Yeah, Darth Maul and Count Dooku, esp. Maul, were just there to fill a spot until Vader and the rest of the Sith, ie the Clones, emerged to join the robots and Palpatine as ‘the bad guys,’ that much is obvious. Still though, Maul and Dooku both got good fight scenes; granted, at the point in the movie in which Grevious is killed it’s just time for him to die so the real plot can continue, and this isn’t like one of the climactic battles or anything, but still, I would have done something really cool and awesome, more cool that scene had to be, just to make the movie complete.
Clone Wars is the animated series that shows what happens between the movies Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. In Clone Wars, Grevious was a fast-moving deadly Jedi-killing machine, not a light-saber-wielding coward.
Yeah, the last episode of the Clone Wars cartoon is currently available for viewing on the StarWars.com web site. You can see it set up for the start of Revenge of the Sith right there.
Grevious kills two Jedi with his four-arm-lightsaber trick and escapes with Senator Palpatine. Just before they get away, Mace Windu tries to stop them, and manages to Force-crush Grevious’ chest before their ship blasts off.
You know, if Grevious is injured at the start of Episode III, then it makes sense that he’d want to try to avoid battle. That’s not cowardice (Obi-Wan’s comments aside) that’s just being prudent and realizing that you’re not in fit shape to go charging into a crowd of Jedi.
I understand how Grevious was injured and therefore far less of a threat. Still though, at that part of the movie I refer to, it was time for Grevious to protect himself; I would’ve made some crap up about how he had healed incredibly fast and was prepared for battle.
I haven’t seen the Clone Wars, but I saw part of one a while ago, and I do remember Grevious fighting; cool stuff. In my fight scene, Grevious and Obi and the expendable Jedi girl do some crazy moves that would seem more fitting in a Matrix or a frenetic action film, with awesome camerawork and action, not a Star Wars film. Why do I keep talking about it? Dunno… 
Time to weigh in with a few thoughts. I apologize if I’m reiterating anything others have said.
I really loved this movie, and I think it ranks right up there with ANH and ESB. The tragedy of Anakin’s fall, and the ironic reasons for it, work, and parallels the ways that the Sith would eventually use to try to convert Luke (by baiting his anger and using his protective love for his sister). I thought the visuals were technically great, if sometimes too cluttered and frenetically edited for my taste, and not noticably better (to my eye) than the CGI in Clones. I also thought the relationships between Anakin and Obi-Wan and Anakin and Padme were scripted and acted far better than in Clones. Much of the tragedy of Anakin’s fall is that it terminates the (finally!) wonderful friendship, almost between equals, that has developed between him and Obi-Wan. After the chronic and grating admonishments that made up the bulk of their conversation in Clones, the more naturalistic and easy-going repartee in Revenge came as a relief. And I say that as a fan who could buy into Lucas’ opting for a pointedly formalistic, rococco, and stilted mannerism in dialogue, acting, costumes and sets for the prequel trilogy as an (often offputting and misunderstood) artistic decision, which he doggedly pursued to underscore his contention that the prequel years depict the Republic and Jedi Order in their Golden Age (and collapse) and that this was, in the later words of Guiness’ Obi-Wan, “a more civilized age”.
Having said that, I can think of a few points for contention:
–The novel (for the Star Wars series) acknowledgments of the harsh realities of space, as introduced in this film, during the fight with Grievous and the Jedi’s crash re-entry into the Coruscant atmosphere. This is a series, after all, that has shown Empire battleships with docking bays left apparently wide open to the voids of space; where a complex ecosystem could exist within the guts of a giant worm inhabiting a barren, atmosphere-less asteroid (in ESB); where laser-tag gunfights take place on small craft (like Leia’s consular ship in ANH) without anybody voicing concern that a possible structural breach could get everyone killed; where small fighters (like Luke’s in ESB) travel vast distances in space; where spacecraft dogfight, with sound effects, like terrestrial aircraft; and where spacecraft take off and land (even from dense swamplands) with scant acknowledgement of the forces of planetary gravitational pulls, atmospheric re-entry problems, inadequate takeoff and landing strips, and damage to engines stemming from, say, being buried in swamp-muck. So why inject even a scintilla of physics realism in the Coruscant re-entry? For me, it was a stark break with the fantasy, no-physics-laws universe that Lucas has constructed. That’s a universe that sometimes had me rolling my eyes, but I could still get on board with Lucas’ vision and enjoy the spectacle – that’s suspension of disbelief. But that vision has to be sustained consistently to work without the viewing feeling let down or cheated. Also, a further nitpick on this theme: Grievous couldn’t gain an advantage over the Jedi by blowing out a window on a spacecraft, because his own body had a partially exposed heart and lungs. He would’ve been the first to explode. And come to think of it, how exactly did the Jedi survive that crisis and avoid being vented into space?
