Episode 3 review

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

SPOILERS! GO BACK! GO BACK!

The opening shot of Episode 3 is a pretty good sign that the audacious, playful director of Episode 4 is back in the saddle. The two star fighters sailing over an assault ship, then plunging over and down into full-scale battle, is one of several confident setups in the film that feels cribbed from a more consistently assured director, or a younger George Lucas, I was never sure which.

But for every scene like this, a trademark Lucas strength, there are plenty that demonstrate his trademark weaknesses as well. By now I've come to expect some painful dialogue and undercooked acting between Anakin/Padme or the Jedi Council members. (Seriously, I wonder if George's new mantra is "Slower! Less intense!"). The misfiring humor, too-obvious political moralizing, and a degree of pandering to the fan base ("Look, it's Chewbacca! Why? Because everyone likes Chewbacca!") are all on display in abundance.

So the movie teeters between these two mutually canceling impulses, occasionally delivering something of beauty, then shifting through the strange, emotionally cauterized detours we've come to dread. What feels new to me is the integration of good and bad into one place. In Eps 1 & 2, I seem to remember the strengths and weaknesses being balkanized into distinct scenes; here comes Jar Jar, turn off expectations, here comes Darth Maul, turn them back on.

In RoTS, however, several ostensibly great scenes get polluted by a bad joke, strange timing, a hammy line, a misplaced homage to one of his favorite directors, or just an unemotional dispatch en route to the next scene. When the music should swell, it dies. When a character should be shown leaving the room in a huff, Lucas cuts before he can spin on his heels. He comes so close to delivering grand slams, but a missed beat or a shot held a moment too long left me knowing what I was supposed to feel, but just not feeling it.

A good example, for me, was the Mace Windu/Palpatine fight. Now, I've been wondering how you'd take care of Windu. He's too badass to just make a misstep and lose his head; that would be a cheap death. So to me, this is was an exceptionally appropriate way to send him off. But my memory of the scene is Mace/Palp/Mace/Palp/Mace/Palp with almost no Anakin, not even yelling threats at Mace from off screen. Who's the critical figure in this scene, the one agonizing over a terrible decision, the one about to cast his fate forever? Anakin! Who's the least visible figure? Anakin!

Here's another one: Vader gets his mask (while his face is still smoking, fantastic!), rises off the table, asks about Padme, raises his fists and goes "Nooooooooo!". And an otherwise iconic scene drops to earth like a lead balloon. For my money, he could have taken out his anger on a passing ugnaut, or just fallen to his knees, anything would be less cheesy than the way it ended up. [Update! I just watched the equivalent sequence in LEGO Star Wars, and it's better! He smashes the machine apart, arrrgh! If you're gonna quote from Frankenstein, you may as well go all the way.]

This is just two examples; there are dozens more. Which is not to say that these scenes aren't good, but it's painful to see the bases loaded and the batter sending pop fouls left and right.

However, one scene mattered more than any other, and Lucas pulled it off, and it's worth the price of admission by itself. You know which one I'm talking about: Anakin slides back into the lava and catches on fire! Chilling stuff! I didn't think Lucas had it in him. A handful of other scenes rise above small missteps to remain emotionally resonant and memorable: the Code 66 sequence, the cross-Coruscant look between Padme and Anakin, the moment that Anakin pulls a saber on Palpatine, and the assault on the Jedi Temple. Somehow, I never expected to see the Jedi Temple in flames, and the long shots make it look like Coruscant's equivalent of 9/11.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how relaxed and drawn out several scenes were, especially the discussions between Anakin and Palpatine. The movie had a lot to cover, and it looks like other sequences had to be cut short to let these ones run their course comfortably. Not necessarily the right scenes, but it's still a commendable choice.

Then of course are numerous scenes that simply work as action and FX sequences; Anakin vs. Obi-Wan, Yoda vs. just about anyone, the ladybug droids drilling into Obi-Wan's ship, the landing of Dooku's ship, Grievous vs. Obi-Wan, etc. These make the film work as a popcorn flick at the very least.

Speaking of Grievous, I've seen his visage for months, saw him in the Clone Wars cartoon, and was bored by him instantly. Okay, he's a cyborg with a cape bla bla bla, whatever. Then I saw him in action, hunching around like a manic, paranoid Hamlet, the robotic realization of Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham. Completely brilliant! The most original creation Lucas has had in years, both menacing and hilarious enough to make his match-up with Obi-Wan a great set piece. I think the whole sequence on that planet felt the most like the old Lucas, just having a good time with a lot of ideas.

