Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: a Club 11 movie review

I hope I like this movie because I fear living out the rest of my life as a pinko commie bastard.

Honestly, it's good to hear that Episode III is worth seeing. The last two made me violently ill.

Once again Club 11 delivers a review that is right on the mark.

I was completely blown away by Episode Three. It is an awesome movie and a great way to spend two hours. It made me run home and watch the original trilogy over again.

The most unintentionally funny scenes in the entire movie are the completely awkward scenes between Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman. They're supposed to be all romantic but they just come off as adult romance as written by an 11 year old. Natalie Portman is usually a great actress, too. I think Hayden's acting ability actually dips into the negative side and thus sucks some of Natalie's talents as well.

But overall, great movie.

How come Lucas couldn't make Episode I and II as great as this one. I agree that now I can stop justifying my positive attitude for the first two crap-quels.

Now for the two Star Wars TV series!

Love the original trilogy. Saw Ep. I and cringed through the entire movie. I didn't bother with Attack of the CLowns and I doubt I'll bother with this one.

I, for one, am amazed that Lucas was able to pull it out. After his unnecessary reworkings of the original trilogy and the abysmal suckfests that were The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, he actually managed to make a great Star Wars movie again. Now he can stop.

OK, I may be alone on this, but I just saw III and I'd have to say it was a mixed bag. The last third was pretty intense, but the conversion of Anakin was completely unconvincing. One minute he's saving his friend's ass and the next he's killing children? And I realize the whole "I'm in love with you" dialogue moments were almost guaranteed to suck, but I'll bet eunuchs could write more convincing stuff.

All in all, I think Lucas lost sight of what made the first three (especially Star Wars and Empire) so good: the mood. There were gobs of physical and emotional space, landscapes that affected the way you and the characters felt, and this subtle thing called "The Force" floating around in the story line. Luke flirted with the dark side, but the reasons for his attraction to it weren't as tangible and in-your-face as in III. Even as a kid, I understood that the dark side existed and I knew what it was: jealousy, fear, greed, lust for power. I didn't have to have somebody serve it to me on a platter like I was some moron who'd never been told a story before. There was an element of mystery present. Here, it's like someone buying their way out of trouble; if you put up this much cash, you won't have any more problems; if you switch to the dark side, your pregnant wife (who runs pretty well for a pregnant woman) is safe. What else do I have to do, kill some babies? That's it? I'm in.

I talked it through with some friends and I think I've got more to say about the whole Star Wars thing.

Phantom Menace was such an incredible terd, a sweltering pile of poo, that it rendered II and III damage control. Lucas biffed it so hard on the first that it's taken two whole movies to fix his mistakes. He should have just scrapped I, admitted it blew, and started over. I guess he'll probably just wait until script-writing technology improves so he can release special editions with good, likeable characters, mood, pacing, and all of that other stuff that's far beyond the industry's current abilities.

Here's how it all should have gone down:

1) Drop all of the boring political crap. It can be alluded to, but you don't need to show all the mind-numbing details. Leave something to imagination.

2) Child Anakin should have been a troubled kid, someone who's willing to steal to survive, someone lost, destitute. He gets in trouble, gets caught, and somehow a crew of mysterious (emphasis on the mystery aspect here) Jedi knights take him under their wings in order to nurture a power they sense in him, guiding him to use his powers for good.

3) Anakin works with the Jedi, but strays when he feels like their "way" doesn't go far enough. He becomes a rogue, a vigilante, a folk hero - kind of like Batman. He crosses paths with the Jedi, gets in their way, does things they wouldn't and disappears. His roguish ways eventually get the best of him and becomes drunk on power, teaming with a like-minded political figure who's walked a similar path. He should have already split with the Jedi in the second film.

4) Eventually the two "cross the Rubicon," Anakin becoming the leader of the military, the political dude (Palpy), the Caeser.

Call me crazy, but this would have been much more interesting, human, and affecting, not unlike the first trilogy. The force is the balance between good and evil, not some stupid chemical that can be measured with a suped-up Palm Pilot. Damage control. Jar-jar Binks. Damage Control. Overly happy and normal kid Anakin. Damage Control. Souless, tech-packed movie. Two sequels that were nothing more than Band-aids.

I have only seen about 20 minutes of the prequel trilogy in total, so I really can't throw my two cents in here. But from what I saw, I didn't care for. The overdone FX and the character weaknesses aside, none of it felt like Star Wars. I still feel like a kid when I see the original trilogy, so I don't think that I'll mar that in anyway by ever seeing the prequel stuff. Well, I pretty much know what happens, and I know the characters and stuff like that because I read cereal boxes, Dorito bags, pass by Burger King, visit 7-11 stores, have a television that plays commercials, etc.

But I will be eager to see what Lucas does next, for he has said he will make more experimental films, such as THX-1138, his first feature film, starring Robert Duvall and the super bad Donald Pleasence.

Also, if "crossing the Rubicon" is anything like "Gleaming the Cube", I'm down.

Just read through your comments, Chris, and I have to say they are, for the most part, spot on. If Lucas had even half your imagination, the prequels could have been so much more than they are (and ever will be). I guess when I said Episode III was a great Star Wars movie, I should have specified that it was the second half of the film I was talking about.

Pretty much from the moment Anakin decided to turn to the Dark Side, the movie kicked into gear and I felt my spirits soar as I realized that Lucas had finally remembered how to make a movie as opposed to a source of merchandising products. Of course, whether we needed to sit through the five hours of sound and fury that went before is still an open question.

By the way, on the subject of Lucas's dialogue, am I the only one who was annoyed by all the inane droid chatter? Everytime one of them said "excuse me" (which was about a hundred times), I wanted to scream.

Holy crap guys! Its Star Wars...STAR WARS! The key to any successful film is to know your audience. The fact that it wasn't the quintessential character arc has been irrelevant since the first time words scrolled across the screen. Would Star Wars fans be happy if the new movies were AFI top 100 quality...maybe. But after five movies, if you're coming back for more, you really just want some interesting plot points and some kick ass saber battles.

There are many things that provided depth to this movie that I think are being overlooked, but I don't think it matters enough to argue about it.

My father-in-law once said during a trip to Disney World "Anyone who doesn't like this place is a big jerk." A Zen-like statement that I have carried with me ever since. I'm not saying that people who didn't like Star Wars are jerks...it's just that you are dirty Communists. I suggest that you keep some perspective, listen to some pop music, and allow yourself to have some mindless fun once in a while. Again, it's Star Wars people.

Hugs and Kisses.

Why can't Star Wars prequels be good? Asking for something to be good isn't asking too much. I'm not looking for something deep or complex like a Russian novel here nor am I looking for the quintisential character arc (God knows I can't stand formulaic, by-the-book Syd Field crap). I'm looking for something with a rich world, interesting, LIKEABLE characters, and emotional pacing, something like say, I don't know, the first three Star Wars movies?

I feel like for most fans, III's a sigh of relief because the other two were so terrible that being thrown even the tiniest bone is satisfying after that nonsense. I didn't hate III, I just feel like people are too willing to overlook that it took over an hour of damage control to get to the good stuff. Give it a few years and seventeen different DVD release revisions and the fans' true feelings will bubble to the surface, the buzz will wear off and they'll be asking for original Star Wars again, Star Wars without all the computer animation and added scenes. They'll realize that what Lucas dropped on them was a massive pile of Dooku and they'll want to take a shower.