily making one of the Wookies Chewbacca.

[SpartanDC]

1. Anakin and Padme live together yet they are supposed to be keeping their marriage a secret? How does that work?
I think he just crashes there sometimes. We don't see where any Jedi live and we know they can't have material possessions beyond essentials. I assume they've all got some spartan living quarters at the Jedi Temple.

[SlyFrog]

I have to disagree with your statement that the Jedi aren't good at competent government. From the movies we have:

* The Jedi soundly kicked the Sith's asses a few thousand(?) years ago
* They structured the Galactic Republic and kept it on its feet and flourishing for the same few thousand years
* The Sith effected a minor resurgence, which was stamped out in under 50 years.

Seems to me the Jedi come out on top in the long run.

This is a bunch of extended universe stuff, of which I have no knowledge so I can't really argue that. I'm going by what I see in the movies.

[Tracy Lord]

This is a bunch of extended universe stuff, of which I have no knowledge so I can't really argue that. I'm going by what I see in the movies.

I'm not that familiar with the extended-universe, either. Here's how I figure:

The Republic must have been running for a long time, because there's all these "Jedi council traditions," the Senate is well-established and has a shiny expensive room, and especially the Jedi archives are very thorough and treated as the be-all and end-all of encyclopediac information. The success and breadth of the Republic implies to me that it's been around for a while, and the honored position which the Jedi hold implies to me that they're to be credited with most if not all of that success.

Palpatine talks about the Sith ruling the galaxy at some point in time. Since the Jedi and the Republic are in power and have been for quite some time, the Jedi must have beaten the Sith a REALLY long time ago. Since the Republic is still successful at the opening of Phantom Menace, I assume the Sith haven't made a major resurgence since then.

The minor resurgence to which I refer is the events of the six films. That resurgence is effected and stamped out within the lifetime of a single Sith lord, Palpatine. He turns Anakin/Vader, rises to power, and is defeated at most thirty years later.

I haven't read any of the extended comics/books/novelizations, whatever, but just going off the information we get in the movies, I still say the Jedi are much more successful than the Sith in the long run.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Actually, all of Tracy Lord's points there are from the movies. It's mentioned several times that the Republic has been around for a very, very long time and that the Jedi (almost) wiped out the Sith a similarly long time ago. The Sith (Palpatine) come back and wipe out the Jedi and restructure the republic into an empire in Episodes I-III, and then the Jedi (Luke) kill off the Sith again and restore the republic.

[Cervaise]

a lengthy action sequence involving the floor turning sideways and an elevator shaftWhich made absolutely no sense at all. It's as if the gravity on the ship is oriented relative to the planet below, instead of, y'know, to the ship.At any rate, what the hell was up with Obi-wan's parrot lizard?Another toy for the shelf.

I give the movie a B-. Some cool stuff, some crappy stuff, a lot of meaningless filler.

[MovieMogul]

I gotta agree with you there. I know Miss Portman's on record as saying that she doesn't like the Star Wars franchise, couldn't wait to get out, space operas are dumb, yadda yadda...

...but honey, DO YOUR JOB. Which includes, I believe, somewhere in the fine print, NOT SUCKING.Well, I can't blame her completely, because like Ewan & Sam & Hayden, she was cast completely counter to what she's best at as an actor. Natalie's fine when she plays the waif, the ingenue, the cute little sprite.

But a world-weary head of state? An acutely perceptive politician, with, presuably a ton of experience in dealing with others? Who's expected to age 15+ years over the course of the sage? Anyone looking at her body of work should've known this epic task was completely beyond her abilities.

Actors aren't just cookie-cutter molds, where as long as they "look" right, their acting skills are otherwise interchangable (read lines, hit marks, etc.). But you'd never know it from watching these last 3 films.

[rocking chair]

re: padme's will to live. anakin attacking her and nearly killing her, broke her mind. it was a mental blow she could not recover from.

it seemed obi-wan was trying to interest her in the twins but she wasn't able to over come what anakin had done.

the parrot-lizard was named boga and did die. obi-wan and boga did have a much expanded relationship in the book version.

the timeline bothered me as well. that was one very fast pregnancy!

re: obi-wan leaving anakin. in the book: "obi-wan looks down at anakin, thinking it would be a mercy to kill hiim. he was not feeling merciful. in the end he was still obi-wan kenobi, and he was still a jedi, and he would not murder a helpless man. he would leave it to the will of the force."

from episode 5 and 6 i had the impression that padme and bail would end up together. perhaps with bail a protecter/husband and padme passing sometime when leia was 3 ish. i was rather surprised by padme passing in childbirth, and bail having a wife.

re anakin's end and vader's beginning. it says that the sith lord laid his hand across the cracked and blackened mess that once had been his brow, and he set his will upon him. live, lord vader. live, my apprentice. live

as far as how vader turns cold: book time again: first he "remembers the furnace of vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth. there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand there was no dragon. there was no vader. that there was only you. only anakin skywalker. you did it. you killed her."

"in this blazing moment you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the sith. now your self is all you will ever have."

he tries to destroy the emperor, that is when every thing around him starts to break. but his physical limitations due to his injuries stop him from reaching out fully to destroy the emperor. and he realized that the emperor is all he has left, that he has destroyed everything else. he shuts down any feelings that don't involve the emperor.

during epi 6 he is confronted by the feelings that luke brings to him. this starts to shake what he has been able to hold onto since becoming vader.

i reckon darth vader has to grow into his new parts, he isn't gonna be an alek gudinov right off the bat. having him fumble and stumble about a bit didn't bother me.

obi-wan does stop by the homestead to check on luke from time to time. while cleaning c3po luke tells him that he knows a ben kenobi that comes around once in a while to trade things. "i hardly talk to him, though. my uncle usually runs him off."

[Aeschines]

Here's my suggestion for an alternative to the "NOOOOOOOO!" scene:

It starts out the same: Vader is told that he killed Padme, he breaks out of the table while the whole room starts going to shit...but then instead of "NOOOOO!" he just drops down to his knees, head down and fists clenched...the destruction in the room continues and increases in intensity, so that even Sidious is taken aback a little bit. Then things quiet down, and Vader slowly rises to his full height and says, "What is your bidding, my master?" It is evident that with the death of Padme, he has fully abandoned his old life and has nothing left to live for besides service to the Emperor. He is transformed in that moment into the cold, calculating Darth Vader that we meet in ANH.
Yes, much better!

