**** SPOILERS EXPECTED ****
BlindPanzer has this to say:
Ok. So what is your opinion about the new Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith?
Don’t just say, “it sucked” or “it owns!” Explain why...
Top Comments
TornadoChaser comments:
*** Yes, there are some spoilers herein. ***
Woo! Something I can kinda sorta respond to!
I LOVED Star Wars: Episode 3, and I will tell you why. I thought it was clear that they made a great effort to bridge seamlessly with good explanation and flow between the first and second trilogies. I most noted this in the fashion and the transportation even. And at the end, the uniforms!
I also liked a lot of the major themes behind it like the fate vs. choice aspect and definitely enjoyed the political play a lot - especially in light of current real events. Some of the dialogue in those situations was, I thought, nice and jabby.
I did not like the romantic stuff. I thought it was stale, and I will admit that, at first, I felt like the special effects were too noticeable in a bad way. However, in my opinion, they tended to flow better as the movie went on.
I very much enjoyed the fight scenes and felt they were well worth the wait, though I am torn about the decision to keep splicing the major one and cutting away from it. For me, I’ve mostly decided all it did was up the anticipation each time, which, I guess was their point in doing that in the first place.
Still, I wonder if I wouldn’t have just enjoyed a clear focus on that? In any case, I can’t really say anything bad about that fight. It was what I had expected and more.
What else?
Other than that, I can say I absolutely am in love with the score. I bought it yesterday and have been listening to it nonstop. It’s my favorite of the Star Wars soundtracks. I really loved the main theme. I also was really happy to hear “Duel of the Fates” return as a major musical piece in a key scene. Hot.
Finally, I will say that I liked how my emotions were goaded by the movie. I mean, for the most part, it was just general excitement, but at one point that excitement turned to absolute disbelief / disgust / outrage (this being the desecration of the Jedi Temple and the slaughter of the Jedi). To me, that was just.... GAH!
As usual, my favourite character was Obi-Wan, and he was the one I could relate with the most in the ups and downs of his feelings. Yoda was awesome. R2 made me smile a lot. I liked that little lizard thingy’s sound.
So, voilà ! I guess that’s about my opinion on the matter.
Overall, I felt it met my expectations, especially in explaining things later in the series. But mostly, the experience was fun - even if I didn’t get a chance to put together my Jedi outfit.
TornadoChaser comments again:
** No worries, mates. No real spoilers in this bugger. **
And just as a general note, adding to the reasons why I liked this movie, is my love of the scenery.
I’ve always loved Star Wars’ ability to create a feeling for a particular place through both setting and particular architectural language. Everything has a distinct flavour, and this time was no different.
Ok. Now I’m really done.
BlindPanzer comments:
My opinion about it? Disappointment.
Not so much of what it was, as much as it what could have been.
There are a couple of brilliant moments in this movie....
The opera hall scene. That quiet scene where Padme and Anakin are looking at each other between buildings. The dialogue between Anakin and Obi-Wan right before the fight, etc.
What do these scenes have in common? They all have in focus the CHARACTERS and their RELATIONSHIPS to other CHARACTERS.
That’s what the original trilogy had that the prequels never had, empathy toward the central characters. In the prequels, we have become passive observers where we just look forward to the next big lightsaber fight.
Why did you like Obi-Wan the best? Probably because he was the only moderately fleshed out character. Those few really good scenes in Episode III showed promise, but ultimately only reminded us of the Star Wars that COULD have been.
When Anakin becomes Darth Vader, it should emote sadness in the viewer, but it plays more like if we should be cheering his demise. And certainly we were, if the audiences in our theater are correct.
Some of the best Star Wars stories have been written by Timothy Zahn (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command) because they focused on the characters rather than “how many Wookiees can we fit in this shot?”
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The fights (especially the Dooku fight) were technical for the hell of it, yet they have no emotional baggage, and served only the purpose for Hayden Christensen to brag he did 3 months of swordfight training. The lightsaber fights in Return of the Jedi and The Empire Strikes Back were definitely more exciting to watch.
I also feel the need to point out the stupidity of all the prequel robots. Why do they all have to be cute? Do the separatist droids have to say any dialogue at all? Even the droids that attack Anakin’s ships are cute, and have emotions. Also, why would Grievous cough? It’s these types of personalities that the prequel did not need, and instead should have focused on the central characters.
These prequels COULD have been good in the hands of a more capable director. Such as The Empire Strikes Back (almost always voted the best Star Wars movie by most fans) which was directed by a better director, Irvin Kershner. And that script was revised thoroughly by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.
Instead, we get some hideous dialogue (“I love you”, “I love you more”) and ridiculous scenes (Vader screaming “noooooooooooo” which is perhaps the most hilarious scene in all 6 Star Wars movies).
