Review: Star Wars Episode III 1265
The special effects question is easy: This is quite simply one of the most gorgeous films ever made. Everything is superb. Lucas has an incredible visual sense; he is a truly visual filmmaker, and his images hit home, are beautifully executed, and are technically stunning. Of course, we really and truly expect perfection here from Lucas, so this may not seem like news.
You are deceiving yourself. Lucas has frankly outdone what I thought possible. My jaw was on the floor the entire time.
But what about those tattered remains?
I myself am not a huge Star Wars fan. I enjoy the films, but I wasn't raised on them, didn't see any of them (except Episode II) in the theaters. I was one of those kids who knew Darth Vader was Luke's father before I had heard of Star Wars, because I saw the parodies before I saw the originals.
I will say this now. Episode III proves that "A New Hope" was a mistake. A freak accident of success, because Lucas seems incapable of doing fun action. How he managed to make "A New Hope" a delightful, playful, fundamentally fun movie is beyond me. Because when Episode III starts, it falls flat on its face, continuing the sad attempt in Episode's I and II to make the kind of joyous space opera that, of all six, only "A New Hope" managed to be.
Lucas however, can do myth very, very well. And once Lucas gets around to telling the Myth Of Anakin's Fall, the real story that Episode I and II have been leading to, everything works. Here we have the George Lucas of "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Return of the Jedi." Hayden Christiansen goes from a pretty (if ineffectual) actor to being the tragic Darth Vader, and you believe. Darth Sidious is the villain that Darth Vader was in the original trilogy. Better perhaps, more sinister. The fall of Anakin is completely and utterly believable. I was shocked. I understood why he fell to the Dark Side. It's called the freakin' Dark Side for goodness sake! How could you freakin' fall?
Because of a tempter. Because of dark dreams. Because of love.
I don't want to spoil anything for those of you who, like me, went in not knowing exactly how it all happened. Some have always known the story, and are just watching it play out; some of us have willfully ignored the spoilers, and waited.
But I will say this for those who do know what happens. When order 66 is given, my breath was taken away. When the final battles occur, I was truly fearful. In other words, he doesn't screw it up.
I'm going to see it again.
Jamie also saw Revenge of the Sith, but it doesn't seem like he saw quite the same film. His thoughts:
I heard it might be good, so I tried to like it. I really did. Revenge of the Sith is one of the worst movies I've seen recently. It's Battlefield Earth bad.
It's not just that when Lucas tries to "do" myth he generates a world populated by generics. Nor is it just that the plot is absurdly thin (the movie exists to showcase the galaxy's most complete betrayal ever, brought on by two dreams and a promise from someone who couldn't be more obviously untrustworthy if he were twirling a mustache).
This movie is terrible first, because Lucas writes unbearable dialogue, especially in romantic scenes. And since the motivator is romantic love, we get a lot of bad lines. Remember "I don't like sand"? Episode III one-ups that. The climactic emotional moment, I swear to God, is a rip-off of Homer Simpson.
And second, Hayden Christensen is a lousy actor. There, I said it. Even with the silly script, Ewan McGregor is fine, and Natalie Portman brings life to a few scenes, but Anakin gets not a single believable moment. Even when all he has to do is look sideways, he's more fake than a losing high school forensics team. He's wooden like community-college Acting 101. I could go on.
Best I can say is that Jar-Jar doesn't speak. The special effects are there, and since they cover every square inch of the screen constantly, you will get many per unit time per dollar. If you like that kind of thing, you're going to go see it anyway, so enjoy.
Thanks go to erikharrison for his take on the movie.
Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Funny)
The Empire should look into using firewalls.
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Funny)
The Empire should look into using firewalls.
Well, what you forgot is that R2D2 is equipped with buffer overflow exploits that take advantage of Windows -59768 B.C. (remember, it happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far away (but not long ago enough or far away enough to elude Bill Gate's grasp (Ah, so that's how Emperor Palpatine/Bill Gates came into power.)))
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Funny)
Guard: "Please put all metal objects in the tray, and step through the metal detector."
*beep beep beep* *Bzzzrow*(sound of lightsaber being drawn)
Guard: "Oh, shi-* *urk*"
(Vader force-slams guard)
Vader: "Every goddamn day I came here, you made me take off my metal hand, and checked my ID, despite me being the Jedi Knight hero of the republic... did that make you feel good, punk?"
Guard: "ohshitohshitohshitohshit"
Vader: "Hmm, let's see if I can do Obi-Wan's mind tricks. These are not the lightsabers you're looking for."
(Vader force-chokes guard)
Guard: "*Ack*- gasp-"
Vader: "You don't need to see my identification."
Guard: "*Gurgle*...."
*thud*
Vader: "Hmm, I'm not sure it worked. It was fun, though. Goddamn, I love being Sith."
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:3, Informative)
It's either -59768 A.D. or it's 59768 B.C.
Is it safe to assume were the source of a few Y2K bugs as well?
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Funny)
It's either -59768 A.D. or it's 59768 B.C.
Hey, bring that up with the marketing folks.
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:3, Funny)
<pedantic>
In the current earthly year of 2005 A.D., 59768 B.C. equates to -61806 A.D. (give or take ~30 days
</pedantic>
(Score:-1, Whatever)
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:3, Interesting)
under fire AG can go out! in SW ships you have AG and initeral compensators... not entirely the same things. if AG goes down for a little bit, then the planet's gravity will "override" the ships until it gets back under control. remember, ships in SW are not in "orbit" like our primitive term.. they are in powered orbit... so they could have gravity affect the ship if something happens.
As far as ships landing, it was a
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm willing to at least give them credit for not using WEP though.
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Insightful)
"There. Plug in. He should be able to interpret the entire imperial network!"
On the Death Star, in a control room overlooking a hangar bay where you berth captured freighters -- no, you reply completely on physical security. The assumption is that untrusted clients will never physically be able to access the network port.