[Nars Glinley]

First off, when Yoda tells Obi-Wan that the Padawan was killed by a lightsaber and Obi-Wan bends down to get a closer look I could swear that the kid in the foreground moved. Anyone else notice that? I'm not totally sure, but I'm certain I'll remember to look next time I see the movie.
I don't have the strength to read the whole thread right now, but I noticed the same thing. My immediate thought was that they weren't actually dead.

[Aeschines]

Also, count me as one who wasn't impressed with Sam Jackson's performances in these films. He really could've used an accent or something, because every time I heard his voice I expected him to start going off about how he doesn't eat pork because pigs are filthy animals. ;)
I'll be even more heterodox and say that I don't think SLJ is a good actor ever. Have never found him believable.

[ExTank]

Not to mention clumsily making one of the Wookies Chewbacca.

Don't know how familiar you are with Wookies, but they are fairly long lived. Chewie would've been around 175-180 y/o in RotS, and in his "prime." So it's not inconceivable that he could have been there.

But if by "clumsy" you mean gratuitously throwing him into the movie when there was no obvious need, then yes, I agree.

[Gangster Octopus]

But if by "clumsy" you mean gratuitously throwing him into the movie when there was no obvious need, then yes, I agree.

Yes, pretty much that, also because Chewbacca in the original trilogy hardly seems to have ever been involved in the war or having any concern for the Rebellion.

[interface2x]

And I was disappointed by the final duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin. I really disliked the kid by that point, and wanted Obi-Wan to lay more of a beating on him. Which I think would have worked better with the plot, anyway; to have Anakin losing the fight but pressing on harder and harder out of anger. And the way it ended. They're shown as being almost perfectly matched, even throwing each other across the room in unison. And even though these guys can leap 40 feet in the air, have been fighting from a conference room to a catwalk to a huge piece of equipment sinking in a river of lava as it heads for the falls, suddenly it's "Aha, give up, I am slightly uphill from you!"


Actually, I thought that worked. They'd gone to the lengths of showing how their powers were pretty much equal, as you said. Therefore, it took an advantage, any advantage, to separate their level of strength. Obi-Wan knew at that point how to combat a jump from Anakin's placement in the lava. However, Anakin was arrogant and thought that he could still come out on top because he believed he was the more powerful jedi. Instead, he was taken down because he wasn't as powerful as he thought he was - it was a losing proposition and he couldn't turn it around like he expected. It showed how Obi-Wan was able to fish around and find a way to get a leg-up in the fight while Anakin was still so blinded by his hate and arrogance that he ignored the possibility that outward factors could possibly affect the situation.

That's how I see it anyhow.

[Marley23]

I'm sure you'll get it all on the Ultra-Super-Spectacular-Ultimate-Special Edition DVD.
I have no doubt many people will, but I won't. ;)
My favorite was when Obi-Wan shot Grievous with a blaster and threw it away calling it an "uncivilized weapon", referencing, of course Alec Guiness in Ep 4 calling the lightsaber a civilized weapon for an uncivilized time (IIRC).
Yeah, I liked that too.
"No, actually Darth, you were a burnt peice of amputated dog-meat."
I normally wouldn't say something like this, but what if you take "when I left you?" to mean when he pledged himself to the Emperor?
Okay, that's dumb, I got nothing.

Err, what else. Oh, Obi-Wan and Anakin on the last level of the game. I mean, that lava world. While it was weird, Obi-Wan not killing him made sense to me. (It makes even more sense if you consider that in these movies the Jedi never do the smart thing, but leaving that aside. :p) He said he loved him and meant it. I think he really couldn't make himself kill Anakin. He was also furious and let's face it, he didn't seem totally opposed to the thought of Anakin suffering out there on the rocks before dying alone. Is it the smartest or most logical and sensible thing to do? No; this is Star Wars. But I didn't have trouble buying it. I distinctly thought two or three times "Oh my... he's going to leave him there." I liked it.

[Soapbox Monkey]

Which made absolutely no sense at all. It's as if the gravity on the ship is oriented relative to the planet below, instead of, y'know, to the ship.

I learned back when I was 8 that if you try to bring logic into Star Wars, you'll end up frustrated. This is entertainment first and foremost. Lucas wanted some action on the ship with people constantly having to adjust to the shifts in rotation.

Think back to Return of the Jedi, why did the Super Star Destroyer all of a sudden fall downward into the Death Star like a sinking ship?

In pretty much all the movies, prequels included, why is it that all the fighting seems to take place on a single plane in space. ITS FUCKING SPACE! There should be ships flying at each other and fighting from every angle!

This is the one that really irks me: In Episode IV, the Falcon is pulled into the hanger, which is in the equator of the Death Star. Now, the interior of the Death Star seems to be on the same plane as the hanger. And yet, during the Battle of Yavin, as the fighters fly across the surface of some random portion of the Death Star...now all of a sudden the interior of the Death Star is tangential to the surface! HOW!?

Luckily I'm usually able to put logic aside when I watch these movies, so I can get past this kind of stuff.

Oh, and I absolutely LOVED Episode III. Exactly what I hoped it would be.

[Kaspar Hauser]

Just saw it tonight with my brother, a fellow Star Wars geek.

I think the best thing I can say about it is that I am satisfied, and I mean that as a compliment of the highest order. For the first time, one of the prequels felt like a Star Wars movie. Well done, George.

The Bad:
The acting. OK, I know Natalie Portman is a good actress. I saw Garden State. But here, not so much. Even Samuel L. Jackson, fer Chrissake, universally regarded as one of the coolest actor of his generation, came off as a stiff. Hayden, the Force love 'em, tried. Oh, how he tried. I find that in the Lucas-directed movies, the older actors tend to come off better, perhaps because they have more experience directing themselves when confronted by uneasy directors.

Unlike most directors, I think George needs a second unit director for his non-action scenes.

The Badass:
Everything else! From the infiltration of Grievous' ship to the transformation of Palpatine to the final fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan, it all just fit, man. That final lava scene was the most disturbing thing in a Star Wars movie since Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's smoldering skeletons in Episode IV.

Ian McDiarmid was the most fun, over-the-top movie villain since Jack Nicholson as the Joker. I really hope, and all evidence points to it, that he had as much fun playing Palpatine/Sidious as the audience did watching him.

At first I was disappointed in Yoda's apparent pussiness, but then when I thought about it I realized it was entirely in character. He's always been a bit of a pessimist.

Crowd-pleasing scenes: The attack on/infiltration of Dooku's ship, Artoo's antics, and Yoda's effortless dispatching of the proto-Imperial Guards.

Now -- onto the TV series!

