Return of the Sith

I’m guessing pretty much everyone who reads my blog and is going to see episode three of Star Wars has already done so. For those of you who haven’t, I’ll try and avoid too many spoilers, although I’m sure you know the basic storyline anyway. 🙂

As most people will know, I’ve been to see this film three times already, not because it was particularly good but because I’d booked one set of tickets in advance with people from my department (or rather Rachel had done this for us), then I got ask to go with the Megalomaniacs and I also got offered the opportunity to go and see the cast screening the day before at thefilmworks. Anyway, suffice to say I had compelling reasons to go to each showing, but now onto the film…

The story started in proper Star Wars fashion with a good ol’ fight in space with plenty of dodging, diving, shooting and fancy manoeuvres, just how it should be. The general idea was that Anakin and Obi-Wan were trying to rescue Chancellor Palpatine from Count Dooku and General Grevious’ battleship where the Chancellor was being kept hostage. Although the action within the ship was tense, I was a bit disappointed to see Count Dooku defeated so easily, especially after he’d put Obi-Wan out of action. I know Anakin is supposed to be one of the most powerful Jedi around but there’s no way he’d overcome a Sith Lord’s apprentice that easily. There was also some unrealistic moments when it came to killing Dooku—Anakin just did as the Chancellor told him without really using his Jedi training. As for landing a battle cruiser with half the structure missing (most importantly the engines!), well it was all a bit too surreal at that point.

However, once back on the ground the story picked up reasonably well and we saw Anakin gradually building up a friendship with Chancellor Palpatine as he carefully manipulated the young Jedi towards the Dark Side of The Force. The dialogue between these two was excellent at times and I could see the anguish in Anakin’s face as he deliberated whether to turn the Chancellor in to the Jedi Council or to stand by his friend and mentor.

Another great part of the film was the final show downs, between Obi-Wan and Anakin and where Yoda takes on Palpatine. Fantastic stuff, and I think Ewan McGregor delivered his lines really well here—in particular his “Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes” and “Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic… to democracy!” struck a chord. Everyone in the cinema laughed too when Yoda knocked over the two Royal Guards standing inside Palpatine’s office using the power of The Force. This was Star Wars the Way It Should Be. 😉

Unfortunately there were a few more unrealistic moments throughout the film, such as how easily the Jedi were cut down by the clone troopers (I mean they’re supposed to be in tune with The Force, surely they’d have some feeling that they were going to be betrayed instead of standing there and getting shot to bits?). The excuse for how Padmé dies was also appalling, I mean if it had been “she’s got massive internal injuries” or something I could accept that but “she’s lost the will to live”?! It just sounded like a complete cop-out to me. The final awful moment though comes when Darth Vader is brought up, fully enclosed in his new suit, and says “noooooo” when hearing of his wife’s death—everyone I’ve spoken to agrees that line just sounded silly (so did most of the preceeding dialogue, but this part was particularly bad).

One thing I wish George Lucas had done was to cut pretty much all the scenes involving Anakin and Padmé. Attack of the Clones had enough of the soppy romantic garbage, there was no need to put more of it into this film as well. The worst part of all was the scene on the balcony where the conversation goes something like:

Anakin: “You’re so beautiful”
Padmé: “It’s only because I’m so in love”
Anakin: “No, it’s because I’m so in love with you”

Please, someone pass me a bucket. Why couldn’t Lucas have cut this out, it added nothing to the film and just sounded unbelieveably cringeworthy—so much so that I’m sure people could notice me wincing visibly when the lines were delivered. At the very least the dialogue could have been altered to be a bit more like the original films, where you had the obvious romantic interests (mainly Princess Leia for Han Solo) but without the corny lines.

Although I enjoyed this episode more than the previous two, there is one lesson I’ve learnt and that is: George Lucas should not be allowed to get this involved in Star Wars movies. Sure, he wrote the stories and he did a good job there, but in places the direction was just cringeworthy and I really think the films would have been better had he stepped back and let someone else take on the role of director.

Anyway, overall it wasn’t too bad a film, despite the criticisms mentioned above, and I’d probably give it 6 out of 10 overall. It was a bit of a poor “ending” compared to Return of the Jedi but I think if I’d never seen the originals and instead come in at the Phantom Menace I would have enjoyed the whole series a lot more. It felt like Doctor Who did when I sat down to watch the new series—quite good overall and certainly watchable, but the magic just wasn’t there anymore. I’m mildly disappointed but I didn’t expect anything along the lines of the originals so I wasn’t too upset with what I saw.