This is the understandable hubris of the empire. It is inconceivable that enemy forces will be able to board your small-moon-sized space station and start poking around looking for the location of defense controls or which prisoner is where.
This is the same kind of thinking that leads to fatal-flaw design like a physical defense that assumes large-scale assault where smaller ships can easily slip through. What? A thermal exhaust port leading directly to the main reactor? Oh, don't worry -- the concept that enemies would attack with small fighters is so far-fetched that we don't have to worry about it.
Star Wars was Bill's inspiration. (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry to disagree, but I think it was the reverse.
It was 1977, and a still impressionable Bill the Nerd saw the original Star Wars and had an epiphany: "So all computer technology must have vulnerabilities!"
That one event explains ActiveX being designed after the vulnerable nature of the Internet was already explicitly obvious, and MSWindows being a security nightmare after various Unixes demonstrated how file access control should work.
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:5, Funny)
If you noticed, all of the robots had a personality (most had more personality than Hayden Christensen). Seems to me like R2 was probably doing social attacks against the computers involved.
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously, put a robot in the hangar bay, it plugs in, then NETWORK OWNED! you can open any jail cell, tell exactly where the prisoner are, open any door and even control the elevators.
Ahem. Please try to remember that the story takes place "a long time ago." That was before SP2. Geez, you people with no sense of history slay me.
Re:Why are Spaceships so easily OWNED? (Score:3, Funny)
"Artoo! Why didn't you reroute power to the shields? Now we're all going to die!"
"Beep beep da beep beepity beep"
TRANSLATED
"Because you didn't give me the network password you fucking idiot"
About the childhood... (Score:5, Insightful)
When we were kids we used to "play Star Wars", which is a kind of no-fee intellectual property union we entered unto with Lucasfilm whereby our imaginations were ignited in exchange for our fealty as future consumers.
Re:About the childhood... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids my age at that time were still playing "cowboys and indians" in their backyards, just as their older siblings and parents had, but stories set in the Old West just didn't seem to connect to people anymore (that, or else Hollywood just forgot how to make them connect.)
Lucas wanted to make a genre picture which became part of our culture's "shared mythology" the way Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger once did. There was nothing like that at all in the late 60s and early 70s.
It worked really well. Most kids these days would much rather have a "Mace Windu Lightsaber" than a "pearl handled silver" cap gun.
I would not be surprised if Lucas considers the fact that kids now "play Star Wars" in their back yards (as we did, post-1977) to be his greatest triumph.
The X Factor (Score:4, Interesting)
Factoid: Lucas's wife Marcia edited American Graffiti and Star Wars; the couple were married from 1969-83.
Remember how the original Star Wars was so different? Mixed with humor and other elements in the dialogue -- seemed to consist of real entertainment.
Too bad Marcia wasn't there to influence all the episodes...
Forgot some detail (Score:4, Insightful)
Note the release dates: Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and The Return of the Jedi (1983)
How does Eps I-III Alter the Viewing of Eps IV-VI? (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, one of the great things about Ep. IV-VI was discovering Luke and Leia's relationship and that Vader is their father. The problem is, this only works as a dramatic issue for the audience (obviously it still works for the characters) if the audience doesn't know those things going in. Now, it's not an unreasonable assumption to say that everybody seeing Star Wars (even for the first time) already knows those things. But as an artistic work (granting the "Star Wars" films the status of 'art') Lucas removed a large dramatic moment of the story as a whole. Likewise, the way Lucas has set up the over-arcing 6-ilogy (sexilogy?) now places more emphasis on Anakin Skywalker's rise, fall, and redemption (and in some ways, parallel journeys by Obi-Wan and Yoda) than about the adventures of Luke, Leia, etc in IV-VI.
What does the Slashdot crowd think? Ignoring the actual presentation of Episodes I-III, was the very idea flawed, and does it do damage to the structure of Eps. IV-VI? Does the new over-arcing story cary enough value to disregard the problems it creates? Am I just over-thinking this way too much?
-Trillian
Viewing Order (Score:5, Interesting)
4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6
So that after "Empire", at the end of which Vader reveals he's Luke's father, we take a detour and get to the back-story: where he came from, the source of the Rebellion and the Empire, and his fall to the dark side.
It's all leading up to the climactic finish where the prequels allow us to better appreciate the scope of the triumph: the Sith destroyed, republican government reinstated, and Anakin redeemed.
Sadist! (Score:4, Funny)
Proper viewing order: IV, V, III, VI (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Viewing Order (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I'm willing to sacrifice some of the weight of that revelation in order to save the ending of the whole story for the end.
Re:How does Eps I-III Alter the Viewing of Eps IV- (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How does Eps I-III Alter the Viewing of Eps IV- (Score:5, Insightful)
I see the important central idea around Star Wars in how Darth Sidious's attempt to turn Luke, ends up saving Anakin's sole.
If you look at how in episode VI, Luke is in the place against Anakin that Anakin was in episode II with Count Dooku.
That was where Darth Sidious realized he could control Anakin and make him his apprentice by having him kill Dooku.
That step was Anakins last chance to resist. The difference is that Luke stops short and refuses to fight.
It drives the Sidious to start killing Luke and it gets Vader to recognize and correct his mistake years later.
Look at Luke and Anakin when Sidious tries to convert them, they are both roughfully the same age, in extremely similar positions.
I think it adds to the whole experience.
Re:How does Eps I-III Alter the Viewing of Eps IV- (Score:5, Funny)
ends up saving Anakin's sole
is priceless.
"Dad, I caught the fish you lost!"
Re:How does Eps I-III Alter the Viewing of Eps IV- (Score:4, Insightful)
I have watched Ep 1 and 2 several times from DVD after seeing them in a theater and enjoyed them very much.
Episode 1 is simple, with good and evil very clearly defined, which is only appropriate - after all, the main character is a ten-year old kid. Episode 2 has a darker shade, with Anakin growing up and confronting the nasty facts of life - your loved ones die, no matter how mighty a hero you may be. And Episode 3 is dark, with Palpatine and Jedis putting Anakin into an impossible situation, and him losing control entirely.