[Marley23]

In pretty much all the movies, prequels included, why is it that all the fighting seems to take place on a single plane in space. ITS FUCKING SPACE! There should be ships flying at each other and fighting from every angle!
Didn't feel that way in the opening scene of this one. Unfortunately I was in the second row and it was kind of sensory overload, felt like I was on a rollercoaster. The duels were also a little bit of a pain in the ass because of the constant cutting. I didn't choose to sit that close, of course.

[VarlosZ]

It's the opposite of arbitrary. It's observing the movies, and what actually happens in them, and making a judgment based on what actually happens.
Perhaps I was unclear. What I meant was that there are certain ways in which the Dark side is stronger, and certain ways in which it is weaker. To decide that it is stronger in general because it has a better track record with lightsaber duels is what is arbitrary. I could just as easily claim that the Light side is stronger because it has a better track record with running the galaxy.


Just for fun, let's see what's in the win columns of the two sides.

Draws
Ep. 1 -- Qui Gon vs. Darth Maul in the desert (Reservation: Qui-Gon runs away.)

Ep. 2 -- Yoda vs. Dooku (Reservation: Dooku runs away.)


Sith Victories
Ep. 1 -- Qui-Gon vs. Darth Maul II

Ep. 2 -- Dooku vs. Obi-Wan & Anikan

Ep. 3 -- Dooku vs. Obi-Wan (Breaking this one into two battles)

Ep. 3 -- Palpatine vs. Those Three Jedi with Windu (same here)

Ep. 3 -- Palpatine vs. Yoda (Reservation: could be considered a draw; Palpatine has soldiers coming to his aid, and the battle isn't much different than the two draws I listed above.)

Ep. 4 -- Vader vs. Obi-Wan (Reservation: Obi-Wan is an old man, and also more or less takes a dive.)

Ep. 5 -- Vader vs. Luke (Reservation: Luke is clearly just a trainee at this point)

Ep. 6 -- Palpatine vs. Luke (Reservation: Luke throws his light saber away!!! Jesus, that's stupid. What did Yoda tell him just a few scenes ago? Do Not Underestimate the Emperor. What did he think was going to happen? Anyway, I'm hesitant to include this, but Luke definitely got messed up, so here it is.)


Jedi Victories
Ep. 1 -- Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul (Reservation: Obi-Wan enraged, tapping into Dark Side? I don't think so -- remember, he was only able to cut Maul in half because he collected himself.)

Ep. 3 -- Annakin vs. Dooku

Ep. 3 -- Obi-Wan vs. General Grievous (Reservation: Grievous apparently not a true Jedi/Sith.)

Ep. 3 -- Windu vs. Palpatine (Reservation: Palpatine taking a dive? I really don't think so, but I'll pay special attention to that next time I see it.)

Ep. 3 -- Obi-Wan vs. Anikan

Ep. 6 -- Luke vs. Vader (Reservation: Luke enraged, tapping into Dark side?)


The Drak side comes out ahead 8-6-2. Considering all the mitigating circumstances and the small sample size, that's pretty damn even. And there are lots of reasonable ways to categorize those fights. I see from 0 to 4 draws, from 4 to 9 Sith victories, and from 4 to 7 Jedi victories.

[Kaspar Hauser]

P.S. Forgot to mention all the riffs John Willaims did on the Imperial March and the Emperor's theme throughout. We die-hard nerds certainly noticed!

[aerodave]

Which made absolutely no sense at all. It's as if the gravity on the ship is oriented relative to the planet below, instead of, y'know, to the ship.

This may be the first time anyone tried to drag a thread into GQ, but follow my logic assuming the fake gravity on the ship failed.

Being at orbital altitude, but not actually in orbit (I love how they can just hover up there), it's as if you're just on a couple-hundred-kilometer-tall platform. And on such a platform, you'd still feel Coruscant's gravity almost as strongly as on the surface.

In a typical orbit around Earth (not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far, far away), the Shuttle still experiences a gravitational field about 90% as strong as at the surface of the Earth.

[Apos]

Windu, at least in EU material, is held to be among the best duelists ever, with his special art of Vaapad or whatever it is. That's what makes him different from all the other masters, and able to stand toe to toe with Sidious: even best him.

Yoda, Sidious, and Anakin (post Clone Wars) are all mentioned as being the only ones on his skill level, so it makes sense that they would jockey around for position a bit in the "who would beat who" fantasyland of duels. It should be mentioned that Dooku clearly quietly considered himself to be Yoda's superior, though that is never really tested. How Obi-Wan, clearly not even in Dooku's league (despite somehow being good enough to take down Grevious, who proves to be an almost laughably efficient Jedi slaughtering machine in Clone Wars), manages to beat Anakin is the stuff of legend.

The Qui-Gon stuff makes more sense in the comic books, but it still doen't make much sense. : plotwise it's worse than tacked on to explain what was before its OWN poorly tacked on device. I mean, geez, it's like the power to turn invisible and intangible with no way to turn back, which is stupid enough if not for the fact that they don't even use it for the obvious good effects (like spying on your enemies). Great, you can live forever: but what doe that accomplish in the here and now? Apparently, it's good purely for lecturing the living and occasionaly whispering startling things in their ears. Yoda, who for some reason simply gives up and lets the galaxy fall under a dark cloud after failing a SINGLE attempt to take down Sidious unassisted, HEAD ON, with no planning or forethought whatsoever, is all excited that now he has discovered the power to DIE COOL? Yes, lets run off and study THAT while the galaxy is crushed by evil.

[shijinn]

... Ep. 3 -- Windu vs. Palpatine (Reservation: Palpatine taking a dive? I really don't think so, but I'll pay special attention to that next time I see it.) ... unless luke was also taking a dive in ROTJ. no, palpatine lost. this makes yoda's quick acceptance of defeat unacceptable; there were no effort spent on indicating overwhelming odds posed by reinforcements. he just fell and ran away.

[Larry Mudd]

Well, that kicked a certain amount of ass.