TornadoChaser comments:
I do like the development of Obi-Wan, yes. That is a major part of why I love his character.
He’s been chronicled back in the EU (Expanded Universe) nicely. You get a good grasp of where he’s coming from, where he’s going, and why he acts the way he does. So, yeah, I do really enjoy that.
I also agree with you about the interaction between characters in the first, second, and third episodes. And nowhere was that more blatant to me than in the DVD that accompanies the soundtrack where they chronicle some of the major musical pieces and have themes accompanying it. There, you can really see that the interactions between individuals was much better in the original trilogy than the prequels.
I also agree about the droids. They are randomly cute. I guess it doesn’t so much bother me though. No comments about not having a danger zone required.
When Anakin becomes Darth Vader, personally, I felt more fear and empathy for him. I think for a second there, you saw a glimpse of humanity in him as the mask was coming down. Was the rest of that scene laughable? Sure it was.
As far as Grievous coughing - I think that was meant to show you that he was more than a mere droid. It added a touch of biology to him, which seemed really out of place but wasn’t.
DJ Hadoken Exlamparaaghis comments:
In case you didn’t notice...
Grievous ISN’T a droid.. He’s a cyborg reptile thing. That’s why he was coughing. Obviously, he was sick at some point and he was turned into a cyborg. Which is why he has a heart and lungs under the armor. When they zoom in on his EYES they are trying to show you that he isn’t a droid. You see the reptile flesh attached to the armor.
DJ Hadoken Exlamparaaghis comments again:
My opinion.. it could have been better.
I “love” how they threw Amidala’s character out of the window. They completely brought down her power as a female and implied that once women do the dirty deeds, they become hopeless and lost and lame.
They foreshadowed way too much that Anakin was going to be Vader. In every scene he was shrouded in darkness. How many times do we need to be reminded that he is Vader? A few times is good. Not every scene.
The ending was pretty bad. They offer no explanation as to WHY all of a sudden the entire Republic is wearing new uniforms. And it takes them 30 years to build the first Death Star??? Don’t they build the second one in like 3?? Horrible transition.
And that Anakin screaming NOOOOO at the end was pretty lame too. Anakin’s whole reasoning behind becoming Vader was also pretty lame.
I mean, he could OBVIOUSLY see he was being tricked by Sidious. And he sees that things are just getting worse and worse. But Sidious keeps repeating, “you can save your wife, blah blah...”
I mean, you could tell that he turned to the dark side to save Amidala. But the way they played it out was horrible. It was so fake, and by the point that he is turning to the dark side, it just didn’t make any sense and it wasn’t very convincing.
He looked like he was offering his service to Sidious just because the script said so, not because there was actual character development involved.
I think the beginning was the best part of Episode 3. There was action and there was also plot development. The robots were neat. I like the little beeping noises. It reminds me of Episode 1, which, now that I’ve seen Episode 3, I think I like much better now.
There was life and movement in Episode 1, and character development. The middle of Episode 3 was just Anakin walking around saying the same crap he said in Episode 2 and whining. The end picked up again, but the beginning was still better. Anakin is lame and Amidala is a hopeless lamesterette in Episode 3.
Oh yeah, and I also thought it was pretty stupid that they were talking about
all of this revolutionary B.S. out in the OPEN. Anakin goes up to Mace Windu
and says, “HEY!!! PALPATINE IS A SITH LORD!!!” while all these pilots are
walking around them. And NOBODY hears this. And Obi-Wan asks Anakin to spy on
Palpatine when they are out in the open and people are walking all around
them. Geez....
And then Anakin starts making out with his lamesterette Amidala in the open and somehow Obi-Wan doesn’t catch on that Anakin is the father until the end.. geez..
Oh yeah, and I “love” how Anakin caught FIRE and didn’t die. Somehow the fire
forgot to burn the rest of his flesh off. OH YEAH.. and did anyone else notice
that the fire burned his entire back, and then... and then.. haha..
when Darth Sidious comes to pick up Anakin... Anakin ROLLS onto his BACK,
where he was burned the worst? What the heck was with that...? Geez...
And then Anakin starts making out with his lamesterette Amidala in the open and somehow Obi-Wan doesn’t catch on that Anakin is the father until the end.. geez..
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And I was so glad when Amidala died. She deserved that death for being such a lamesterette in Episode 3... Geez.... It was like somebody took a crap and threw her character down the toilet. What a totally lame lamesterette....
Obi-Wan was indeed the best character in Episode 3. He GREW and CHANGED. Unlike anyone else in the movie (maybe Yoda changed too).
The lightsaber fights were pretty lame, I thought. It looked like they were trying too hard to please the hardcore fans with those sequences that they just lost their coolness. Though the last fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan was pretty cool. The other ones were kind of lame.
