Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Also reviewed by:
Uncle Cliff
See also:
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (Uncle Cliff)
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (Special Edition) (Uncle Cliff)
I walked into that cinema expecting the absolute worst: bursts of CG battles intercut with boring political chats. Keeping in mind, by this stage, I had lost complete faith in the prequels and any connection between them and the originals. But what I saw on the screen wasn't that bad, certainly wasn't boring (except for the Padme scenes); they kept the political stuff to a minimum, and there were even a few brief moments (placing the helmet on Vader) that reminded me of the brilliance of the originals.
It's still not Star Wars though. Even the style is not Star Wars, despite the music, sound design and editing (which are the only remnants of the original in my opinion). The dialogue is all over the place, and not just in a Lucas way either – it felt as though he pulled in a few writers to try to infuse some humour or character, and it just didn't work. I never thought I'd hear a Star Wars character say, "I'm pregnant" – what is this, Kids? I guess the feeling I got from this film the most is that Lucas is not continuing his original vision so much as trying to improve on it at every opportunity (if it's not broke, don't fix it George). And I think the success of Lord of the Rings had a lot to do with how this one ended up looking.
But I was into the actual camera work (as opposed to the 'crazy visuals' you get whenever something entirely CG is happening) because I thought it was interesting as well as un-Lucas. I didn't like how every fricken scene had to be set (even the cut backs) with a sprawling shot of the city, but they had finally learnt to complement the green screen stuff with dramatic lighting, which helped the mood a lot.
I could probably go on to bag a lot of this film (Lord Greivous, the Wookies, Padme, Annakin's motivation, Yoda fighting – again) but I think ultimately I liked it, and I certainly liked it more than the other 2, because it was a return to basics: i.e. the battle between good and evil. And that made it mythical for me, rather than the very meangingless 'adventure' films that were the other 2.
These prequels just highlight that there was no need to fill in the blanks. I would put this film alongside Return of the King: no clear focus in terms of anything – story or style – although at least it didn't have an hour long talk about being gay at the end.