The whole prequel trilogy works very nicely, with the viewpoint and representation fitting the general mood of each movie perfectly. It isn't the original trilogy, because it doesn't tell the same story. But it tells its own story very well.
As for the hammer... You really need to grow up a little and learn to tolerate differing opinions. Otherwise, you'll end up getting strangled to death with your own entrails, you sick hatefull heretical pervert.
Another great review: (Score:5, Interesting)
The main site has a lot of Star Wars stuff on the front page: http://www.decentfilms.com/index.html [decentfilms.com]
An interesting excerpt:
Luke is "The One" (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again, the Oracle in The Matrix told Neo what he needed to hear. If the prophesy was truly about Anakin, that may have been what was needed to bring about the desired chain of events. But that would imply some interesting things about the creator or source
Re:Luke is "The One" (Score:5, Insightful)
Anakin was the one.
And how does removing half the force bring balance? With Lukes "less stuffy" ethic, he practices both light and dark side, and through one set of monks that embrace everything, there is balance.
Re:Luke is "The One" (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again, without Luke (in utero), Annakin would not have been tempted to the dark side in the first place.
Re:Luke is "The One" (Score:5, Insightful)
Dark Side: Palpatine/Vader
Light Side: Yoda/Obi-Wan
Thus being perfect balance.
Re:Another great review: (Score:5, Interesting)
Precisely! One thing that Ep. III touches on (and the DarthSide blog [blogspot.com], one of the greatest SW fanfics ever, expands on) is that the Light and Dark side of the Force is NOT "good" and "bad". It's "life exists, let it be" vs "life exists, if you can take it by the horns you can make it a better place". The Jedi had long ago rejected the Dark Side [jedipurge.com] completely on "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" grounds. The Sith, a specific small order of Dark Jedi, fully embraced the "control and order" aspect of the Force but were corrupted by it.
Luke, in the final battle with the Emperor and Vader in Ep. VI, is able to use his anger (dark side thing) to defeat Vader, but has the strength of will to pull back and not be tempted and corrupted by the power. (Parallel to Anakin vs. Tyranus, with the same person cheer-leading in both cases.) Why? Because he sees the growing parallel between himself and his father when he cuts off Vader's hand, and he realizes where that path leads. Sidious is about to kill him for it, when Vader (that prophesy dude) realizes what he has become and sacrifices himself to kill Sidious and end the Sith line. He sees that in his son is the true balance in the Force, and ensures that it is not destroyed prematurely.
The Force is already unbalanced with the Jedi, since they eschew the other branch of the Force completely. By bringing it back into balance, the light and dark sides are both recognized and accepted. Not something Mace Windu and Yoda would really have wanted, but but the end, Yoda's ghost seems to have come to terms with it.
My issue with Star Wars is that the overarching story concept (the above, at least as I see it), is AMAZINGLY GOOD! The actual execution is at best spotty, and at worst talks about sand. Still, stuff like the DarthSide blog, the fan stuff, really redeems a lot of it. Lucas has great ideas, but should leave the execution to someone else.
Luke IS the restored balance in the Force (Score:4, Interesting)
Anakin/Vader was the "Chosen One". He returned balance to the Force. First, by eliminating all the Jedi but Obi-wan and Yoda, and all the Sith but Sidious and himself; and then, by killing both Obi-wan and Sidious, while Yoda died of old age and Vader died of his wounds. Thus, both the Jedi and the Sith were destroyed and the conflict between Light and Dark sides settled.
Where Luke is important is not that he is the "Chosen One" who would restore balance to the Force - he IS the restored balance in the Force! Trained by Obi-wan and Yoda, tempted by Sidious and Vader, and then freed of all of them, left with the strength and passion of the Dark Side that almost drove him to become a Sith at the end of RotJ, but with the control and resolve of a Jedi, and the ability to temper those emotions when necessary.
It actually reminds me a lot of the Vulcans and Klingons of Star Trek. The Vulcans are ostensibly the "good guys" on the side of reason and order; the Klingons are ostensibly the "bad guys" on the side of emotion and chaos. But throughout the series it's pretty obvious that the Vulcan's suppression of emotion is not such a great thing, and anyone can easily see how the Klingons' lack of reason is less than ideal. In that series humans are supposed to represent the "happy medium", people who embrace both emotions and reason and can control the both as needed.
And I agree with you wholeheartedly: the themes of this movie, first of Anakin and his unsuccessful struggle to find a path between the extremes of the Jedi and the Sith, and then of Luke and his successul mediation of those extremes, are extremely powerful and touching themes that are common to any person's existence. We are all surrounded by polar choices, few as extreme as these fictional examples, but nevertheless every person must at times mediate disagreements between their reason and their emotions, their personal faith and their agreement with society, the freedom of their actions and the consent of others...
As the old addage says, "all things in moderation", and as we all must struggle to find a suitable moderation between extremes, a well-implemented and convincing portrayal of these themes on an epics scale can be touching to anyone. Unfortunately, it seems that Lucas has failed to implement his story in such a convincing way. I am happy to hold in my mind an abridged version of the tale, and allow my own imagination to fill in the details in more acceptable ways. Perhaps someday this story will be told again, and better; either the Star Wars saga itself or another saga which tells the same essential tale. I certainly hope so.
Re:Another great review: (Score:3, Funny)
But Luke never knew his mother!
Extremes... (Score:5, Insightful)
to Jamie: It wasn't THAT bad.
I saw it. It was worth the price of admission, a soda and nachos. More importantly, it was worth my TIME, which to me is infinately more valuable.
Re:Extremes... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd guess no one else in the theater cared. Let's face it, if you were so disappointed by episodes 1 and 2, why did you even bother to see 3? Same reason everyone else did: closure. The difference between you and everyone else in the theater though was that you were determined going in that this was going to be a bad movie and you just wanted to get the last few story elements out and be done with it. Going in I was scared it was going to be like ep. 1. But I came out more than relieved. Fully satisfied, one might say.