So my overall verdict on RotS: Very good, but with regular, painful reminders that it could have been amazing. I look forward to seeing it again.

Time now for Geek Talk. Here are some thoughts on specific scenes and lore. I'll be adding more of these after a 2nd viewing.

So C-3PO's memory got wiped (why?) but R2's didn't. Isn't that odd...
Padme died, I guess, of a broken heart. Now maybe it's just me, but it seems strange to lose the will to live at the moment that you're meeting your newborn children. If anything would make you want to keep going, I think that would do the trick.
I thought it interesting that while Padme had lost the will to live while completely healthy, Anakin was staying alive by force of will with 9th degree burns.
Roger Ebert complained about "a character" that says "He's been under a lot of stress." It sounded bad when he said it, but when it turns out to be C-3PO delivering the line, I thought it was very funny.
This is the first Star Wars movie I've ever cried at! When Padme says, in perhaps her only well-acted line, "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!", it just killed me.
Livia thought General Tarfulls was Chewie's girlfriend! She's got good reasons too; I must say, it's a brilliant misreading of the scene.
The gratuitous geek factor mostly backfired for me. Chewie was unnecessary, Tarkin's cameo was shabby, even the arrival of Luke at Tattooine was I thought best left as an implied event between the films. On the other hand, I thought Alderaan got short shrift, considering the fact that it gets blown up in Episode 4. It would have been nice to have a better connection to the place.
Obi-Wan was a pleasure to watch, loosened up from his Jedi seriousness in Eps 1 & 2. It was also very interesting to watch him misjudge almost everything, including that fact that he let Anakin live! I certainly don't mind it, since he gets his redemption in spades during Episode 4.
Yoda was also a better actor, and action hero, and I don't recall any tortured lines like "Around the Jedi a perimeter create!". That's why it was strange and sad to see him scuttling away in a ventilation tube...
Palpatine hints that Anakin's "virgin birth" was caused by Dark Force powers. Oddly enough, now that I'm used to his parentage, I'm resistant to this wrinkle. Palpatine may be a hell of a manipulator, but this seems unnecessarily complex, even for him.
We wuz gypped on the whole Qui-gon "returned via the force" connection. It really needed to be more than a quick mention in the hallway, "Oh, did you get that memo from Qui-gon? About the more-powerful-than-you-could-possibly-imagine thing? He'll give you a buzz later on."
I was under the impression that R2 would lose his hover abilities in Ep3, since he never demonstrates them in Eps 4-6. Did I miss that scene? Did they break in the hangar fight? Now I guess I have to watch the original trilogy to see if there's a reason for him to demonstrate them. Who knows, maybe he's had them all along.
The lava fight looked pretty bad, mostly when they were skidding around on their little skiffs. Apparently it didn't read well enough, so they added a blue "force glow" to the stuff they were, I guess, levitating. The idea that a Jedi can levitate something and stand on it breaks a lot of logic elsewhere. They say it was superimposed onto footage of Mt. Etna erupting; an odd choice.
I very much liked Obi-wan's warning to Anakin not to try his last move. He's been fighting to the death, but he still feels the need to protect Anakin from his rash actions. When he first said "I've got the high ground" with almost a smile, I thought he was kidding -- some kind of pun. I mean, do Jedi worry about simple tactical realities like high ground? Well... I guess so!

Lastly, I've managed to secure a fragment of the script from the birth scene of the twins. Here it is:

WEIRD ALIEN DOCTOR: Ba ba ba ba ba ba... (Child #1 born) PADME: Luke. (Child #2 born) PADME: Leia. (dies)

Phew... Brilliant stuff!

2nd Viewing

First things first -- I have to take back a few points in my first review that I think were unfair or inaccurate.

I was slightly off on the Mace/Anakin/Palpatine scene. Now that I shot my mouth off about it, I figured I'd better watch it more closely and see if I was right. In general, I still think Anakin has too few moments in that sequence, though a couple more than I remember, and most of them are poorly used. In one, he's actually shielding his eyes from the battle! It makes him look like a weakling bystander when he should be an all-but-participant.

