Obligatory Revenge of the Sith Commentary

So I saw Revenge of the Sith with Helen Back on Saturday.  The capsule review?  I would have very much enjoyed watching the whole thing in a language that I didn't understand, sans subtitles.  Japanese, maybe?  It was a beautiful film, but as a narrative... well, it left a little to be desired.  Not maybe so surprising.  Plus the dialog/acting was as bad as I've ever seen, and I've seen some pretty shitty films.  It was kind of like George Lucas was subconsciously shooting for Hal Hartley dialogue, only with a "less realistic" feel.

OK, main bones to pick:

• Inconsistencies with the Jedi powers.  This was almost unbearable.  Clearly, Luke Skywalker was the worst Jedi ever, considering he couldn't do [almost] any of what the "cannon fodder" Jedi could do.  Also, it seemed like the Episode III Jedi powers waxed and waned as needed to help the "plot" along.  Just throw everybody back all of the time, goddammit!  Tear everyone from limb to limb! You know, like you do... some of the time. Also, it seemed rather easy to actually kill the Jedi.  Some of the time, anyway.

• When did Padme turn into some simpering little girly-girl?  Wasn't she kind of a strong character in the first two episodes -- shooting guns and arguing in the Senate, etc.?  She gets pregnant and turns into a retard. Thanks to Helen Back for pointing this out -- she's totally right.

• Mustafar (the volcano world) was idiotic. You couldn't survive for more than a minute or two with molten ash/lava/whatever permeating the air directly around you, could you? Wouldn't your lungs melt like cheap birthday candles?  OK, it was just a stupid action movie, but it's not like George Lucas didn't make stabs at some sort of consistency in other parts of the film -- the Jedi "underwater breathing devices", for example.

• Plot (pacing) generally.  The ridiculous need to have everything wrap up neatly  and leading "directly" to Episode III.  The main example off the top of my head -- they can get the Death Star's frame built shortly after Luke and Leia are born, but it takes the Empire between 16 and 18 years to almost finish it?!?  And then they can build at least half of the next one in the time between Star Wars and Jedi? 

  Updated note!  They were obviously trying to demonstrate that a considerable amont of time was yet to pass between the Death Star's respective appearances in ROTS and Star Wars by having an actor portraying a clearly much younger Grand Moff Tarkin (in fact, he's known as only "Governor Tarkin" in ROTS) in the ROTS/Death Star Scene.  Wayne Pyrgram (ROTS) had dark-ish, brown-ish hair, Peter Cushing (SW) pretty clearly had grey.  Even more below!

  Here's the General Tarkin action figure (w/ brown hair):

  

  And here's the Grand Moff Tarkin action figure (w/ grey hair):

  

• What the hell were the Clone Wars, exactly?  Who was General Grievous?  Why did he sound like he had empheysema?  Did he? And who the hell were "the Separatists"?!?  Did I miss something?

• Anakin originally went bad on the off chance (OK, he'd had dreams) that in doing so he might be able to save Padme from death-by-childbirth, which was stupid but not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.  I mean, you could have had maybe something earlier in the film (maybe not even the pregnancy, but that would have worked pretty well) threaten Padme's life, have Anakin freak out, and then just maybe you'd have the "Dark Side conversion" set up a little better, but that's just me.  Anyway, we're also supposed to believe Darth Vader went crazy go nuts and turned to even worse evil when the Emperor told him that Vader had killed Padme himself?  Mind you, Vader couldn't remember doing it.  In fact, didn't he says something like, "she was alive when I left her"?

  Why wouldn't he at least try to verify what had actually happened?  It's not like he wasn't ready to throw the Emperor under the bus in Jedi, and much had already been made of the "Sith Apprentice killing Sith Master" phenomenon.  Wasn't Vader supposed to be the most powerful Sith Lord ever?

• Wait, Darth Sidious and Chancellor Palpatine are the same person?!?  What kind of retarded Jedi couldn't have figured that out?

Also on the plus side of the ledger, I found that the Wookie warriors reminded me of Wesley Willis.  Also, the theatre wasn't really crowded at all. And it was a Saturday 7:00 p.m. showing.

Comments

[tom]

Good review.

[benjamin Hayes]

a couple of further points:
1) Obi Wan sure aged a lot between the end of ROTS and ANH. in the words of Joe, Tom's brother, "Tatooine will do that to ya."

2) would have been nice to see the beginnings of the cold, calculating Darth Vader as opposed to GEORGE LUCAS' FRANKENSTEIN Darth Vader. "She's dead? Nooooooooooooooo ahaghaaghagahgagh!"

3) Didn't Natalie Portman, a supposedly good actress, have ANY problems with that awkward balcony scene where she's combing her hair? "You look beautiful." "It's because I'm so in love." blech. At the very least I would hope she said, "Are you SURE you want me to be combing my hair like this?"