Personally, I was less than impressed with ep. 1, but I didn't think it was terrible. I thought ep. 2 was better. The romantic scenes were very annoying, because Lucas can't write good emotional dialogue and Hayden Christiansen can't emote realistic emotion (except for whiny discontent). However, I loved everything else about ep. 2. And after seeing ep. 3, I have a new appreciation for the romantic scense. Ep. 3 wouldn't have made any sense at all without them. It's utterly necessary that Anakin actually has a reason for his fear.
Ep. 3 was awesome, IMHO. On par with the first 3. Maybe better just because it was dire, so tragic, and looked so good. Moreso of all three than eps. 4-6 were able to achieve. Plus, it answered so many questions I hadn't even realized I had! Now I know why the Jedi shun emotion and attachment. Now I know why the Sith are so dangerous, and why they can get rational people to support them despite that.
Anyway, like I said, it was awesome. I may have to go see it again in the theater, which I don't do often.
Human physics (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, when Obi Wan and Anakin were fighting Dooku near the beginning, Dooku decided to do a flip off of a balcony type thing to get to the lower level. This looked horrible. There was no acceleration invovled in his fall, and his flip randomly sped up slightly while in mid air. Of course, he was a Jedi master, so he can probably do that, but I really doubt they had that in mind when creating that scene. Did anyone else notice examples of this?
Re:Human physics (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. Every scene where anyone did anything like that.
Which is to say, most of the movie. In Spiderman 1 and 2 the defying-physics stuff actually worked because it gave Spiderman a kind of half-alien insecty twitch. Every CG actor in Sith, flipping and flying around, just looked CG.
The fight choreography was terrible too. Whether in close quarters or the middle of an empty room, apparently light-saber fights look identical, nothing but big flashy sweeping str
Re:Human physics (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Human physics (Score:5, Informative)
NOOO (Score:5, Insightful)
That was like a real leap
beacuse if that puppet had not worked
the whole film would have been down the tubes
it just, you know woulda been a disaster, it would've been a silly little muppet...
the whole movie would've collapsed under the weight of it.
(quote from the bonus feature DVD in the original trilogy box set)
Now, apply this quote to what Hayden Christensen has done to Darth Vader, one of the most memorable and recognizable villains in all of cinema history, and what do you get?
Death Star (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Death Star (Score:5, Funny)
Wait until Episode IV to see how well it holds up. Everybody (ie, the local Imperial Base Makers with experience and professional training) knows to put in defenses against snub fighters, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Re:Death Star (Score:5, Interesting)
That wasn't the Death Star, but a smaller scale prototype device to test out some of the technologies and construction techniques.
It was the Death Star, but due to the newness of the technology involved, it took a great deal of time to construct, much more time than Death Star II, which was simply a somewhat bigger example of the same technology. Real world parralel here- the first time you built a computer, it probably took a lot longer than it would take you now right?
Possible parralel with the Babylon project in Babylon 5- it took them quite some time to get a working station. Perhaps the Death Star was beset by engineering failures and sabotage along the way before they finally got one operational? As mentioned above, new things take longer to build than new examples of old things, simply because it is new. Compound this by running into unexpected engineering or construction failures, or sabotage, and things can take very long indeed.
Palpatine didn't disband the Senate until A New Hope. Presumably, the Senate did have some power over the budget and policy until then- not as much as it used to, but some. To divert funds for such a large secret project would raise lots of questions among fairly powerful individuals. They simply couldn't divert funds to get it done any faster than 15-20 years without tipping off the Senate, which may have still had the authority and/or influence to take down Palpatine, or at least make his rule more difficult. The second Death Star, however, would not be created under those restrictions. Palpatine had unlimited authority by that point, and if he wanted to divert fifty billion credits for a battle station, he could do so and just kill anyone that asked why.
It was the Death Star, but not right after the previous scene- a flash forward scene to the construction project a few years prior to the Battle of Yavin.
Re:Death Star (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Death Star (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, they'd probably go get asteroids and use those, and they'd prob
My biggest complaint was the timecode (Score:5, Funny)
this feels like *the* one to watch. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a huge fan, probably not even a fan fullstop, but I find some parts of the movies attractive, and vader is *it*.
Dilema with my Young Kids (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason we had to watch it in our order is obvious, but do the benefits we had in watching the films in that order cascade to the younger generations? What order will people watch them in five or ten years from now?
Re:Dilema with my Young Kids (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dilema with my Young Kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dilema with my Young Kids (Score:5, Informative)
I remember when I was a kid I couldn't watch the carbonite sequence in Empire because I found it too scary and upsetting (I was about 7 or so). Maybe I am just a huge wuss, but the Vader transformation in Ep III would have terrified me for years if I had seen it then. Its horrific.
Just a word of caution.
Amputated Hand: Slice of Continuity (Score:3, Insightful)
Luke immediately resolves to avoid the fate of Darth Vader and turns off his light saber. Luke then looks at the emperor and refuses to join him.
Did George Lucas provide a scene (in "Revenge of the Sith") where Darth Vader's own right hand was sliced off? If the answer is "yes", then Lucas has remained true to the original trilogy.
"Such insight, you have. The first steps to Jedi Knight, you have taken." observers Yoda.
Re:Amputated Hand: Slice of Continuity (Score:4, Insightful)
His hand was sliced off in episode 2 by Dooku, and this fact was used by Palpatine/Sidious to goad Anakin into killing Dooku for purposes of revenge when he had him as an unarmed prisoner!
Perhaps if you actually watched the movies, you could be considered a score above 2 commentor; as is, you trolled some ignorant mods. Good day to you!
Re:What is it about Jedi clothing, anyway? (Score:3, Funny)
"Now, we are going to set this pile of evil ablaze, but because these are children's toys, the fire will spread quickly, so please stand back and try not to inhale the toxic fumes."
