This Movie was the SITH.

If you haven't seen Star Wars®: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, go now. If you're debating whether your children can handle it, screen it first. There's nothing worse here than anything seen in the original trilogy, but the camera lingers on these scenes longer and makeup and special effects have progressed a lot since the early ‘80s. If you don't want spoilers, I don't plan to hold back in the following review, so you should close this window now. If you missed my column the last few days and don't want to risk seeing something here while scrolling down, here are some shortcuts to my last few posts:

Resting Up

PBW: My Old Sandbox

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Never Impromptu

Phantasmic Links 5.15.05

Still here? Let the detailed summary commence:

It's no secret that the prequel trilogy has not thus far held up to the original. Personally, I liked Episodes I and II. It was difficult getting used to some of the new characters, since they were strangers while those from the original had become old friends. I was young when I saw the first trilogy, and had never seen anything like it. I wasn't thinking about dialogue, or philosophy, or even the score. A good movie is one in which you can completely let yourself go for a few hours, become immersed in the reality being presented to you. I've never been in outer space, met various aliens, or found myself in the middle of a war with lasers flying on all sides. I'd never seen anything like it. It was novel, and new, and wonderful.

Years and technological advancements can make people jaded. We've seen so many spaceships and creatures and robots in the last twenty years or so that the novelty has worn off to some degree. People take things for granted. As the initial screen crawl began, outlining events I had seen in the animated Clone Wars, I was ready for anything. As ships flew with hints of theme music from the original trilogy, my excitement grew. I noticed similarities in the designs of the Jedi ships to both X-wings and Tie Fighters, and smiled at this historical nod to the ships that would be seen in the original trilogy, set after the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire. As the battle wore on, I found myself slightly underwhelmed and wondering why. It's hard to get excited by ships flying through space; though there is much that goes in to creating this illusion. I DID like the fact that R2-D2 was flying with Anakin, knowing that one day this tough little droid would do the same for Anakin's son.

This was not the only parallel, however. I have to admit that, a few months ago, I made a rare visit to a comic book store and made the mistake of opening a comic book adaptation of the film. I didn't expect much to be revealed before the movie was released, but I quickly closed it upon seeing a major spoiler 3 or 4 pages in. It was something I should have seen coming, and certainly would have when the scene began to play out on the big screen. Anakin and Obi-Wan arrive on a ship to find a captive Chancellor Palpatine. Held captive in a chair nearly identical to his throne in Return of the Jedi, he is secretly in control of the events about to transpire. He arranged for Count Dooku to abduct him, to force a confrontation between his apprentice and Anakin. When Obi-Wan is knocked out during the fight, Anakin is cheered on by Palpatine much the way Luke was when he faced Vader in the climax of Return of the Jedi. Unlike his son however, when Palpatine urges him to strike down his enemy he does so, beheading Dooku in a surprisingly less graphic scene than the one depicted in the comic book I had seen.

I never fully understood that scene in Return of the Jedi. Certainly a corrupted Luke had great potential, but Vader was very powerful. Later in the film when Palpatine alludes to slaying his own Sith master, Darth Plagious, the picture becomes clearer. Plagious taught Sidious(Palpatine) all he knew, and was slain by his own apprentice. Everything Palpatine has done in these films has been about maintaining his empire and manipulating those around him. He wanted a powerful apprentice, but one he could control, who wouldn't repay his mentorship by overthrowing the master. In Anakin he found the perfect apprentice, one whose birth he and his own dark master seem to have arranged. And when he sensed Vader would be a threat and Luke was powerful, he planned to have Luke kill Vader and serve him just as Anakin did the same with Dooku. Instead, his worst fears were realized when Vader DID turn on him not out of Sith ambition, but love for his son.

Despite the marvelous parallels set up in the first half hour of the film, I was more awed by the connections I was making than the actual events on the screen. I tend to think people who are looking for great acting in these films are forgetting what they're watching, but even I found some deliveries a little rough, especially between Anakin and Padmé. Haydn Christensen isn't the best of actors but Natalie Portman is, so it was surprising that the dialogue and delivery about their future as parents felt so rough to me. By the time Anakin is having visions of her dying in childbirth and she's uttering jinxing hit-you-over-head lines like “I'm not going to die in childbirth, Ani!” I was getting a little worried. Any fan of these films knew what had to happen in this one, and there weren't likely to be any surprises. We KNOW she has to die, we know her children will be separated and where they will be raised. We've seen their trilogy. Still, there was an awful lot of heavy telegraphing going on in these scenes.

Ewan McGregor has completed his transformation in to Alec Guiness' Obi-Wan. From the beard to the clothes to the weary quips, he is perhaps the most connected to his character in the original trilogy. He gets to shine in a daring mission to take down General Grievous, a droid both enhanced and weakened by his organic parts, a cyborg foreshadowing the lethal blend of man and machine Palpatine would soon have in Vader. Across the galaxy, the Trade Federation is beginning to lose ground against the republic Clone Troopers led by Jedi masters. Meanwhile, Palpatine continues his moral seduction of Anakin, dropping hints about the power of the dark side and dangling the fact that, with it, Anakin could have the power to save Padmé from the fate in his visions. The movie was good up until this point, on par at least with the two previous ones, but it became AMAZING at this point, once the Sith hit the fan. Anakin realizes that Palpatine is a Sith lord, and the Chancellor does nothing to hide it. Ian McDiarmid is outstanding in this role. He's in complete control, and everything is going according to plan. He lets information “slip” when it will best suit his purpose. To my surprise, Anakin takes the information he has learned to Mace Windu, who up until this point hadn't trusted Anakin. Mace takes a team of Jedi, including Kit Fisto, a favorite of mine from the cartoon, to bring in Palpatine. In minutes, Mace is the only Jedi left alive, barely holding his own against the surprisingly spry old man.