Not the worst movie I’ve seen, but it could have been better.
BlindPanzer responds:
OK. It’s a 20 year difference (not 30) so the Death Star took 20 years to build. And who’s not to say that since they already knew how to build a Death Star, it took a considerably smaller amount of time? It’s not a plot hole because it still works within the universe.
Your reasoning about The Phantom Menace (Episode I) is pretty bad. This movie (Episode III) had more character development than Episode I. Character development is when a character matures or changes throughout the span of the film. Where is that in Episode I?
Also, the second half of Episode III was FAR better than the first half, where the first half felt very recyclable. Did we really need a whole 30 minutes to rescue Palpatine?
COME AT ME BIATCH!
DJ Hadoken Exlamparaaghis responds back:
Still... 20 years to 3 years is still really drastic.
They must have got REALLY good at building Death Stars.
(Dude, I told you I already saw that David Hasselhof thing.)
The Funk Mistress comments:
1) I agree with BlindPanzer on the Death Star thing. It takes math and engineering and all sorts of other complicated things that girls can’t do to build something like a Death Star. But, once you have the blue prints for the working product, it takes a much shorter period of time to rebuild or make duplicates.
2) I also agree with BlindPanzer on the character development thing. Episode I primarily had character introductions because it had to present the audience with a lot of characters. So it really didn’t focus on changes that each character went through, except maybe in Anakin (there was hardly time for change anyway).
Episodes II and III had character development (however small or poorly done) as they showed the changes that characters went through not just in that film, but in the spaces between films.
Ok. There were my two cents. Sorry that I took BlindPanzer’s side, husband DJ Hadoken. Now I’ll go back to making danger zone jokes.
RockRanger comments:
TOTALLY disagree with The Funk Mistress.
A New Hope (Episode 4) introduced, fleshed out, and developed the characters all in a shorter movie than The Phantom Menace (Episode 1). In A New Hope, we meet and by the end of the movie pretty much know: Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, and a whole bunch of other side characters.
On the other hand, Episode 1 introduced to us Anakin, Padme, Qui-Gon, and Palpatine. And it didn’t really even do a good job at it, since at the end of the movie we don’t even know who the heck these people are emotionally.
I know DJ Hadoken is gonna say “oh yeah we do know them” but we don’t. At the end of A New Hope, we know how all the characters introduced would behave in any given situation, that’s how well we know them. At the end of Episode 1, we don’t know all this.
I also disagree with BlindPanzer on the Death Star plot hole. At the end of Return of the Jedi (Episode 6), we don’t know how much complete the Death Star is. If you remember the new buildings at our local university, they took shape pretty fast. But what took the most time was finishing the details in the interior.
As far as we know, at the end of The Empire Strikes Back (Episode 5), the Death Star is just a frame with a working cannon, with the exterior being finished. And I guess if you take it one step further, wouldn’t it be more convenient for the engineers of the structure to complete a shell in which they can work in and from so it can protect the interior? It’d be like building rooms first, then the structure and foundation of a building, it wouldn’t work.
Anywho, I probably sound like an Uber Nerd. So that was my 4 cents.
BlindPanzer responds:
Disagree means to differ in opinion.
RockRanger responds back:
I guess I just disagree with DJ Hadoken then...
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So you’re saying that Episode 1 had NO character development and Episodes 2 and 3 DID?
Right.......... 
Anakin doesn’t change in Episodes 2 or 3. He’s whiney in both. In Episode 1, though he is annoying, he still grows from being an innocent child to a child who is realizing his destiny.
Obi-Wan changes, you see him grow from being a student to a MENTOR, heck, even Qui-Gon changes a bit in Episode 1, doesn’t he?
AMIDALA changes. She goes from being the hot mysterious alien babe to a good friend and future lamesterette of Anakin.
Even Jar Jar Binks CHANGES. He fights in that crazy army.
Most of the main characters in Episode 1 change quite a lot. Now compare that to Episodes 2 and 3. NOTHING happens. Only Obi-Wan really changes.
I’m sorry, but Anakin going to the dark side comes off more as a forced thing upon the actor. It’s not illustrated very well. Anakin whining and coming to illogical conclusions about why he should become evil doesn’t constitute change.
Episode 1 had the most growth out of all of the prequel movies. The whole movie was ABOUT change. The movie itself was a CHANGE from the original trilogy. The other two prequel movies are just degenerations, as George Lucas tried to steer them back to what the old movies were like.
How the heck do these people change, other than Obi-Wan, in Episodes 2 and 3? All you see is Amidala DEGENERATE in Episodes 2 and 3. Jar Jar Binks phases out. Anakin remains static.
Episode 3 ends with a Frankenstein scene. That isn’t character development, either. That’s Frankenstein.