I, for one (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew before going in, from what other people told me and from what I read online, that the acting was very bad, to the point of laughing during drama scenes, but I went to see it anyway just for the effects and the lightsaber battles.
Generally speaking I found the lightsaber duels too cluttered, without much definition in each move sequence.
A Darth Maul vs Qui-Gon Jinn style of fight choreography should have been used... IMO it's the best lightsaber duel of them all.
Re:I, for one (Score:3, Insightful)
A Darth Maul vs Qui-Gon Jinn style of fight choreography should have been used... IMO it's the best lightsaber duel of them all.
Yup, me too. And the reason why is that those two duels were done entirely with real people really fighting it out (well, mock-fighting it out). They didn't have tons of CG-animated bodies flipping nad flopping and twirling around and doing super-impossible "only mad
Re:I, for one (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a huge fan as many of you here. Grew up on star wars, saw the first 10 times when I was 7, saw empire 34 times in it's first run, I was obsessed with empire and it is my best movie experience ever. Then I saw Return only once. A part of my childhood died that day. So many things wrong with return, but this is more on the new movie. Well, it's been all downhill ever since.
The only thing that takes me there is during the star wars logo at the beginning and the opening crawl. And I really wanted to believe george got it right this time, but it just ain't so.
Besides the bad dialog, bad acting, and lack luster light saber fights, there is even a problem with the space battles. Just because you can put a million things on screen at once, doesn't mean you should. There are so many things wizzing around, which are way too colourful, and panning and 3d circle arounds etc. You need the grittiness, of the ships just looking grey. You need to subtract about 1000 ships. You need to lock the camera way more.
It reminds of Jaws, Speilburg wanted to use the shark way more but due to technical problems, they had to rely on 'building up' the fear of the shark. Needless to say it was prefect. This is probably the best example of less is more.
Someone needed to beat that lesson, and many other lessons, over george's head. But it's too late now, George shit the bed.
Terrible reviews (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, here's a better one... (Score:4, Funny)
Indeed, this film series (whose art house qualities remind the intellectual filmgoer of the Decalogue in scope, or perhaps a parallel can be best made between Star Wars and the Trois Couleurs Trilogy, in that both series exhibit semi-paradoxical tendencies for the both the surreal and the comic while trying to maintain at least some semblance of the post-modernistic cliche of parallel bereavement and longing for the freudian (or perhaps jungian would be better) other in that the subconscious is always expressed in terms of pseudo-violence, usually directed towards the self but often manifested in the form of senseless destruction against establishment regulation.
It is important to remember this war amongst the stars in these quasi-anthropological terms, for the genesis of such serial work too can have its roots in the experimental (think of the obvious parallels between Return of the Jedi and, say, Man With a Movie Camera). With that in mind, Revenge of the Sith...
Re:Terrible reviews (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought it was more flawed than the original movies for one specific reason. In ROTS, I did not give one flying fuck what happened to any of the characters.
The original movie had some believable characters, clever dialog, and this thing known as emotion that made you care about what happened. You could see a little bit of yourself in their attitudes and situations. As a kid, it made your imagination run wild so that you could daydream about you yourself being in Lucas's beautiful world.
Not so in the prequels. Wooden characters with unbelievable stories reciting shitty dialog by actors unable to sell any of it - and for good reason. Any attempt to humanize the story in the prequels was laughably cheesy. "By God, Jar-Jar sucks. Oh look! A young Anakin single-handedly wiped out an entire fighting force by accident." And in this last movie we're supposed to care about these people? You simply cannot create a decent tragedy without characters worth feeling sorry for. When Anakin was burning up in lava with his limbs missing I did not care. When Padme died in child birth I did not care.
These three movies amount to just one big wasted opportunity.
Re:Terrible reviews (Score:5, Insightful)
And, by the way, want to know my opinion about the movie your handle's namesake is from?
No. Not unless you give rational reasons for disliking it. However, you just call it "trash" without giving any reason why you felt that way. And seeing how you want to defend the Star Wars prequels, of all things, it would take a lot more than that to convince me that any of your opinions on movies are worth much of anything really.
I didn't have high hopes about this but... (Score:4, Interesting)
What annoyed me most was the inconsistancy. There were some moments that linked to the original trillogy rather well - Obi-Wan's "so uncivilised" comment about blasters for instance. But there are other aspects that made no sense.
Chewie and Yoda were apparently aquaintances and yet the Wookie never mentioned this to Han, or if he did, despite the trust between the two of them, Han didn't consider it to be a reason to believe in the Force.
Perhaps more grating however was the death of Padme - it was utterly unnecessary, Vader did not know if she was dead or not and so Palpatine could easily have lied and told him she was. More than that though, it contradicted Leia's recollections in Jedi - where she remembers her "real mother." It has been suggested that she remembers her through the force, but then, why doesn't Luke?
Of course the other irritation with the film was the godawful dialogue. The "no I love you" "no I love you" scenes between Anakin and Padme, Vader lifting his head to the skies and shouting "NOOOOOOO!" Thankfully, Threepio's pun chip does seem to have been removed, and there's a dispute over whether or not Jar Jar spoke at all. (If he did it was only something along the lines of "excuse me")
The effects were great though - aside from the lizard thing.
Re:I didn't have high hopes about this but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I didn't have high hopes about this but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I didn't have high hopes about this but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Definitely agree with you, and more. As you said, it's difficult to tie to Leia's recollection. Her comments would have made more sense, and been more touching yet, if Padme had died of a broken heart just a couple of years later. But that's more of a fanboy nitpick.