Conflicted, wondering if he's doomed his bride with his choice, Anakin runs to the Chancellor's office where Windu has gained the upper hand. You don't mess with Samuel L. Jackson. Palpatine reveals his lightning powers, but Windu forces them back on him, disfiguring him so he more closely resembles the emperor we're all familiar with. Palpatine plays his part well, begging for his life and gaining Anakin's sympathies. When Windu goes to strike down the villain, Anakin reacts and slices off his arm. Windu has only a moment to be shocked before Palpatine takes advantage and unleashes his lightning once more, sending the Jedi out the window to his demise. Anakin falls to his knees in remorse, thinking he's reached a point of no return. Palpatine rechristens him “Darth Vader” and bids him to rise and carry out his will. As Anakin leads clone troopers in to the Jedi temple, I couldn't help but think of Vader leading Stormtroopers. Truly, this was the beginning of the Emprie.

Even as Anakin does more and more horrible things in the name of love and his new master, such as slaying children, Palpatine gives a new directive to the Clone Troopers, who are all loyal to him. He tells them to carry out “order 66.” Across the galaxy, troops turn on their unsuspecting Jedi leaders and all fall, except for Obi-Wan and Yoda, who senses what is happening. As the survivors regroup and Palpatine spins a tale of a Jedi plot to the senate, cementing his empire, Obi-wan learns the awful truth about Anakin's role. He must find the traitor, the Chosen One he trained and regarded as a brother, even as Yoda stays to confront the new Emperor. Yoda engages in a visually stunning battle in the senate amid all those hovering disks, even as Obi-Wan sneaks aboard Padmé's ship when she flies to the lava planet Mustafa. There, Anakin has slain the last of the Trade Federation on Palpatine's orders, since there was no more need for those pawns. Angered when he sees his old master, Anakin thinks his wife has betrayed him and blocks her breathing for a few moments, knocking her unconscious and possibly contributing to her inevitable fate. Obi-Wan engages his student in a pitched battle over lava, and though months ago we'd all seen footage of this battle on entertainment shows against a green screen, we really saw nothing. As metal falls into lava and things are burning and melting, the tension is high. Ewan McGregor does an outstanding job conveying his pain as he leaves a burned, mutilated shell of his former student behind to die. No wonder he couldn't bring himself to finish Vader off in the original Star Wars®. That's a small part of the reason, anyway. The larger part was the line, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” The origins of that part of the mythos are touched upon briefly in a quick line near this film's conclusion.

The final moments play out exactly as I envisioned in my mind. Padmé of course dies in childbirth, but not before naming Luke and Leia. The birth of the twins takes place while Anakin's body is recovered and fitted with robotic parts for lost limbs, and encased in a familiar black suit. In her final words, Padmé tells Obi-Wan that there's still good in Anakin, a notion Luke too would hold on to when he grew up and faced his father. The Emperor tells Vader that Padmé has died because of him, and his rage and grief complete his journey to the dark side. The twins are of course separated, with Jimmy Smits' Bail Organa taking Leia and Obi-Wan agreeing to take Luke to his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, and keep a close watch on him. Yoda plans to go in to exile, but not before revealing to Obi-Wan that his master Qui-gon had discovered how to live on in the force, and that Obi-Wan would study this new discipline while in the desert. This explains why he was willing to be struck down and why he and Yoda later return as spirits, although not why we never see Qui-gon again, or how Anakin is able to achieve this without training. This along with some of the acting in the beginning of the film are probably my biggest complaints, but neither take away from my overall love of this movie.

C-3PO gets the last line, a concerned “Oh my!” when Bail Organa orders his memory wiped, confirming fans' theories about why R2 seemed so much more informed in the original trilogy. As sweeping John Williams music plays, a montage of scenes bridges the gap between trilogies. Padmé's people carry her body to its final rest, her hands still holding a necklace given to her by Anakin. Bail Organa presents his wife with their new adopted daughter. Aboard a star cruiser, the Emperor and Darth Vader oversee construction of the first Death Star alongside a young Grand Moff Tarkin. And finally, on Tatooine, Obi-Wan hands Luke to his aunt, and watches as she brings him to his Uncle, where the three stand before a very familiar sunset as Obi-wan looks on, and the credits roll.

I know nothing happens during the credits of these movies, but I stayed until the end, taking in the music and processing everything I'd just seen. The movie did what it had to do, and if Lucas faltered in his resolve with anything, it was with Jar Jar Binks. There was a time when fans might find a character annoying, like C-3PO or Ewoks. Fans, including myself, hated Jar Jar in the first movie. Caving in to the fan outcry, Lucas reduced his role in the second film. While he held political office, he only had a few lines. In this movie, he wasn't allowed to speak at all. Anybody who complains abut what Lucas did to “their” movie needs to step back and remember whose story it is to tell, and recognize when he does concede and give in to his audience.

This movie was great. I can't wait to see it again. I think when it comes out on DVD I'm going to buy this whole trilogy, and find a day to watch all six movies back-to-back. I wasn't applauding as many of the people in the theater were, only because I think it's weird to clap when the people you're clapping for can't hear you. In my mind though, my applause was thunderous.