One of the things I'm still not sure is really cool or somehow wrong: The way the opening space battle matched up with the LucasArts X-wing series. The cockpit elements and radar were exactly the way they were developed for those games, so that you could look at the display and make out, without referring to the outside view, where the other ships were in relation to that ship, which were hostile and which were not, which one was targeted by the computer, etc. Also, the action of the homing torpedoes was duplicated perfectly, too. Something that's really familiar from the games but was a little surprising to see on the big screen.Couldn't [Padme] also just plain mistakenly think [she remembered her mother] because of grief? You can't take a character's words so literally - movie characters are not reliable narrators any more than people in real life are.Hey, Luke remembered the line "There's still good in him -- I know it," and he was less than a minute old. Something to do with mitochondrial DNA passing information on to RNA, or something. :D

And call me old fashioned, but the CGI still ain't as good as a puppet. When Yoda was poking Luke with a stick in The Empire Strikes Back, or wrestling with Artoo over a flashlight, there was a physical presence of him interacting with his environment. Yoda now has lots of nifty moves so he can start trashing bozos, but there just isn't any sense that he's really there.The person I watched it with actual commented that the Yoda "costume" was much better than the puppet, and made little explosive sounds when Yoda took particularly hard hits. (Okay, she's not very visually sophisticated... but...) Personally, I like the CGI Yoda a lot, and think that he was integrated pretty well into the scene. They did great work with Yoda in ESB, but the muppet limitation was way beyond the inability to engage in combat. He had almost no mobility -- and those scenes with the "Yoda backpack" are pretty bad. Where it counts, the CGI Yoda has every bit as much presence as anyone could hope for.

Portman can act, I saw her do it in Garden State, therefore the blame goes to George for her third in a serious of bland, listless performances.As has already been pointed out, George gets no blame for that. She was said from the beginning that she doesn't like the project. She's pretty much phoning it in. Another poster said something about part of the job being not sucking. While I agree with the sentiment, I'm not entirely sure I'd include a non-sucking clause in any contract I negotiated with Ms. Portman.

That being said, in the previews her line "You're breaking my heart," as delivered, seemed about as trite as it gets --- in context I found it pretty effective. I'm a big suck, though.

Anyway, not much to say, really, other than this is certainly the best of the prequels, and probably better than Return of the Jedi. Not too freaking shabby.

It remains to be seen if all the little deja vus hold up after repeat viewings. I really liked them this go-round -- but I do wonder if, after a few screenings, the reaction will still be the same. "Join me, and together we'll rule the galaxy" will hold up, I think, because it works as a character thing. It's natural to want to rule with your wife, the ex-queen (if you're into that whole ruling-the-galaxy thing, of course,) and it's natural that after things go to shit and she dies, if you're still into that whole ruling-the-galaxy-thing, you'd want to do it with your remaining kin.

I'm not so sure about the "uncivilized weapon" nod, the turn-to-the-dark-side rap being practically word-for-word, and all the rest though. It worked for the first screening. It could hold up.

Only one way to tell -- my ass is back in the seat for a matinee after the weekend. :D

Oh, and Kaspar, of course the soundtrack kicked ass. That was expected.

I didn't expect Leia's Theme to make me go all-over misty, though. Told y'all I'm a big suck.

[Marley23]

IMDb includes the following trivia note:
Francis Ford Coppola suggested 'Christopher Neil' to George Lucas to be the dialogue coach. Lucas said that given the emotional intensity of Revenge of the Sith, and the fact that he rarely has time to converse with the actors, it would be ideal for someone else to be there to get the strongest performances possible.
Doesn't that say a lot? It sounds like he brought in another director to work with the actors.

[MerryMagdalen]

Saw it opening day.

Not as good as ESB but still...it had me captivated.

I found most scenes between Anikin and Padme to be painful.

I thought there were numerous cheesy scenes...(basically, anything non-action).

But, wow, I still loved it. I'd like to see it again.

I don't watch these movies for great dialogue and depth of plot...I watch them because they're Star Wars! And I grew up watching Star Wars, and hiding behind the back of the couch and pretending I was throwing Han Solo into the garbage chute (flyboy!) along with her.

For that, this movie delivered, for me.

And just to weigh in on the Death Star I vs. Death Star II arguement...(not based on the movies at all, just my thought)...

The first Death Star was built on the idea that the Empire/Palpatine (through the Senate/Republic) was basically in control. It was built structurally strong and then tested. And then it got blown up.

The second DS was built using the same idea, but learning from that experience - they made the defense forces of DS II strong first, for the express purpose of repelling the Rebelillon who would target it.

As I recall from ROTJ, the Emperor says, "See the fire power of this FULLY ARMED AND OPERATIONAL BATTLE STATION!" even though the physical DS v.2 (from what I remember) was not fully completed.

[sturmhauke]

Death Star II was definitely not fully functional, even though its main weapon was online (to the Rebel's surprise). The superstructure was only about 55% complete, with large gaps visible on one side.

[vibrotronica]

Yoda, who for some reason simply gives up and lets the galaxy fall under a dark cloud after failing a SINGLE attempt to take down Sidious unassisted, HEAD ON, with no planning or forethought whatsoever, is all excited that now he has discovered the power to DIE COOL? Yes, lets run off and study THAT while the galaxy is crushed by evil.What was Yoda supposed to do? At that point there were two jedi left. Palpatine controlled two armies (droid and clone) to Yoda's zero, and had the Chosen One on his side. Yoda had at that point fought the emperor to a draw. If he had pressed on he might have been able to best him, but the longer he was there the higher the probability that several hundred clone troops would show up and then he's be dodging blaster bolts AND force lightning. "Withdraw and regroup, we must."

[Yumblie]

One of the most poignant parts for me was when Organa returns and the storm troopers tell him there's a rebellion, then they start shooting at him. Suddenly a "youngling" jedi that's somehow still alive appears and starts defending him, and then is shot down. It makes me wonder how Anakin's slaughter of the rest of 'em went, and how many of them went down fighting (which would have been heart-breakingly adorable).

Also, while the dialogue being cheesy is a given, how did he get away with Vader shouting "NOOOOOOOO!" Star Wars isn't one to avoid cliches, but come on, that's pretty bad. They could've at least just gone with a loud frustrated scream. Oh well, at least in the next scene we get to see him collect himself and coldly watch the next Death Star being constructed (they sure work fast!).

[SlyFrog]

Perhaps I was unclear. What I meant was that there are certain ways in which the Dark side is stronger, and certain ways in which it is weaker. To decide that it is stronger in general because it has a better track record with lightsaber duels is what is arbitrary. I could just as easily claim that the Light side is stronger because it has a better track record with running the galaxy.

First off, good effort. The list you made is pretty cool I think. I, unsurprisingly, have some comments on specific points.


Draws
Ep. 1 -- Qui Gon vs. Darth Maul in the desert (Reservation: Qui-Gon runs away.)

Ep. 2 -- Yoda vs. Dooku (Reservation: Dooku runs away.)

I don't necessarily consider the first a draw. Being charitable, it was almost too quick to really call it anything. Being uncharitable, Qui-Gon looked happy as hell to get out with his life, including the huffing and puffing on the ship and looking like he had generally gotten the beat down. So yes, I side with the "Qui-Gon runs away" angle here more, and consider this at least a partial Dark Side victory.