The real problem was that it wasn't fair to her character. This is a lady who managed to get elected queen and senator, has been politicking in the Senate for probably ten years, is no pushover, but she die
Re:I didn't have high hopes about this but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not as good as I had hoped (Score:5, Funny)
Totaly redundant spoilers (Score:3)
*Anakin skywalker becomes darth vade
*Anakin/vader is luke and leias father
*luke and leia are twins
*chancilor palpatine is the empiror
*Palpatine is Darth sidious
*Yoda and Obi-wan survive
*Senator Organa adopts leia
*Yoda dosnt kill the empiror
*Alot of jedi get killed
*The republic ends
*Obi-wan beats darth vaderv
*Palpatine is a sith lord
*Amidala is pregnant
Honestly , my faith was restored in lucas after seeing the film , it was honestly a very enjoyable movie
The only bit that bugged me were the romantic scenes which are not really lucas's strong point
the tattered remains of your childhood... (Score:5, Funny)
What has Lucas done to the possibly tattered remains of my childhood?
Yeesh, I'm sick of people bitching that Lucas ruined their childhood fantasies with his subsequent movies.
If a few hours of film constituted the emotional highlight of your childhood, I'd say you have bigger issues to worry about than Lucas or his imaginary universe.
Re:the tattered remains of your childhood... (Score:3, Insightful)
Subsequent experience with treasured childhood movies or shows is always a bad idea. Nothing is as good as it was when we were young.
I used to love Gilligan's Island when I was a child and I think that the shows are utter and irredemable cr*p now.
Does that invalidate my childhood memories? No it doesn't. It just means that I grew up, became a more critical viewer and now demand more depth to my c
No Star Wars review thread would be complete... (Score:3, Informative)
See it dubbed! (Score:5, Interesting)
Most noticeable was the improvement in the scenes with Anakin/Vader, because Jamie is exactly right - Christensen in an awful actor. And much of this awfulness lies in the horribly wooden and monotonous delivery of every single line of dialogue, which means having it replaced by an experienced Spanish voice actor is a real blessing.
But the improvements weren't limited to Anakin's lines, and my theory is that this can be explained by the extreme use of blue/green-screen photography in these films. The actors are used to delivering their lines while at least in some sense being there in the environment of the film's story, and end up floundering when forced to work with the nothingness of a green screen. The voice-actors that do the dubbing, on the other hand, have years and years of experience in putting emotion in their lines without any sort of environment except the recording studio.
Maybe those of you in the right parts of the US can take a trip across the border to Mexico and see it there? Do they even dub films there?
Attention, mods! (Score:3, Interesting)
While the actors had to make their lines before the greenscreen, the voice actors for the dub could see the final mix, and so much better apreciate the situations the characters are in.
Special Effects (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, Palpatine's room had a backplate entirely out of CG, and at times, the room itself changed from a live action plate to a CG plate when him and Yoda were fighting.
I felt a lot of it was just too synthetic. I hate to say this as a VFX artist. It would have been nice to see more sets and a more hands-on approach towards the overall look and feel --It was just too clean.
As another example, when Obi-wan and Anakin are fighting Count Dooku in that room, it was a in a movie set where everything was constructed except the back drop of the space battle. This was a similar set up that they had on Return of the Jedi during the fight between Luke and Anakin.
CG has to have a job of supporting the movie, not making an integration between CG scenes and live action scenes.
Don't get me wrong, I've seen great CG/live integration pieces. However, they were great because they were subtle and supported the concepts and ideas.
Re:Special Effects (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. My biggest beef with the CGI is that IMHO, VFX needs to be used to enhance the story or draw attention to important details. In this movie there is so much CGI/VFX that in many scenes it is distracting from the main story. The giant space battle looked awesome, and it would be fun to watch if the space battle were the story. But the story was
(Spoilers herein) Wrong order (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not have put the confrontation between Anakin and Obi wan earlier in the movie, perhaps having him not turn, but flee after killing Mace (Sam Jackson's character). Then Obi wan and him fight, producing a similar result as in the movie. Then perhaps having him storm the Jedi temple as the robotic darth vader from the other movies? It would have been a lot more believable if they had kept him away from being a mass murderer until he was burned and behind the famous mask. It also would have been bad ass seeing darth vader from the original trilogy storming in front of an army of storm troopers.
Re:(Spoilers herein) Wrong order (Score:4, Informative)
Seeing Darth Vader doing it would have just been 'eh, yea, figures'
Re:(Spoilers herein) Wrong order (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:(Spoilers herein) Wrong order (Score:3, Interesting)
But then again, I'm not the one that's obscenely rich, here.
Padme's death (Score:4, Funny)
Anyone ELSE see this in SPANISH? (Score:3, Insightful)
It wasn't bad. I didn't see too much of the crappy dialogue and acting that everyone's griping about.
So, anyone ELSE see this in Spanish here? Am I just not good enough at understanding Spanish yet to be totally let down by this movie? Further more, I'm HAPPY with episode III -- will I be totally let down if I see it in English???
SW & Political Commentary (Score:3)
The two lines that are quoted by the media are:
Padme: "So, this is how liberty dies;" and later in the film
Vader: "If you are not with me, you are my enemy."
Fine, while I fail to see, especially given the context of its place in the film, how the first line as a commentary on Bush. I can see that it is very quotable. The second line is really unmissable as a parody of the infamous, "With us or against us" Bush line.
But, I want to note that the movie's only voice of tolerance and relativism was Palpatine, advising Anakin that the only way to be truly great is to understand all aspects of the Force! That is multi-culturalism right there.
So, here we have the Emperor giving the traditional Democratic view of things and Vader dropping the Bush parody lines. I thought both the Emperor and Vader were evil. I am very confused about exactly what political commentary Lucas is making. I can only assume that one of two conclusions is true, either, (a) Lucas is totally inept at political commentary, or (b) the Media critics are projecting their own emotions on to the film, i.e. the film is acting like a Rorschach test.
Either way, I'd really appreciate it both Lucas, the media, and anyone else leave their Damn political opinions off my entertainment.
Maybe the political arguments would have held more water is Lucas had taken the trouble to give the Sith and Jedi an constant philosophy through out the films and between characters. But, as nice as the feeling of the Jedi/Sith philosophies are they are just too inconsistent to withstand close scrutiny. Which is why is is better to just enjoy the movies than study them like they are the Torah.