–The confrontations between Jedi knights and Sith lords remain open to some interpretation. I can understand how the Jedi Code can prohibit the taking of an unarmed and helpless life, and of an unarmed and helpless prisoner. But is any Sith ever truly unarmed or helpless? Both Dooku and Palpatine had made liberal use of Force-Lightning, in full view of Anakin. Even though Dooku lost his hands, he still conceivably could have used Force-Telekinesis to manipulate objects or beings, right? As for the fight between Mace Windu and Palpatine, I had the impression that Palpy was being disingenuous about being helpless, and was prepared to use force-lightning to kill Mace at any moment. He was acting (taking the dive) in order to turn Anakin, of course, by making it more convincing that the Jedi were in a conspiracy to assassinate the Chancellor and take over the Senate. (Which, from a certain point of view, they were, as soon as Anakin reported to Mace.) But would this confrontation have played out all that differently if Anakin hadn’t turned on Mace? Palpatine would have dispatched him anyway, and then claimed that it was in self-defense, and Anakin would still have been convinced that the Jedi were threatening the Chancellor. Anakin’s turning on Mace is preferable for dramatic purposes, but as far as the plot is concerned, I’m not sure it was a prerequisite for what ensued.
And aside from that, why wouldn’t the Jedi Code make a clear exception for the beyond-the-pale evil of Sithdom? (If you’re a self-confessed Sith, we have the license to kill you on sight, no questions asked, no trial necessary…)
–Sampiro noted, way back on p. 12 of this thread, that after turning against Mace, Anakin says “Oh God, what have I done?” – and notes a parallel with Alec Guiness’ line in The Bridge on the River Kwai. I never would have picked up on that and wonder if it was a conscious allusion. But it’s provocative in another way – it’s a break with the hermetic theology of the Force, possibly the only such break in the entire series! Can anybody recall another reference to God in any Star Wars movie?
– Obi-Wan’s condemning line, “only a Sith believes in absolutes,” is absolute hogwash and goes against the Force theology of the rest of the series. Lucas’ vision is of a universal Manicchean dichotomy manifested in a moral and visceral struggle involving all living things and played out in mystical forces which are manifested, pantheistically, everywhere, yet are accessible, gnostically, to a chosen few, the Jedi space monks and their Sith apostate adversaries. (I think the Sith can be roughly considered as Jedi apostates, even though not all Sith were fallen Jedi, because all Sith nevertheless use their hermetic knowledge and access to the Force much as the Jedi do, but subvert their power to oppose the Jedi and even supercede their legitimate powers.) These opposing forces are destined to eternal struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, because it is only through their struggle that their forces are truly balanced, in a yin-yang fashion borrowed from Asian traditions.
The problem with that line of dialogue is that all of the Jedi training we’ve witnessed to this point consists of teaching those absolutes, of enabling the Padawan learner to divine that line beyond which he may not cross, and honoring it – up to and including chastity, severance of family ties, consistent deference in word and deed to one’s Jedi masters and Council dictates, and eschewing any expressions or influences of one’s volatile emotions (fear, anger, love, lust). It’s the Sith, on the contrary, who violate this virtuous schema with their blurring of categories and transgression of boundaries in behavior, passion, and hierarchy (all those opportunistic and ruthless betrayals of masters and apprentices!). Most pointedly, the Sith violate the boundaries between good and evil in their knowledge and use of the Force for evil ends, and insofar as some are former Jedi and all are anti-Jedi, in their very being. Finally, the Sith, alone of the orders of Force-users, presume to possess truly God-like powers of creation – the ultimate violation of the tenets of Jedi instruction, which only endorse limited, sanctioned uses of the Force for defensive and reactive purposes.
I think the reason for the talk-only treatment of Qui-Gon may have had something to do with the fact that wild horses couldn’t drag Liam Neeson within 50 miles of a Star Wars set.
Anakin didn’t say, “Oh God…”, just, “What have I done?”