Sith Victories
Ep. 1 -- Qui-Gon vs. Darth Maul II

Ep. 2 -- Dooku vs. Obi-Wan & Anikan

Bearing in mind that these were both the results of 2 on 1s where the one (the Dark Side) actually won. The second, in particular, is really pretty clearly two victories in itself.

Ep. 3 -- Palpatine vs. Those Three Jedi with Windu (same here)

Same point as above. Not only does the Dark Side beat the Light Side, it does it in a 4 on one. This could again pretty much be 3 victories, depending on how you count them up.

Jedi Victories
Ep. 1 -- Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul (Reservation: Obi-Wan enraged, tapping into Dark Side? I don't think so -- remember, he was only able to cut Maul in half because he collected himself.)

Well, you might consider this a bit cheesy, but my point is that much like Luke, he only really seems capable of doing the real damage to Maul because of a tapping into the Dark Side (as you referenced). It's not so much the dropping into the pit (which seemed to me to be a one-off fluke event kill, after pretty clearly being bested overall), but when Qui-Gon dies, where Obi-Wan goes a little Dark Side nuts and only then manages to push Maul back and break his staff.

But hey, this is argumentation, I'll admit that he did end up, somehow, killing the guy.

Ep. 3 -- Anakin vs. Dooku

I've got to question putting Annakin clearly into the "Light Side" column at this point.

Ep. 3 -- Obi-Wan vs. General Grievous (Reservation: Grievous apparently not a true Jedi/Sith.)

I agree with your reservation, I don't really think this one counts as a true "Light Side/Dark Side" force encounter.

Ep. 3 -- Windu vs. Palpatine (Reservation: Palpatine taking a dive? I really don't think so, but I'll pay special attention to that next time I see it.)

Yes, I do think he took a dive to set it up. That's clearly my subjective opinion, however - I can't blame you for putting this here.

As an aside, it is interesting that apparently, in the extended universe, Windu is so badass because he fights with a Dark Side style (as also witnessed by the purple lightsaber).

Ep. 3 -- Obi-Wan vs. Anikan

Yep, pretty clearly a good guy victory at last. Although again, the guy was beating the crap out of his much less experienced apprentice. Not as bad as Vader beating up on Luke, but still perhaps not a truly equal match.

Ep. 6 -- Luke vs. Vader (Reservation: Luke enraged, tapping into Dark side?)

Where my entire theory started. Luke clearly snaps and goes a little Dark Side apeshit over his sister being brought into it.


The Drak side comes out ahead 8-6-2. Considering all the mitigating circumstances and the small sample size, that's pretty damn even. And there are lots of reasonable ways to categorize those fights. I see from 0 to 4 draws, from 4 to 9 Sith victories, and from 4 to 7 Jedi victories.

Sure, again, pretty cool effort I thought. We just disagree on some of the categorizations.

[Apos]

What was Yoda supposed to do? At that point there were two jedi left. Palpatine controlled two armies (droid and clone) to Yoda's zero, and had the Chosen One on his side. Yoda had at that point fought the emperor to a draw. If he had pressed on he might have been able to best him, but the longer he was there the higher the probability that several hundred clone troops would show up and then he's be dodging blaster bolts AND force lightning. "Withdraw and regroup, we must."

But they didn't regroup. They sat around learning how to merge with the force: which while a laudable art (again though, what was ghostly Qui-Gon DOING while dead other than yelling in Anakin's ear ONCE), accomplished nothing to stop the evil of the Empire from spreading. As far as we know, Yoda never made another attempt to ambush Palpatine or even thwart his plans in the least. Worse, it's not clear that either Yoda or Obi-Wan had much of any role in setting up the eventually victorious Rebellion. Yoda doesn't even seem to care about the force potential of Luke or Leia when we first meet him in ESB: he seems content merely to die in a swamp. Obi-Wan isn't much better: it's not clear that he had any plans for Luke until Luke found HIM. He certainly didn't bother even trying to train Luke. or introduce himself (what, Uncle Ben was too powerful for Obi-Wan to win an argument with?) It's also clear that Yoda could have wiped the floor with the Chosen One in one-on-one combat (hell, even Obi-Wan could do it). All that would be required was, at most, a LITTLE crafty planning. And yet, for all his vaunted wisdom, Yoda, who failed to see any of this coming or do anything about it, still makes a only single attempt to singlehandedly assasinate Palpatine in a frontal assault with almost no element of surprise or ambush.

In ROTJ, the non-force-empowered Rebellion basically destroys Palpatine themselves with only minimal help from Luke or any Jedi (if anything, Luke jeopardizes the mission, as he notes, and they are saved only because Vader was conflicted). So much for "regrouping."

[Apos]

I also don't think we can take much from the duels in the movies as to which side has the more powerful warriors. As far as what the movie's producers have said, there are all sorts of differently skilled Jedi and Sith, and not all matches are even. Sidious takes down three Jedi masters esaily: but so what? Why should that necessarily count anymore than Anakin killing younglings? Sidious is described as the most powerful Sith in thousands of years, and there are obviously at least two Jedi warriors as good if not better than him: Yoda and Windu. The fact is that their matches, and most single matches, come down to luck and circumstance. Given that the potential "dark side abusing" Jedi were Luke and Obi-wan: respectively a dude who never even held a lightsaber until adulthood vs. the chosen one and a padawan vs. a fully trained Sith apprentice, even if they had abused the dark side, that tells us little about respective strength: both were relative amatuers who still pulled out wins against skilled warriors using the full power of the dark side.

[atalaya]

Did it bother anyone else that a movie with a big of a budget as this one couldn't make a woman consistantly pregant?

Freaking Natalie Portman went from no belly to huge belly, to medium belly, back to no belly when she got on the ship to find Anakin, and then back to huge belly at her funeral.

What. The. Hell!

I don't know why, but I got so hung up on this that it was hard to suspend my disbelief. Probably because it's not a huge deal to make someone look pregant and they couldn't even get that right. It was a major detail that shouldn't have been a glaring error.

Also:
Did anyone get the feeling that in this one the Jedis were basically just assasins? They just went on missions and snuck around to take out the head honchos so everyone could go home.

Overall conclusion:

Less talking, more lightsabers!

As someone else I think already said. Use the nonverbals George.


One thing I liked:
Throughout, I couldn't reconcile Ewan McGregor's ObiOne with Alec Guiness'...Until the end when he was standing on Tatooine after having handed over Luke to his aunt and uncle. Something about how he played that scene, his body language, was very reminiscent what the character originally was/eventualy became. That was the only time I saw continuity in the character.