However, the funniest political commentary on the film comes from this guy who sees the Jedi council as the Catholic Church [punditguy.com]. Whatever...
SyntheticLife [syntheticlife.com], meanwhile, gives the guy who sat next to him a pretty harsh review: "I would've said something but then I got scared when he started talking to the characters in the movie."
Other problems... Spoiler-laced of course (Score:3, Insightful)
SPOILERS
1. 3PO and R2 have their memory wiped. Fine, but how does that explain that Vader doesn't exclaim upon first seeing the droids in the 2nd trilogy "3PO! R2! I remember you two!" It's not like they even changed their names so they could start 'fresh' in their lives as androids.
2. Luke and Leia are born and the grand idea to protect them is... drumroll please! a) place one in a senator's family, close to the Emperor and one would expect, Vader as well, and b) place the other with the only remaining living relatives of the Skywalker clan. Vader, given the 20 years or so that will pass, he will *never* visit his home planet during all that time, eh? To visit his mother's grave, see how his half-brother is doing, etc.?
3. Padme dies of a 'broken heart'? The first 2 movies let her demonstrate the qualities that her future daughter will possess: she's basically a strong-minded and smart young woman. Yet RotS demotes her to the cliche of weak-hearted wife that can't live without her husband's love. WTF?
4. Yoda 'failed'? How did he fail? What occurred during his battle with the Emperor that made him have to run? Surely he could've attacked again? You would think with the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance, he would have tried to get the Emperor while his defenses were down, busy trying to placate the Senate as he wrapped up his plan of domination.
5. What exactly compelled Yoda and Obi to go into exile? As far as they know, they are matched up quite well. Emperor and Vader to Yoda and Obi. So go run and regroup... but wait until the kids are grown? The kids are safe, they would have you believe... And as Obi already knows, Vader, as a young Lord of the Sith, makes brash mistakes (e.g. getting all his limbs chopped off) when he lets his temper get the best of him. Even the Emperor gets his ass handed to him by Mace Windu, it's only Anakin's surprise intervention that shifted the scales then. So why wait while the Emperor has all those years to train Vader?
The point is not to say these are problems that couldn't be solved, but indeed that they COULD HAVE been explained, but for some reason Lucas did not. Padme could indeed have been mortally wounded by Vader, Yoda as well, and a danger could have enveloped the remaining Jedi, thereby forcing them to leave and go into exile, and bury their 'force' fields in order to save innocent humans, etc.
But even further, there are other elements in this final movie that just make me so frustrated. The gravitas of the whole storyline is FINALLY hinted at, never mind with the Williams' score, but in the actual acting! Yoda, even as a CG actor, showed much more deep thought (gone are the simple platitudes that he was spouting back in 1 and 2) than practically any other actor in this film. And during the climactic lava battle, we're finally shown a Jedi's declaration of love for another, as Obi Wan, finally realizing that Anakin must die/is already dead, tells him that he loved him. Where was that during 1 and 2? Where was ANY counter to Anakin's angst that we all whined about in 2? Surely Anakin's cheese is all the cheesier when it's in a vacuum. With Obi expressing his fondness for his 'brother' it doesn't seem so 'cold' this land of Jedi. Even if it's *against* the rules for a Jedi to show emotion or grow attached, that Lucas could never (or chose not to) let us see beneath Obi's frosty mentor exterior and see how much he cared for Anakin, it's a crime that robbed the movies of the depth they were sorely lacking.
The surprising thing, I think for many of us long-time SW geeks, is that even with all the above, this movie still kicked 1&2's ass. I give it an 8 out of 10. With Empire a solid 10.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
The Biggest Inconsistancy (Score:5, Funny)
LUKE: Leia... do you remember your mother? Your real mother?
LEIA: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.
LUKE: What do you remember?
LEIA: Just...images, really. Feelings.
LUKE: Tell me.
LEIA: She was very beautiful. Kind, but...sad.
So, let's see. Very young. Check. Can't remember words or anything specific. Check. However Obi-wan's dialogue is a bit more problematic:
OBI-WAN: When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible. So I took you to live with my brother Owen on Tatooine... and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan.
Where to begin? How about Anakin knowing very early on and oh how about that bit about Leia taking Leia to Alderaan. Now THAT's a problem.
However, to look at this and see that as the overriding point of the trilogy is to miss the point: the one critical mistake that could've averted Anakin's fall and the empire's rise. He didn't use a condom. If Padme/Anakin had used proper birth control, Luke/Leia wouldn't have been born but more importantly Anakin would have lost his biggest motivation to go to the dark side.
So remember kids, for the sake of the galaxy, use proper contraception.
A note or two of my own... (Score:4, Interesting)
There are two things to remember when watching any of these films:
1) They are not Science Fiction
2) They are not the uber-cerebral life-changing movies you thought they were when you were a kid (and they never were).
Ok, those said, I think a pinch or two of salt should be added to your cinematic experience. Sure the dialog is wooden and contrived--if not corny. So is the acting & dialogue on anything found on the Sci-Fi channel, Bab5, Star Trek, Battle Star Galactica. Every one of those shows are cheesy but all the geeks seem to like them anyway. Why should SWEP3 be any different?
Lucas calls them "Space Operas" --and if you're familiar with that genre, you know that opera's stories and motivations require an extended suspension of disbelief. You just go with it.
Because all of the technology and theory in Star Wars isn't really explained, it just happens to take place in a galaxy far, far away, it gets lumped into SciFi genre. SciFi is a bit more satisfying to the "geek" types. But, Star Wars really doesn't quite fit into that category despite it's cover.
Hayden Christianson definitely comes off as a poor actor--or he isn't given very good direction to bring more dimension to his character. How was he in "Shattered Glass"? I think dialog and direction can make or break a good performance. Maybe if Lucas let someone else direct, it might have worked better.
I was blown away by the eye candy and I think it sets up the next film fine. I'm going to overlook some of the incontinuity others are finding just because I have more important things in life to bitch about. Afterall, it's just a movie, isn't it?
