A friend calls me up tonight and says, “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner and take you to see the newest Star Wars movie.” Now, he and I are big sci-fi geeks. We’ve seen every Star Wars movie multiple times (except for the newest ones), seen all the Star Trek films, can spout dialog from tons of other sci-fi films at the drop of a hat, but prior to this, he’d expressed some doubts about going to see Revenge of the Sith when it came out. I, on the other hand, was willing to give it a chance. (Oh, I’m not going to bother boxing any spoilers, so if you’re bothered by such things, leave now.)
Of course, I’d been gradually growing a little more leery of the film as the release date drew nearer. The way they’d been hyping the film and the toys and other things was troubling to me, but I’d heard good things about the film, and I’d figured that at the worst, I’d still like the film. After all, I’m one of the few people who didn’t hate Jar Jar, but well, I never thought I’d say this, I thought the film sucked.
I found the dialog to be atrocious, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of the characters, I thought the acting was flat (except for Ewan MacGregor’s), and there were some massive plot holes that I just couldn’t ignore. It was all I could do to keep from MST3King the damn thing.
The first thing that annoyed me was the giant space battle at the beginning. I kept watching and thinking, “This is just way too much like the stuff in RotJ for my taste.” Then there was the bit when they were reentering the atmosphere in General Grevious’s ship. When the fire ships showed up and started spraying water on the ship, I was like, “No fuckin’ way.”
Next, came the bit with the Wookies. I had hoped that the Wookies would have had a role similar to the Ewoks in RotJ, but instead, they were just kind of stuck in there, and didn’t really seem to do a whole helluvalot.
I didn’t get the bit about Anakin having so much respect for Palpatine or wanting to go over to the “Dark Side” either. And for some reason, the mere mention of the Dark Side in this film just struck me as cheesy as hell.
Mace Windu’s death flat out sucked as well, I thought. Him getting his hand cut off annoyed the piss out of me, and him battling Palpatine, struck me as lame, the way it went down, even if you figure Palpatine was playing that he was too weak to fight off Mace just to get Anakin to turn to the Dark Side. (And Palpatine’s acting went south after this fight.) I also just can’t buy that Yoda would misinterpret a prophecy.
When Obi Wan went to the planet where Gen. Grevious was holed up, I was a bit bothered by the guy telling Obi Wan that they were being held hostage, but I kind of let that slide, figuring that it would be too difficult for Lucas to work out the scene better, given the allotted time of the movie. Still, I couldn’t help but notice that when Obi Wan climbed out of the lake, he was wearing a watch which didn’t appear in any other scene in the movie. . .
The number of gadgets that R2 sprung out bothered me as well, but what really tore it for me, was the lava planet sequence. Now, I’ve been around stuff that’s as hot as lava, and neither Obi Wan or Anakin were sweating very much. Forget about the physical exertion that the two guys were going through, just standing around stuff that’s 3000F+ degrees is enough to get you dripping wet. Just a few minutes of standing around that stuff is enough to make you look like you just stepped out of a shower, when you factor in the amount of physical exertion (and mental, remember when Yoda raised up the X-Wing in ESB, he was pretty tuckered out) both Obi Wan and Anakin should have been drenched, instead, they had a few drops on them, and don’t hand me any of that Jedi mind control crap, you have to shed heat under those circumstances or your brain will bake.
Then there’s Obi Wan talking about Palpatine being emperor. Obi Wan was pretty much out of the loop as to what Palpatine was doing, so it just struck me as totally wrong for him to refer to Palpatine that way. Certainly, Obi Wan knew that Palpatine was up to know good, but referring to the specific title of emperor was a bit much, IMHO.
Of course, Amadala’s death was wrong as well. If you’ll recall in RotJ, Leia remembered her mother, but Luke didn’t. So how the fuck Amadala could die in child birth is beyond me.
Oh, and I should mention that when Anakin knelt before Palpatine, all I could think about was the cock sucking scene in Team America: World Police.
Finally, when Anakin was put into the Vader suit and tore his restraints, I kept waiting for him to say, “Ppputtiin’ onnnn the rrrrittttzzz.” ala Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein. Also, could someone explain to me what the bloody hell was the point in them building the Death Star? In Star Wars, the impression is given that the Empire has decided to build the thing in order to crush the Rebellion once and for all. Well, in TPM and AotC, it’s pretty much spelled out that the Rebellion is created by Palpatine in order for him to seize power, then in RotS he has the Rebellion shut down, so WTF do they need a Death Star? Plus, it takes them nearly 20 years to build the thing, but the Death Star Mark II only takes from ANH to RotJ to become operational. WTF?
Now, I admit that when I first saw SW, I always pictured the Empire as being like Rome: A society which had started out as a republic, but then became an empire, even though vestiges of the original republic still remained. These were eliminated gradually over time, and the emperor was someone like Caligua, who’d inherited the throne and was completely mad. Vader was the member of a royal house that had gained ascendancy under the new emperor. I was willing to give Lucas the benefit of the doubt about it being a recent thing, until the latest film, that just crapped on it for me.
In looking back, though, I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised. I always thought of Yoda as being akin to the martial arts masters whom nobody ever fucked with, because they were simply too good. You know, the kind of guy who never fights because everyone knows that they’ll get their ass kicked by him, and he trains his students solely in the mental discipline needed to become a Jedi (which, of course, like samurai, makes them kick ass fighters), so for Yoda to fight Count Dooku, is just wrong, IMHO. Of course, it’s Lucas’s “vision,” but there were cues which just never seemed to be followed up. Perhaps, I was just expecting too much out of the franchise, I don’t know.