[Larry Mudd]

Palpatine taking a dive? I really don't think so, but I'll pay special attention to that next time I see it.Palpatine is pretty unambiguously taking a dive to manipulate Anikin into crossing the threshold.

He holds Mace off easily until the very second before Anikin enters the room, when he allows himself to be disarmed and kicked to the floor. Then he pantomimes being at the limit of his abilities to goad Anikin into "rescueing" him. After he's told that he's "under arrest," Palpy busts out the Force Lightning trick -- but only exactly the amount that Mace can deal with. Enough of an offense that Mace has to raise his sword against him. Then the pleading. "Ooh, I can't hold him off much longer. I'm so weak, Annie. And old. Look at me! I'm a helpless old man. Boo hoo hoo. Yes, the last reserves of my strength are being used to keep this traitor's lightsabre from penetrating my heart. Oh, poor me. Is this the end of poor old Palpy? And remember -- I have the power to save Padme, and Big Bad Mace has always been disrespected you. Oh, please, Anikin, why are you thinking about this for so long? I'm so weak! Help me!" *Anikin steps in and 'disarms' Mace, neutralizing the threat, still clinging to the ideal that it's wrong to kill unnecessarily* "Ah, there's a good lad. WRAAAAAAAR, did I neglect to mention that I still have POWER? UNLIMITED POWER!!!!! Mwahahahaha!" *Casually blasts Mace twelve city blocks away, smearing him against a distant skyscraper, and then stands up strong and tall and begins talking shit about Destiny, ruling the Galaxy, and all that fun stuff.

It's totally clear that he could have dispatched Mace without breaking a sweat, if he wanted to -- but he needed him to force Anikin's hand. Nothing subjective about it.

Throughout, I couldn't reconcile Ewan McGregor's ObiOne with Alec Guiness'...Until the end when he was standing on Tatooine after having handed over Luke to his aunt and uncle. Something about how he played that scene, his body language, was very reminiscent what the character originally was/eventualy became. That was the only time I saw continuity in the character.Really? I think Ewan McGregor's performance was the single best thing about all of the prequels. He had Sir Alec's mannerisms and inflections down spookily perfectly. There are some things that are borrowed from Star Wars, such as little idiosyncratic things he does with his robes, etc -- but, overall, it's a perfect mirror of the way that Alec Guinness was as a younger man. Which makes sense. People move and speak differently when they are younger. If Ewan spent the entire trilogy miming the aged Obi Wan, it wouldn't have been nearly as believable -- but we saw exactly what a young Obi Wan would have looked like. Flawlessly. The performances match more closely at the end because then it made sense for Obi Wan to have somehow "aged." The weight of war, and all that. He's fatigued and his spirit has taken a serious battering. Now he is an old man in a young man's body.

Check out The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers, or Kind Hearts and Coronets -- and then watch Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan again. He did a fabulous job of duplicating exactly how a younger Guinness would have portrayed a younger Kenobi. Fantastic! Ewan is practically invisible.

[vibrotronica]

But they didn't regroup...it's not clear that either Yoda or Obi-Wan had much of any role in setting up the eventually victorious Rebellion...And yet if it hadn't been for Obi-Wan's intervention, Luke wouldn't have flown in the first Death Star raid and the Rebellion wouldn't have survived. From what we see in Sith, Yoda, Kenobi and Bail Organa are pretty much the founding members of the Rebellion. Luke and Leia are the Rebellion's aces in the hole. Yoda and Kenobi are meditating during their long exile to shield the twins from the Emperor and Vader's scrying, just like Sideous blocked their awareness as his plans came to fruition.
In ROTJ, the non-force-empowered Rebellion basically destroys Palpatine themselves with only minimal help from Luke or any JediIf Yoda and Obi Wan hadn't safeguarded the twins, there wouldn't have been a Rebellion to fight the battle of Endor because they wouldn't have survived Yavin. If the entire battle of Endor hadn't been staged as a trap for Luke, the Empire survives. If the Force-empowered Leia hadn't made friends with the Ewoks, the shield generator wouldn't have been destroyed and the Empire survives. If Luke doesn't confront Vader and the Emperor, Vader doesn't turn on his master and the Empire survives.

At the time of the exile, there is no way Kenobi and Yoda can defeat the Emperor and Vader. They have to wait until the time is right.

[marshmallow]

Overall, a good flick! I was amused by the Kenobi / Grevious fight. Even though Kenobi is a master and Grevious just knows how to handle a saber without slicing himself to pieces...how did he lose? Four vs. one? A simple sandwich attack and Kenobi wouldn't have been able to block them all.

Grevious had another chance when he held him in his claw and then just threw him away...just strangle him! It was shown that he was helpless against his strong metal frame in hand to hand combat.

I like how how the Republic went along with Palpatine because "Oh no! The Jedi are traitors!"

Commander ... Curly?

Young...lings?

I thought Vader's physical burning was odd. His body turns into a bonfire but when Palpatine and the medic team finds him he's just charred...more of his body survived than I thought.

[Larry Mudd]

At the time of the exile, there is no way Kenobi and Yoda can defeat the Emperor and Vader. They have to wait until the time is right.That's it, exactly. Anakin's children are the key to the whole thing. Yoda spells it out that way. "Hidden, the twins must be... Until the time is right, disappear, we will."

The idea is that they are strong enough in the Force to defeat Vader and the Emperor -- as long as they are raised right and shielded from the corrupting influence of the Sith. When Leia is captured, she's on her way to meet Obi-Wan, who has been quietly keeping an eye on Luke. Presumably the plan was for him to give them both a quickie initiation at that time.I have a question. What were the Sith getting revenge for?Remember, "Sith," like "Jedi," is one of those words that are the same whether they're plural or singlular. In both Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, we're dealing with singular nouns -- and they both refer to Anakin/Darth, and how his choices affect what he is.

I gotta say, when I was thirteen I really resented the "weakening" of the title of the third installment, but it was the right decision, obviously. As the man said at the time, a Jedi doesn't take revenge.

In RoTS, he becomes a Sith by being goaded into vengeful actions. He's repeatedly manipulated into it by Palpatine -- as he first was in Attack of the Clones. In the beginning of Revenge of the Sith he's coaxed into vengeful action again. First by Dooku himself, who is actively trying to bring out the Dark Side in him: "I sense hatred and anger in you -- but you don't use them." He still doesn't use them, because he's clinging to the Jedi ideal. He disarms Dooku right after that. Palpatine encourages him to kill him, but Anakin resists, because he knows it's not right. Eventually, he gives in, and Palpatine reassures him: "It was only natural. He cut off your arm -- you wanted revenge." This is another step down the path.

