Star Wars (plot revealed in thread)

[Cookie]

Who else thought Star Wars was disapointing? I went to see it last night and came out feeling like it could have been so much better. I couldn't help comparing it to the three originals though, maybe thats why all the reviews I'm hearing are so positive and I see it so differently.

[Nick]

No spoilers?
I told a friend of mine I had seen the movie, and he was insistant that I don't tell him what happened...
Does no one have any logic? Have you seen Episode 2? How about Episode 4?
If you answered yes to both, you should have a pretty good idea of what happens in Episode 3.

[Nixit]

Yeah, but there was one part that wasn't obvious from the second and the 4th.

[Nick]

Fill me in, by PM maybe? Nothing I can think of off the top of my head was not obvious.

[Cookie]

Maybe someone out there is watching them in order. I to VI.

[rklenseth]

My Review

Great Visual Effect but Where Is the Story?
Richard Kenneth Lenseth

Yes, I was one of those fools who went and saw Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on opening weekend. I wasn’t one of them who dressed up like Luke or Leia (can you imagine me in a Leia’s slave girl outfit from Return of the Jedi; I don’t think you want to) but I have been a fan of the galaxy far, far away for a long time.
Revenge of the Sith, for those that don’t know, completes the circle between the prequels and the original trilogy. Sith opens up in a desperate time for the galaxy as a mysterious Sith Lord wreaks havoc by starting the Clone Wars and destroying the Republic. More and more power is given to the Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) as he exerts his effort in destroying the Separatists led by Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and a sickly droid named General Grievous (voiced by Matthew Wood). The opening chapter of Sith is of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) undertaking a rescue operation. It appears that between Episode II and III, the Separatists were able to kidnap Palpatine and hold him hostage. We see a long sequence of a space battle between the Clone Army and the Droid Army as Obi-Wan and Anakin race towards Count Dooku’s ship.
Now if you have seen Episodes I and II then you know that III will have amazing visual effects and it does. It is the magic of movie making when you take a simple blue screen and make a whole world out of it. That is one of the amazing and truly ground breaking things that George Lucas has done with the prequels. But what the prequels, including Sith, lack is story and characters. The dialogue throughout the entirety of Sith is wooden and seems like something a high school student’s romance book would contain. “I love you,” says Padmé (Natalie Portman). “No, I love you more,” says Anakin. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
The acting is also quite horrible throughout the movie. The only shining stars of redemption for this movie are Ewan McGregor, who plays Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Frank Oz, who voices Yoda. Christensen still sounds like a whiny and horny teen that we saw in Episode II. Even when he makes the change to the dark side, he still is whiny and horny but now a big, bad Sith lord. He definitely isn’t the Darth Vader of the original trilogy.
Then comes of the whole transition from the light side to the dark side and this is one of the most disappointing parts of the movie. It is unbelievable how Anakin comes to join the Sith and turns on the Jedi. I don’t want to give away what happens but I thought that was so stupid. I can understand his rage and anger especially with what happened to his mother in Episode II and what might happen to Padmé in this movie but how it happens just doesn’t work. There should have been more to it than that but perhaps they couldn’t fit this in between all the action and lightsaber duels.
Another thing that doesn’t work is Chewbacca. Who’s decision was it to have Chewbacca in Sith because that is as awful a decision as I have ever seen? And if they were to have Chewbacca in Sith they should have had him as a some sort of soldier or something rather than one of the Wookie commanders. I personally think Chewbacca was just something for the older fans of the original trilogy to link to but I think doesn’t work. All I could think of when I first saw Chewbacca was ‘what the hell was the writer’s point in bringing in a character that shouldn’t show up until later in the story?’
I did enjoy the nice touches at the end of the movie. The interior of Senator Organa’s Corellian Corvette (yes, I use to be a huge Star Wars geek as a kid) looked like the one we saw in the original movie. The interior of the Star Destroyer and seeing all of the Imperial officers and even Governor Tarkin (who I thought was CGI since the actor of the original Tarkin is dead but I am wrong; that was a real person; damn good look alike) was also what we remember of the original trilogy. Even with that, there are still questions that are left unanswered. Trivial but it would have been nice to find out like what happened to the Clone and Droids after the war? I’m sure the Clones were used well pass the war but in the original trilogy it seems the Imperial Army is made up of regular people and not clones, so did the Clones die or did they simply get retired? And what happened to the Droid Army? Did it get sent to the scrap pile or are there still Droid Ships floating out there waiting for someone to reactivate them? Also, since Obi-Wan appears to be about 30 or maybe even 40 at the end of Sith, in the original trilogy he would either be 50 or 60 but to me he seems a lot older but then again Alec Guinness was around 70 at the time that the original Star Wars was filmed.
All in all, Sith is a fun but flawed movie. About the only Academy Award this movie should win is one for visual effects. While this movie is disappointing when compared to the original trilogy, the action and lightsaber duels make up for what story and characterization it did not have.
This movie gets a thumb up but it is not a good movie when compared to the likes of the originals or the upcoming movie Serenity. Perhaps Kevin Smith can help bring back the magic of Star Wars with his upcoming live action TV show based off the galaxy. Lucas should now hand over the galaxy to better writers and directors. He had his fun for a little while.

[Nixit]

I doubt that... as they would have to be fairly young (younger than me), because even I saw the last three before episode one.

[Cookie]

There is such a thing as not going to see a film you know. I recon there are more than a handfull of people far older than you who havent seen any of the Star Wars films.

Anyway Serenity just revealed the whole plot so I guess I'll change the title.

[Nixit]

Well, the only thing that I was surprised about was the betrayal of the clones.

