Star Wars III; Revenge of the Sith.
Warning: Spoilers.
Star Wars episode III; Revenge of the Sith delivers the best Star Wars film since Empire Strikes Back. Lucas finally succeeds in shedding the overly cutesy and saccharine sweet romance scenes that seemed to plague the last two episodes. Here Lucas delivers a truly dark tale of a Jedi’s fall from grace and offers a plausible cautionary tale of human nature’s fallibility. The performance I was most impressed with in Star Wars Episode III; Revenge of the Sith was the critical role of Heyden Christensen. His range exceeded my expectations in his transformation to the dark side. Portraying a confused young man unsure where his allegiance should lie he no longer sounds like a teenage brat like he did in the “angry” scenes in Attack of the Clones. He and Natalie Portman have grown up in these three episodes and although I’ve considered Portman an accomplished actress this is the first time I’ve seen Christensen really impress.
The film started out with a bang, an enthralling CGI space battle that was truly state of the art. CGI textures have come a long way since even four years ago. The camera follows two Jedi fighters through a collage of orbital violence. Two huge vessels and countless space faring droids, fighters and artillery guns pound each other relentlessly. I could easily rewind this scene many times and notice different events each time. That said it was a little distracting as the POV only did a barely adequate job of showing who exactly we’re supposed to be following. But I did appreciate how the large ships were battering each other in the style of 18th century naval warfare. The laser based cannon fire, the behemoth vessels presumably vying for optimal position to loose their ordinance, Captain Jack Aubrey (Master and Commander) would have felt right at home.
As the story moves on a conspiracy is exposed involving the Chancellor Palpatine. This proves the backdrop of Anakin’s conversion and does so without resorting to some hurried “conversion” because many of the Jedi were also fooled by the conspiracy’s plot points which I will not divulge here. If you’re familiar with the other Star Wars films this will be a great way to close the circle on the six. In fact you’ll probably want to pop A New Hope into the DVD player as soon as you get home. I know that’s what I did. The only obvious weakness of the movie is it probably doesn’t stand well all by itself, which I think is a good thing. Someone walking into this movie knowing nothing about the Star Wars universe would be confused, but I believe this is a fair sacrifice for covering the tremendous ground Lucas had to cover. In fact, the last half hour felt a little rushed. I know the film is already long enough but there seemed a few “ready made” elements from A New Hope. The uniforms of the officers of this new Empire created by Darth Sidious for instance are the same pseudo-Nazi/Soviet knock offs the officers are wearing in A New Hope, the kind Peter Cushing wears as Grand Moff Tarkin. I would think the accoutrements of this newly formed Empire would develop over a span of time. But whatever, the real inconsistency seekers (which I am not) will probably find many more serious infractions. The only complaint I have is that Revenge of the Sith exceeded my expectations so thoroughly that I more than a little miffed that the first two episodes didn’t provide me with more. Apparently Lucas had one more good film in him and I’m glad it wrapped up the Star Wars franchise.