I appreciated the Qui-Gon connection more this time. The first time I was watching, with foreknowledge of Episode 4, I was eager to see how the connection would be made. From the perspective of someone who hasn't seen Episode 4, this is actually a very nice hand-off, an intriguing hint of things to come, and a refutation of Sidious's probably apocryphal "The Dark Side can bring people back from the dead" shtick.

The lava-rafts -- okay, they weren't being levitated, though that blue-glow was there, seemingly to demonstrate that they were engine-driven. Still kind of a goofy setup, although I like the moment when they skid around the raft with the two, uh... lava workers on it.

I also completely mis-remembered Obi-Wan's "high ground" line, which isn't delivered with a smile at all. Not sure where I got that from.

Natalie Portman's acting was a little better than I remembered, but very disconnected. Each scene seemed like a weekly exercise from acting class, not a facet of a realized character. A script problem, for certain, but also an acting deficit. Perhaps she had "Han disease" -- a considerable disinterest in whatever was going on the 3rd time out.

Finally, I want to revisit my rant on Lucas' tendency to "quote" other films in Ep 3. Watching it this time around, I was almost ready to take it back, since I spotted a few scenes where I thought an homage was well-enough embedded in the action. Then I heard that damned Wilhelm scream, which really needs to be retired. And the Yoda combover. And the Tarzan yell on the Wookiees. And then rewatching the Frankenvader sequence, I got really fed up all over again. So the rant remains, leavened only by the fact that Lucas has shown, in Episode 4, that it can sometimes be done right.

Okay, enough corrections. In general, I'm pleased with how the review held up to a 2nd viewing. Here are some new observations.

Of brief note: The crash-landing sequence for Grievous's ship is really fun to watch, although the characters do nothing but sweat and worry for about two minutes. As a triumph of spectacle and FX over legitimate drama, it's quite an achievement.

After Mace is killed, there's a long scene with Anakin and Palpatine; the pivotal moment of Anakin's turning. For some reason, this scene seemed to go on forever the 2nd time around. In retrospect, I realized that I couldn't stop staring at the Emperor's ridiculous prosthetic head. As soon as the seduction is consummated, so to speak, Palpatine puts his hood on, a much more commanding image. The hood should have gone on a lot sooner.

There's been some carping in the reviews about the clarity of Anakin's turning; how it feels a little forced. I initially thought that it felt a little rushed, if not forced. Upon 2nd viewing, I think everything fits together quite well. There are several elements, but I think the key is in Anakin's yearning for simplicity. You can see it in his political discussion with Padme in Episode 2 -- the simplicity of a dictatorship is preferable to a messy democracy. In Ep 3, he's repeatedly surprised by "obvious" concepts that other characters balk at. He's fixated on ends, regardless of means. If he's on the Jedi Council, he must be a Master. Why isn't Padme willing to help him rule the galaxy in a benign dictatorship? If Obi-wan isn't with him, he's the enemy. Killing every potential enemy is an act of simplification too, including a room full of children.The Sith way, with just two leaders and unambiguous rules of succession by force or deceit, is particularly seductive.

In retrospect, George has created a surprisingly consistent characterization of Anakin going back to Episode 1. I think most of the fans were looking for a defining moment that would make him turn to the dark side. In fact, it was his character, not a particular event, that made him susceptible to Palpatine's seduction. I've always thought that Vader, in episodes 4-6, seemed a bit dense. Not a shrewd mind, just a brutish enforcer with a petulant streak. This seems like a very believable evolution from Episodes 1-3.

There has also been discussion, in geek circles anyway, about whether Palpatine was faking his weakness against Mace. On 2nd viewing, I realized that Palpatine yells "Unlimited power!" when he does his last burst of lightning. This sounds to me like someone who wasn't on his last legs...

Finally, I'm returning to the theme that began my first review: George is having fun and tapping into the artistic depth of cinema for the first time in years. When I first watched Ep. 3, I thought the shots were of a more intimate nature. Watching it again confirmed this: over-the-shoulder shots during swordfighting, much closer close-ups, etc. Episodes 1 & 2 seemed to have more stage-like setups and medium shots, perhaps a side-effect of the requirements of CG at the time.

I hope George continues directing. As he has said, he's rich enough to fail. And I think he's visionary enough that he might surprise everyone again.