He continues to take revenge throughout the rest of the movie -- albeit for imagined slights and insults to his ego. Palpatine keeps planting seeds of hatred in him against the Jedi. They disrespect him. They should have sent him to Kashyyk. They didn't. They should have awarded him the rank of Master. They didn't. Mace should have let him confront Palpatine. He didn't. Anakin was coaxed into wanting power. Palpatine nurtured his ego, knowing that everything about being a Jedi would go against that. He set him up to avenge his honour.

Anakin took his vengeance, and became a Sith lord. That's why the movie's called Revenge of the Sith.

The Return of the Jedi refers to Anakin, too. The titular Jedi is the one who "died" when Anakin became a Sith lord. Luke helped to bring him back by simply presenting himself as a lamb to the slaughter, giving his father the same choice between good and evil that he had made twenty years before, and trusted that he would make the right decision. He did, and Anakin was redeemed. The Jedi returned, his body and the dross it had acquired were burned, and Anakin was shown in his Jedi robes, hanging out with Obi-Wan and Yoda.

[Larry Mudd]

Whoops... that "gotta say" was added after a preview, and was meant to be at the very end.

[Larry Mudd]

Commander ... Curly?Even better: Commander Cody!

That was a serious laugh-out-loud moment for me.

It references the original rocket-equipped "bucket head" -- Commando Cody (http://www.sergioleone.net/dm-108.jpg), from the 40s action serials. Even the studio (http://www.littlereata.com/autos/republic.jpg) that put out King of the Rocketmen and the other Commando Cody serials is a bit of an in-joke.

:D

[Balthisar]

Remember, "Sith," like "Jedi," is one of those words that are the same whether they're plural or singlular. In both Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, we're dealing with singular nouns -- and they both refer to Anakin/Darth, and how his choices affect what he is.

The movie I saw was called "La Venganza de los Sith" -- plural. Considering the really high quality of work they did in the Spanish version (like I don't have the sucky dialogue complaint of everyone else), I can't believe they'd screw up something as important as the title.

As for Episode 6, though, it seems that you're right -- "El Returno del Jedi" -- singular.

Hmm... to be fair, is "Episodio III: la Vendetta dei Sith" singular or plural (Italian)?

[Larry Mudd]

Hmm... to be fair, is "Episodio III: la Vendetta dei Sith" singular or plural (Italian)?That's plural, too.

I'm inclined to think it's a mistranslation of an ambiguous title, though. It doesn't really make sense as a plural -- unless it refers to the dead Sith's revenge. Anakin didn't extract any revenge for things done collectively to the Sith, and the there was only one other Sith around to take it.

The only time the word "revenge" occurs in the script, it refers to Anakin personally.

There's no reason someone can't produce a good translation of clear dialogue and get caught up on a tricky title. ("Return of the Jedi" is likely to be interpreted as singular even by people who don't "get" the significance of the title. Most people assume that the Jedi referred to is Luke.)

Lucas has explicitly said that the "Jedi" of the ROTJ's title is Anakin. Since the script of ROTS shares so many symmetries with ROTJ, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the similarity and contrast of the titles is intentional. I haven't heard Lucas say this out loud yet, but I have no doubt he will.

[SlyFrog]

I'm not that familiar with the extended-universe, either. Here's how I figure:

The Republic must have been running for a long time, because there's all these "Jedi council traditions," the Senate is well-established and has a shiny expensive room, and especially the Jedi archives are very thorough and treated as the be-all and end-all of encyclopediac information. The success and breadth of the Republic implies to me that it's been around for a while, and the honored position which the Jedi hold implies to me that they're to be credited with most if not all of that success.

Palpatine talks about the Sith ruling the galaxy at some point in time. Since the Jedi and the Republic are in power and have been for quite some time, the Jedi must have beaten the Sith a REALLY long time ago. Since the Republic is still successful at the opening of Phantom Menace, I assume the Sith haven't made a major resurgence since then.

The minor resurgence to which I refer is the events of the six films. That resurgence is effected and stamped out within the lifetime of a single Sith lord, Palpatine. He turns Anakin/Vader, rises to power, and is defeated at most thirty years later.

I haven't read any of the extended comics/books/novelizations, whatever, but just going off the information we get in the movies, I still say the Jedi are much more successful than the Sith in the long run.

I didn't know that "minor resurgence" meant the stuff that happened in Episodes I-VI themselves, I thought you were talking about something earlier than that. If you consider what happened in I-VI "minor," then I don't want to be on your bad side. :)

[Soapbox Monkey]

Grevious, who proves to be an almost laughably efficient Jedi slaughtering machine in Clone Wars

To be fair, everyone in Clone Wars was a laughably efficient killing machine.

[Tracy Lord]

I didn't know that "minor resurgence" meant the stuff that happened in Episodes I-VI themselves, I thought you were talking about something earlier than that. If you consider what happened in I-VI "minor," then I don't want to be on your bad side. :)

:p

"Minor" is, of course, relative -- I was mostly referring to the length (thirty years at most, by my reckoning).

[Mister Rik]

My favorite line came from Yoda:

"Not if anything to say about it I have!"

Wishful thinking: the female Twi'lek Jedi who was killed should have had far more screen time. Damn! Schweet!

Strange viewer oversight: I didn't even notice the room falling apart whilst Vader yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" I suppose the problem was in my proximity to the screen - I was in the second row. I was pretty much forced to focus my attention on the character who was speaking, and that made everything else blurry and peripheral. Hopefully, my next viewing will be accomplished from farther back.

Thought:

I think I read this whole thread, and I don't think anybody else brought this up. When Mace had Palpatine down, he said to Anakin, "He's too dangerous to allow to live!" Exactly the same thing Palpatine said when Anakin had Dooku at his mercy. I thought that was a big factor in Anakin's turning; it told him that the Jedi were not all they claimed to be, and it allowed him to justify, to himself, his own actions. He was hanging onto the last thread holding him to Jedi teaching, and Windu unintentionally cut that thread.

I also thought it was fascinating that all of Anakin's actions, as he moved toward the dark side, were motivated by his love for Padme. The film demonstrated perfectly the old saying, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

[Laughing Lagomorph]

...

Seemed odd to me how Padme went from her regal, self-assured bearing in the first film to the whiny, sniveling mess we see in RotS.

...


Pregnancy hormones?

[Harborwolf]

Apologies if any of this has been covered.