Anakin doesn’t change in Episodes 2 or 3. He’s whiney in both. In Episode 1, though he is annoying, he still grows from being an innocent child to a child who is realizing his destiny.
Obi-Wan changes, you see him grow from being a student to a MENTOR, heck, even Qui-Gon changes a bit in Episode 1, doesn’t he?
AMIDALA changes. She goes from being the hot mysterious alien babe to a good friend and future lamesterette of Anakin.
Even Jar Jar Binks CHANGES. He fights in that crazy army.
Most of the main characters in Episode 1 change quite a lot. Now compare that to Episodes 2 and 3. NOTHING happens. Only Obi-Wan really changes.
I’m sorry, but Anakin going to the dark side comes off more as a forced thing upon the actor. It’s not illustrated very well. Anakin whining and coming to illogical conclusions about why he should become evil doesn’t constitute change.
Episode 1 had the most growth out of all of the prequel movies. The whole movie was ABOUT change. The movie itself was a CHANGE from the original trilogy. The other two prequel movies are just degenerations, as George Lucas tried to steer them back to what the old movies were like.
How the heck do these people change, other than Obi-Wan, in Episodes 2 and 3? All you see is Amidala DEGENERATE in Episodes 2 and 3. Jar Jar Binks phases out. Anakin remains static.
Episode 3 ends with a Frankenstein scene. That isn’t character development, either. That’s Frankenstein.
Please, and again with the Death Star... That THING IS HUGE.
20 years ------> 3 YEARS is such a crazy change... 20 years to 10 years would maybe be more convincing. Not 20 years to 3 years. This isn’t about being a nerd. It’s just logic.
You don’t build something the size of the moon or a planet that is capable of DESTROYING entire planets in THREE years. Not on the second time around, if the first one took 20. TWENTY.
Episode 3 would have made a really good low budget movie. As a B-Movie, Episode 3 would have been so entertaining. Just because of the lame dialogue and lack of character development.
I have one last thing to say:
DJ Hadoken Exlamparaaghis comments again:
And another thing about the Death Star.
Look, if they developed new technology that enabled them to build a Death Star (that took them TWENTY years to build initially) in THREE years, then obviously they have the technological capability to build MANY MANY Death Stars VERY quickly. With your logic, they may also eventually be able to shorten the time down even more to something like a DEATH STAR in ONE YEAR..
Then the whole point of them blowing it up in the Episode 6 would be nullified, because if what you say is true, then who cares if Darth Sidious and Vader are dead..? Let’s just build FIVE Death Stars in ONE YEAR.
If they had the technology to shorten a period from 20 years to 3, WHY, why would they decide to build just ONE Death Star? Why not build two or THREE since they knew the first one was capable of being destroyed?
It takes a year to build a decent restaurant. Look how long it’s taken the International Space Station to get up and running.
BlindPanzer responds:
I think you’re overestimating the Empire. Sure, they COULD have built three Death Stars... but this is the same Empire that got defeated by 3 foot tall Ewoks.
WORD TO YOUR MOTHER!
DJ Hadoken Exlamparaaghis responds back:
Yes... yes, you have a point.
20 years ------> 3 YEARS is such a crazy change... 20 years to 10 years would maybe be more convincing. Not 20 years to 3 years. This isn’t about being a nerd. It’s just logic.
You don’t build something the size of the moon or a planet that is capable of DESTROYING entire planets in THREE years. Not on the second time around, if the first one took 20. TWENTY.
Episode 3 would have made a really good low budget movie. As a B-Movie, Episode 3 would have been so entertaining. Just because of the lame dialogue and lack of character development.
I have one last thing to say:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
DJ Hadoken Exlamparaaghis comments again:
And another thing about the Death Star.
Look, if they developed new technology that enabled them to build a Death Star (that took them TWENTY years to build initially) in THREE years, then obviously they have the technological capability to build MANY MANY Death Stars VERY quickly. With your logic, they may also eventually be able to shorten the time down even more to something like a DEATH STAR in ONE YEAR..
Then the whole point of them blowing it up in the Episode 6 would be nullified, because if what you say is true, then who cares if Darth Sidious and Vader are dead..? Let’s just build FIVE Death Stars in ONE YEAR.
If they had the technology to shorten a period from 20 years to 3, WHY, why would they decide to build just ONE Death Star? Why not build two or THREE since they knew the first one was capable of being destroyed?
It takes a year to build a decent restaurant. Look how long it’s taken the International Space Station to get up and running.
BlindPanzer responds:
I think you’re overestimating the Empire. Sure, they COULD have built three Death Stars... but this is the same Empire that got defeated by 3 foot tall Ewoks.
WORD TO YOUR MOTHER!
DJ Hadoken Exlamparaaghis responds back:
Yes... yes, you have a point.
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