[Cookie]

Someone might have expected to find out yoda was anakins father but got really disapointed when the film plot got told to them. Just an example.

Anyway I agree that Chewbacca in the film was a stupid thing to do.

[rklenseth]

There is such a thing as not going to see a film you know. I recon there are more than a handfull of people far older than you who havent seen any of the Star Wars films.

Anyway Serenity just revealed the whole plot so I guess I'll change the title.

I don't think I gave anything away that nobody didn't know already. Face it, if they didn't know what was going to happen then they probably weren't going to see it anyway.

Anyways, I didn't give away how Anakin turns to the dark side which I thought was really bad. Am I the only one who thought it was terrible?

[Nixit]

Hehe... what people do for love, eh?

[west]

As an old-school SW fan (I was hardcore about it --I mean HARDCORE: I could tell you which COMPANY in the SW universe built what starships, who designed the Death Star, the names of all the creatures in the cantina in IV) I was really disappointed with the new trilogy.

I won't say Sith was good, but it was the least bad of the three. You really don't want a dissertation from me on how Lucas could have made three excellent films instead of the dreck he eventually excreted, but suffice it to say, in the paraphrased words of Scott Kurtz, Joss Whedon is my master now.

[Yo_Yo]

Psshhh, I thought it was excellent. Made up for the first two and then some. And whats so un-believable about the way he turns to the darkside? The only other person he loved was his mother and she was killed. What makes you think he wouldn't give it all just to save Pad? And you say Vader sounded like a horny kid? Well he was a kid. Right about at the end of his teens. Many people have squeaky and somewhat whinny voices until they are in thier early 20s. Also, you say he doesn't sound like the old vader... well he did have something of a voicemask in that suit of his.

Edit: I re-read your post, and if you were refering to the change in his mood from caring and compasionate to the later in the movies cold and unfeeling, well the death of a loved one can do that.

And for being such a big starwars fan, i'm suprised that you don't know wookies live several human lives. I'm sure Lucas put Chewwy in there to give him a little history. All we ever knew about chewwy was that hes a wookie, he knows and follows han around. Oh, and that hes good with tools. And thats not alot of info for a pretty main (well, maybe not main, but ultra close to it) character.

And you have al ot of hype about the serenity movie. But thats all it is so far. Hype. You're already saying it's gonna be a great movie. All you have to base this on is a trailer. Lets just say i've seen plenty of cool trailers in my time. More then 70 percent of them didn't live up to the trailers expectations.


Now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to go and demolish some rebels on Galaxies.

[Surly]

My overall impression of Sith was that it was rushed. It all happened far too quickly... as a consequnce the story was made secondary to a checklist of all the things that had to be included. For that is how it feels... the story is forced to become no more than a tool as they move from moment to moment, and this leads to a dire story.

Of course, this doesn't explain the shoddy dialogue (whoever thought they could get away with Vader's first words after being incased in his armour, NOOOO!!!! should be shot. Only one person in that cinema should have been allowed to shout noooo!!! and that's me. And I did. Right after Vader...) and the disappointing acting of Christiansen. He never had what it took to be a convincing Vader... and since he lived the dream of many young Star Wars fans, I am deeply disappointed. And Padme dying of a broken heart? ('there's nothing phsically wrong... she has just lost the will to live') Could that be yet another contender for corniest film moment, ever?

However the most disappointing thing was the rushed feel. Darth Tyranus (Dooku - Christopher Lee) received short shrift, for he was obviously top of the checklist. After Episode II, Tyranus was one of my favourite characters... but just like Maul in I, he was merely a tool for putting over the 'good' guy and died a frankly rubbish death. For such a powerful Jedi/Sith? Another noooo!!!! moment for me.

I have to say the Jedi were disappointing. The fall of the Jedi? Possibly the most underplayed moment - for those of you wondering how the Jedi Order fell from its peak to non-existance to a heartbeat, there is a simple answer. THe other Jedi, aside from the featured characters, were rubbish. They died ridiculously easily. In fact the young Jedi learner who saved Organa put up more of a fight than several of the Jedi Council.

I felt let down by the lightsabre fights. So often these have been the one redeeming feature of the prequel movies, but they became overcomplicated and lost a lot of their credibility. This may be because of my fencing background (I fence with a sabre...), but the fights didn't ring true. There was far to much flipping around, fancy turns and a number of unnecessary moves. There is not a great need for such flipping around, there is not a single excuse as to why a competant warrior would flip when he doesn't need to (although it might explain why Vader was a better lightsabreur than anyone else... no flips for him...). This goes for the fancy twirls as well. Never turn your back on the enemy . Not even for a second... in reality it is a very quick way to end up dead.

Yet there were redeeming features. McDiarmid (Palpatine) stole the show, his depiction of the Emperor was perfect and I enjoyed his scenes. Combined with Yoda (who moved even further from the muppet of Episode V) they produced some stunning scenes, and their part of the story was solid. I also enjoyed the performance of MacGregor, who again enforced my strong belief that Star Wars is as much the story of Obi-Wan as Vader, with a great performance which made me apprciate his character. With better support from fellow actors and writers... who knows what might have been.

The one advantage of the checklist approach is that everything is there. If you were wondering over any part of the Star Wars history, it was covered. If as much effort had been put into dialogue...

Overall, Episode III was disappointing. That is not to say I didn't enjoy it, it was a Star Wars movie. I am a huge Star Wars fan, and it take a film much worse than III to destroy that. But the hype was undeserved, and in many ways I enjoyed Episode II more.

EDIT: How did it give Chewwy any more background? We still only know he's a wookie... only now he is a wookie who has met Yoda...