Here are my thoughts fresh from the theater. If I make any typos, it's because the person who took my ticket cut off my hands. Apparently it's required to even watch a Star Wars movie now.

Where to begin..."Love can't save you. Only my new powers can save you." :smack: In fact, every bit of dialog between Padme and Anakin was painfull.

How on earth was Anakin surprised that Padme was pregnant? Even assuming they hadn't seen each other since their little wedding, how on earth did she and Anakin hug without him noticing? "Wow Padme, you were so depressed without me that you hit the fudge."

What was that little room that Obi Wan hid in? Was it a bathroom, some sort of empty mop closet?

Dear god the lava fall :smack: It's not exciting enough that they are fighting on lava. We need something to make it more x-treme. And halfway through the battle, some friggin lava bucket droid floats in and floats out again. What the hell was the point of that?

Why was Grevous coughing? Do we need another asthmatic villain in the star wars series?

Palpatine seemed a little too excited at the prospect of Anakin killing Count Dooku...in a dirty way. "Kill him Anakin. Kill him slower...now faster! Faster Anakin."

How was Anakin surprised that Palpatine was a sith. He gave that masturbatory speech at the bubble opera about how 1337 the sith were. The only thing he didn't do was beat Anakin over the head with his official Sith light baseball bat while screaming "I am a sith you retarted manchild."

Killing may be against the jedi code, but they didn't have much problem flushing that down the toilet whenever it was convenient. Killing Dooku? No problem. Good on ya Ani. Darth <shudder> Sidious begging for his life? Better put a light saber in his head (his butt head)

All in all, a worthy sequel to the first two prequels, Jar Jar and all.

[wayward]

I haven't had time to read through the whole thread but I saw the movie tonight and I thought I'd add my thoughts before I went toI l bed (It's 2:15 am here).

I loved it. I was born in '83 so I missed the originals and I never caught the prequels in the cinema either so this is the first one I've seen on the big screen. I think have some idea now of how it felt seeing those movies for the first time.

There were some really brutal scenes. I'm thinking of Mace Windu's death in particular. We don't seem to see a lot of pain in Star Wars but when his arm came off... Wow. That hurt. Anakin's defeat in the lava was similar. I don't know what rating this got in America but it's a '12A' here. That means any kid can see it as long as they have a parent with them. I don't think I could take a child to this movie.

Anakin was terrifying. He had that ambiguous thing going all the way through, and there was always a sense that there was much more going on behind those eyes. His turn was handled brilliantly and I definitely sympathised with him to a certain extent.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed the parallel titles from the trilogies

The Phantom Menace / A New Hope - Vague bad stuff happening / Vague good stuff happening
Attack of the Clones / The Empire Strikes Back - Good guys attack / Bad guys attack
Revenge of the Sith / Return of the Jedi - Bad guys retaliate / Good guys retaliate

I noticed this back when the title was announced but the Jedi references in the movie itself really reminded me of it.

Overall: Awesome. I might go as far as saying this is the best of the whole series but as I said I missed the full impact of the originals so I can't really compare them on equal footing.

[Unauthorized Cinnamon]

I just want to mention that I'm turning 32 this year, and seeing Star Wars at a drive-in with my parents is one of my first clear memories. Maybe, as others have said, that influences my regard of the original movies, but I have to say that the characters in the originals seem much more endearing, and had much better chemistry, regardless of their individual acting skill, however that's measured.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this one. It was way, way better than the other two prequels.

When Padme showed up, I started cringing, remembering the atrocious romance from AotC. Then I decided to block out that memory, and pretend I was watching this without any previous knowledge. From that point of view, I thought they did an OK job of acting as young husband and wife. They definitely pull off caring for each other better than hot-and-bothered for each other. However, I hated that Padme went from woman of action to passive incubator. I'd really like to see the cut material about her founding the rebellion. I'd also expected her to abscond to Alderan and be in "fierce protective mother" mode, so her dying of "losing the will to live" was really obnoxious.

I thought it was ironic that Lucas did such a crappy job at portraying a romance, and such a good job of portraying a seduction (by Sidious). The actual turning scene could have used more subtlety, but in general I liked how it was done.

The end of the Obi-Wan/Anakin fight was just mind-blowing. I love Ewan McGregor. He did a great job of expressing total devastation and yet still seemed conflicted. I think it's perfectly justified to infer that he left Anakin both because he couldn't bring himself to kill his friend and because he was remembering the slaughter of those children and figured Anakin deserved whatever suffering he experienced.

And now the bad stuff.

My eyes and brain just gave up trying to focus during a lot of the battle scenes. Sometimes less is more, George!

After Anakin's nightmare, my brain filled in the scene like this:

Padme: What's wrong?
Anakin: I can't understand how you sleep with those stupid pearls on your nightgown!

Samuel L. Jackson consistently pulled me out of suspension of disbelief. I'm not trying to put him down, just something about his character didn't work for me.

Other goofy cliches also pulled me out of the film, such as Grievous calling off the minions in favor of a one-on-one fight, and the lavafall (because fighting on a river of lava just isn't perilous enough!). I think this kind of thing doesn't bug me in the originals, because they aren't trying to be so serious. As a caller on The Connection put it, they have a swashbuckling, lighthearted approach entirely absent in the prequels.

I hate, hate, hated the "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I mean, has anyone in the history of mankind ever responded to devastating loss by flinging their head back and actually shouting "no?" Saying no, trying to deny it, makes sense, but not shouting. And if you're that overwhelmed, falling to your knees, sobbing, even screaming incoherently, I can see. But this, this was ridiculous. Cuckoorex, I absolutely adore your alternative - too bad I can't physically splice it in to the DVD when it comes out.

Anyway, I still liked it quite a bit. I might indeed get the DVD when it is released.

Oh, and for once I spotted the Wilhelm, right off the bat. Gave me a little chuckle, but then again, also pulled me out of the suspension of disbelief.

[Laughing Lagomorph]

BTW, was I the only one who went a little googly eyed when they showed people walking into the musical/opera/bubble presentation thing. There was a pretty well-endowed woman/alien in a white dress. Wonder how that looks in IMAX.

I....ahem....noticed her too.


Wishful thinking: the female Twi'lek Jedi who was killed should have had far more screen time. Damn! Schweet!


I....ahem.....agree.



Did anyone else see what seemed like a very Millenium-Falconish ship in the background of one scene? It was near the beginning, when Obi-Wan and Annakin return to Coruscant after succesfully rescuing the Chancellor. It was in the distance but it seemed to have that distinct familiar shape.