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Revenge of the Sith
We saw Revenge of the Sith today in the luxury of the Circle Lounge: adjustable leather chairs, waiters, food and coffee, but why are we still plagued by people eating food in noisy bags? They should be banned. Preceding it were three trailers of films I rather fancy seeing: War of the Worlds (despite being updated and probably Americanised; it stars Tom Cruise), Mr and Mrs Smith (OK, it's Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but two assassins out to kill each other--while married--sounds fun) and Fantastic Four (which just looks cool).
The good
- Taken over all, this film gets a thumbs-up from me. I was very entertained and often exhilarated.
- The first scene is easily as impressive as that of ep IV which blew me away when I first saw it. I love those huge ships, especially on a big screen in a state-of-the-art cinema with excellent sound. The battle scenes are excellent and the SFX just stunning. I'd see it all over again just for the battles.
- The design is as good as ever: the whole look of all the eps is consistent and always a delight to look at. I've always loved the architecture, the ships, the walking tanks, and the aliens. Top marks, with a couple of points subtracted for lack of grunge.
- The music! I always loved it and it's as good as ever. Damn, but I know I'll have the Darth Vader theme in my head for days.
- I loved the battle-lizard. She lived, didn't she? (Hey, of course she was female--there had to be some of us in this film!)
- Sorry, but despite what I heard, I still don't think Hayden Christensen acted Anakin very well at all--until he turned to the dark side. Then he was magnificent. I've acted myself, and always find playing 'good' people the hardest; evil or funny is much easier (and a helluva lot more fun).
- Ian McDiarmid was brilliant (as always) as Palpatine.
- Although I knew how it would end, of course, I enjoyed the journey. There were surprises, like how Anakin resisted the lure of the dark side several times, but only really succumbed only when Mace Windu tried to kill Palpatine when he had him at his mercy instead of arresting him as he ought to have done, and as Anakin begged him to. I liked that the Jedi showed their flaws too. Another was their rigidity and adherence to tradition; they were, as a group, complacent and ripe to fall.
- Nice touch, making Padme look pregnant in her funeral procession so that Vader wouldn't suspect she had given birth.
- Actually, knowing what would happen wasn't a weakness at all, but gave the whole thing grandeur, like one of those slow-motion shots of a huge building collapsing.
- Darth Vader. This was almost perfect (the one exception is below). The burns and being left to die explain so much--his hatred of Obi Wan and his loyalty to Palpatine--and the whole sequence of his encasement in his armour was stunning. I love the scene where he walks along the centre of his command cruiser just as he does so many years later. I almost felt the scene of him and his master looking out at the Death Star should have been the last one, but the baby scenes at the end were mercifully short and well done.
- The last scene gets high marks for lack of sentimentality and words, and an evocative final image.
- The above list had no particular order, but Padme tops this one. She was a waste of screen time and a discredit to her sex. What, being pregnant cuts off the supply of blood to the brain? Her scenes weren't just slow and boring, they were annoying. I wanted give her a good whack upside the head. The only time she seemed like herself was in the Senate when she looked as if she was thinking, and when she took her ship to Mustafaa (sp?).
- If Anakin loved her so much, how could he kill the children knowing he was a father to be? Actually I have a possible answer, but I'd like to have seen it on the screen: maybe he didn't want kids (that congratulatory smile looked very false to me) and resented them en masse because he thought his would kill Padme.
- The whole 'childbirth is dangerous and painful' thing. I've already said how much I hate childbirth scenes, but really, should it be either in this high-tech era?
- Padme just giving up and dying. She used to be a fighter. OK, I can explain this one too: maybe she and Anakin were psychically linked in some way, or his hatred damaged her irreparably somehow when he tried to kill her; I can imagine the Force could do that. Either would work; she seems to feel his pain and hatred as she dies.
- Darth Vader doing the Noooooooo! Sorry, but I laughed. It's such a cliché and all I could see was Homer Simpson doing it. When was the first Noooooooo! by the way?
- Why was Grievous hacking away at the beginning, but seemed in perfect health when fighting?
- And an old one: how come Yoda has to hobble along with a stick but bounces around like a jumping-bean in his light-sabre fights? Not that I mind. I love Yoda. I just want to know.
- The fact that half the galaxy was rarely seen and only heard in the form of Padme which really doesn't count. OK, we got to see a couple of female Jedi being assassinated, but that was it. Who the hell was the bald woman with Palpatine? You been talking to Ben Steed, Lucas?
- I saw from someone's post about the art of Star Wars that a female General Grievous had been proposed. So why didn't we get one?
- Poor Keisha Castle-Hughes got maybe two seconds of screen time looking sad as the queen of Naboo during the funeral procession. They could have pasted a picture of her on a dressed-up shop dummy.
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Wrll, there are several precedents for WotW being Americanised, most famously the Orson Welles radio version of course. The original landing site of Wells' Martians is only about twenty miles from where I live.
As for pregnancy affecting thne supply of blood to the brain, I remember a very bright friend of mine saying that she found that the hormonal changes of pregnancy made it very hard for her to think clearly, so maybe George Lucas has some justification. Of course, for all I know you've had five children yourself and can tell me authoritatively that this is nonsense. :)
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I haven't had any children and have no intention of ever doing so. However I have worked with pregnant colleagues and have never seen any reduction in their intelligence or faculties. Almost all of them said though that they were treated differently by strangers like shop assistants, and this got even worse once they had a baby or toddler with them. Going by that, it causes pronounced stupidity in others.
As for George Lucas, he's had two divorces, and I get the distinct feeling this has affected his work.
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Probably the same reason he doesn't introduce himself to Luke by saying "The great and all-powerful Yoda am I!" Instead, he lets Luke think he's just some impish native, to better evaluate Luke's state of mind. Classic misdirection.
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