[Ojo Rojo]

I agree with everything you said, except I gather from your tone that I'm a little more forgiving of everything you mentioned. It's hard to separate this film from the other two and some of the shittiness of those movies inevitably bleeds into the criticism of ROTS. There's a lot to bitch about with Episode III for sure, and a lot of other stuff to talk about besides. I'm anxious to have a round table about with with beers in hand. I'll save it for then.

[very metal]

The "Natalie Portman brushing her hair" scene may be is one of the lowest points in the history of film.

And you're right... "Darth, you, ahhh, you killed her, buddy." "Me did what?!?!? Nooooooooooooooooooo! Me no kill Padme -- me love Padme!" Couldn't Anakin/Vader have at least double-checked on that? I mean, I could tell the Emperor was lying, and I don't have super Dark Side mind-reading abilities. It just seemed forced beyond belief. No pun intended. OK, maybe a little.

[very metal]

Dammit Ben, you're exactly right! I was thinking you meant "Obi-Wan aging between Episodes II and III", but clearly you meant between Episodes III and IV -- 18 years at the most, by my calculations (above). Obi-Wan appears to have aged from 40 to 70 in the time elapsed. Could be that hard livin' on Tattooine... or possibly something sci-fi-ified involving additional rotations around the sun (or suns, right?).

[tom]

The famed Turkey City lexicon can provide better terms for talking about the problems with ROTS.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html

[very metal]

Most appropos quote from the Turkey City thing: "Even fantasy worlds need an internal consistency of sorts[.]"

Also this: "A plot which functions only because all the characters involved are idiots. They behave in a way that suits the author's convenience, rather than through any rational motivation of their own." (Attr. James Blish)

[The Littlest Wookie]

This is a blog so your questions might be rhetorical, but I would like to respond to your fifth point about the clone wars, Grievous, his breathing, the separatists, and your missing something.

In reverse order.

Yes, you did miss something, specifically the animated series "Clone Wars" which shows and explains alot of what went on between eps. II and III. And is a damn fine series in its own right if I might add. General Grievous plays a substantial role at the end of that series.

The separatists are formally know as the Confederacy of Idenpendent Systems. They are led by Count Dooku (a jedi master, student to Yoda and teacher to Qui-Gon, who renounced his commision (?) on the council) who wanted to see the cumbersome, decaying, and overly-bureaucratic Republic reformed. The separatists eventually claimed thousands of systems but the main players were:
the Trade Federation -- effectivly in control of all the shipping in the galaxy, represented by Viceroy Nute Gunray;
the Corporate Alliance -- he main negotiating body for many of the galaxy's largest commercial firms, represented by Magistrate Passel Argente;
the Techno Union -- an organization made up of major technological manufacturers, such as Starships, computers, weapons and droid developers, represented by Foreman Wat Tambor;
the InterGalactic Banking Clan -- duh, its a big bank, they helped control the currency flow in the galaxy, represented by Chairman San Hill;
and the Commerce Guild -- While a group of corporate entities, they mainly revolved around commodity interests, the raw materials of the galaxy if you will, represented by Presidente Shu Mai.
The seperatist movement started in the outlying systems were heavy taxation was not reciprocated with improved services. The senate members above had the most trouble with the Republic's current stagnation and were seduced by Count Dooku with promises of supreme devotion to capitalism (read greed) in exchange for support for the separatists in the form of commiting there vast resources to the creation of a droid army.

Which brings us to the next two questions. General Grievous was the military leader of this droid army. Mostly machine himself, the weezing is probably a product of machanically assisted resparation a la Darth Vader and the iron lung :) (although this is just speculation on my part, but why not, it helps distinguish him from a humanless droid and adds personality to a potentially soulless CG character.)

Spreading conflicts (secretly fomented by Dooku) in the outer rim alarm many of the senate members. They call for a vote on the Milatary Creation Act granting Chancellor Palpatine emergency power to use the army of clones (also secretly ordered by Dooku, I'm a little fuzzing on Dooku's involvment here and how the Republic got the clone army - will need to rewatch ep. II). This vote passes due to the intell that Obi-Wan aquired about the vast droid army that has been created to sucure the sepratists goals, namely seperating from the republic so they can have more control over their lives (read greed). The vote is opposed by Padme, Organa, and Mothma, among others who later form the core of the Rebellion of eps. IV-VI.
note: the army of droids seen in ep. I is not THE droid army, that is just the droid army of the Trade Federation alone (although they become part of the larger droid army of the separatists) used in the blockade of Naboo, but that's another explanation. So the Clone Wars are essential a civil war fought by the clone army of the Republic and the droid army of the separatists.

I hope this answers your questions, they were good ones, and I realize this may have been longer than neccissary, but I wanted to show off.

P.S. All of this and more is of course orchistrated by the Palpatine in order to gain control of the galaxy.