Yeah, that must be it. But was there really not enough money to get him to do a two-minute cameo? I would have been happy with a very brief ghost appearance in the last scene between Yoda and Obi-Wan. In fact, Lucas should have shot that bit while shooting Phantom Menace.
No argument about the problem with Grievous’ heart and lungs, but it was established in TPM that there was some kind of super Force Hold-Your-Breath power, so I presume that they used that in combination with holding on to stuff to stay inside the ship until the emergency seal locked into place, at which point the bridge was repressurised from emergency stores of air. The bigger problem that arises from this is that neither Anakin nor Obi-Wan seems particularly puzzled that Palpatine, a politician with no known Jedi training, seems to have no problem hanging around with them.
Also note that there must have been some atmosphere present right up until the seals closed, as there continued to be a wind blowing past the Jedi. Possibly the ship was attempting to repressurize even before the seals closed. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if the above is fan-boy apologia or reasonable explanation.
The Jedi are usually pretty eager to offer Dark Jedi a chance to Repent and Sin No More. Most examples of this come from the EU, so are only valid if you accept them (serious light-side points attach to such conversions in both KotORs, for example) but you could argue that Obi-Wan is attempting this in his discussion with Vader both in ANH and RotS.
He did tell Padme that the baby was a blessing. A blessing is, by definition, given by someone.
So no one seems to have issues with Ripley and Newt being exposed to the full vacuum of space in Aliens, which is regarded to be an excellent movie (and by some the best of the whole series), and yet you question it in Star Wars?
Clearly in “movie universe” you don’t even need Force powers to survive the vacuum of space, so long as you’re holding onto something.
Good observation. I guess they didn’t notice because: 1) they had a big mess to deal with immediately, like getting the hell out of there with Palpy; and 2) Palpy was still using the Dark Side of the Force to cloud their minds (always a nice fall-back explanation for any Jedi mental shortcomings, no?).
Actually, I figured it was supposed to be a combination airlock/fresh air supplies being released that was going on, but I just didn’t see enough evidence of it onscreen to be entirely sold on its realism. As for Aliens, I didn’t buy that fight scene either; it just went on for too long for a real-life Ripley to survive it. Ditto for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rachel Ticotin at the end of Total Recall… in fact, OTTOMH the only film to portray the devastating effects of exposure to the vacuum of space with what I fear is a measure of accuracy is the critically-dismissed Outland, dir. by Peter Hyams. But this thread isn’t about flicks like those – just the latest Star Wars… and my main contention is that since Lucas hasn’t acknowledged the harsh physics of space travel prior to Sith, why start now?
There seems to be a general consensus among those more knowledgeable than I that the scene in 2001 where David Bowman, with no pressure suit, is blown down a hallway into the little pod, is quite plausible. AFAIK, exposure to vaccuum does NOT equal instant hideous death, but rather slower, less hideous, death.
That said, there have certainly been previous scenes in the Star Wars series in which there didn’t appear to be a vaccuum of space at all, most notably Luke walking into the rebel assembly room in RotJ, apparently from an open-air, or open-vaccuum, balcony.
Oh, and this:
is one of the greatest sentences I’ve ever read.
Ohhh!
A wizard did it!
Okay I’m almost ashamed I posted that 
Yoiks! [cringes at the though of it]
How sweet! You’re too kind. :o
Here’s another musing on Sith: what would’ve happened if, when Anakin/Darth Vader entered the Younglings’ chamber, it had turned out that: 1) the Younglings had been warned, or sensed, their peril, and were on guard; and 2) they were all armed with their training-sabres? In other words, imagine this was a separate thread: “Dark Jedi Anakin vs. a roomful of prepared Jedi Younglings”. Do the kiddies stand a chance? (Is the correct answer to this question simply a :dubious: ?)
Ah, so it was a 1977-style Jedi Mind Trick!
And would somebody please explain, “A wizard did it.”? Monty Python reference?
“A wizard did it” is a Simpsons reference, from when Lucy Lawless did a guest spot. (It was her pat way of dealing with obsessive nitpicking from Xena fans.")
If I remember correctly, when Obi-Wan is looking through the security footage, it shows Anakin in various duels with younglings. Since one of the first rules of being a jedi is to always hold on to your light sabre I assume all the children had one on them. So while they may not have been prepared, it looks like at least some of them went down fighting.