If you're a detail-oriented person, you'll probably be very frustrated. If you just like an entertaining, mind-blowing ride through Lucas's world, you'll probably enjoy it.
For whatever my $.02 is worth.
Yoda... (Score:4, Funny)
Not bad but hardly great (Score:5, Interesting)
Anakin's path to the Dark Side just isn't believable. He goes from being confused and petulent in the morning to killing little children in the evening? Based on what? Certainly not the limited dialogue and character development we see on screen.
His reasoning for wanting to save Padme isn't explored enough. Hell Lucas could have just been a little more concrete and gien Padme a medical condition that *would* have killed her in childbirth. That would have been more believable than a dream that Aniken has.
The main problem really is that Lucas doesn't have the writing nor the directorial skills to explore this type of emotional material. His actors are always wooden and deliver really badly written lines with flat performances. This movie is no exception and its no surprise that the path from Aniken to Darth vader just isn't believable.
The movie looks nice but Lucas should stick to pulp sci-fi and avoid anything than hints of emotion or depth
Not bad acting (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is with the directing. Lucas seems to MAKE them do such a bad job.
Elsewhere in the posts there is discusson about how good the Spanish version is compared to the English version. I'm sure that was because the voice actors didn't have Lucas directing them.
Does anyone know why the acting is so bad in 1-3 and decent to good in 4-6? What made him go this route?
Re:But where did you watch it? (Score:5, Funny)
They closed them all. The MPAA couldn't afford the upkeep because nobody is paying to see movies anymore.
Re:But where did you watch it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Prepare to be flamed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Prepare to be flamed (Score:5, Insightful)
Effects rating
Episode I looked fairly realistic most of the time. While Jar-jar was an unpopular character, he was rendered fairly well most of the time. The biggest weakness was that the CGI was perhaps a little to sparse and too uniform. The battle-droid "pez dispenser" scene in particular didn't look quite right.
Episode II was a complete mess. Shot composition and cinematography were simply discarded and ignored in favor of making things look "high tech." The cartoon shots of Tokyo in "Ghost in the Shell" looked more realistic, and certainly less distracting from the main action. There were a lot of shots which simply could not have been done with stop-animation or puppets or other techniques, but it seems like they were done that way for no other reason.
Episode III... From the opening battle scene in the very beginning, I think you will agree that this time Lucas finally got it right. He begins with a nice close-up of a couple fighters skimming the surface of a larger ship, so when the "camera" pans back you have a much better sense of scale. (He also included one of those robot controller satellites in the shot, which not only helped the eye grasp the scale of the shot, but also reminded the viewer who they were fighting against.) Later scenes in other landscapes were also fantastic. At no point while watching the movie for the first time was I suddenly reminded that I was watching CGI characters or backgrounds.
Story review
God, what a fuck-up.
One of the things that made Star Wars so cool was that Lucas decided to make it feel like a 1930's 15-minute serial, in which most of the audience was not likely to have seen the beginning of the story. He wanted it to "come in at the middle", so he wrote an elaborate back-story which he never seriously thought he would get to film.
Having that untold back-story made the entire world seem bigger and more well thought-out.
When making Episodes 1-3, he did not have benefit of all that extra story, and it really shows.
Also, all the precious little inbred tie-ins to the the original series (C3PO was built by Anakin, "Red Five" was Obi-Wan's call sign, Chewbaca fought along with Yoda, etc. etc. etc.) were really tiresome, and had the impact of making what should have been a large-scale saga about a galactic struggle of mighty armies turn into a story where the fate of all civilizations for two entire generations were married to the actions of the same small small handful of people, many of whom were directly related.
Would it have hurt the story to have had Mace Windu (or some other Jedi) be the one who discovers the clone factory in Ep 2, instead of Obi-Wan being the only Jedi who ever does anything that matters? Did it really need to be Boba Fett's dad who was the genetic source of the clones? Did Chewie really need to be in the Wookie battle scene at all?
Why did Lucas think that all of these little "wink wink" connections would make the films more entertaing? If anything, they guarantee that children down the road who watch these films in 1-6 order will not enjoy 4-6 half as much as we did.
Re:Prepare to be flamed (Score:5, Insightful)
You miss the point of the entire Prequel Trilogy. It is the backstory to the Original Trilogy, not just the story that came before the Original Trilogy.
Why is Boba Fett from the original trilogy the best bounty hunter in the galaxy? His dad was once the greatest; he happened to be chosen to be a source for clones.
Why is Obi-Wan depicted in the original trilogy to be one of the best Jedi; what accomplishments led him to this title? Back in the day, he did this, that, and some of those things.
Why is Chewie a famous wookie? He fought hard back in the Battle of Kashyyyk, his name known all around.
Why did Lucas think that all of these little "wink wink" connections would make the films more entertaing?
They are the connections that tell us why we love the characters from the original trilogy so much: the Prequel Trilogy is their story.
Re:Zero psychological insight. (Score:4, Insightful)
And of course in the end, that fear betrays even his love. It's so much more powerful and ironic that Sidious is able use that failure to more tightly bind Vader to him.
And of course, in the "real world", we've all see what happens when you make powerful people and nations afraid. Scare a powerful group enough and everyone within reach gets crapped on, but of course some people just can't resist poking the tigers with a stick. When that happens, it may be better to stay out of the tigers way for a while. Lucas knows this...
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't seem to think art needs to be good, you don't think it's important whether or not it's a positive or negative contribution to American culture, and you apparently think we should stop thinking so hard with our brains and just watch what whatever a commercial can convince us (or our friends) looks cool.
If you don't think that art should aspire to greatness, or that people should view it from a critical or inquisitive state of mind, and collectively push our culture towards more inspiring and meaningful works, then maybe you should just watch Survivor? Or maybe you'd like to play with this keychain? They shine in the light....*jingles keys*
Or maybe you don't "give a flying fuck" because our entertainment culture is so dismal that calling it art is almost instinctively difficult to accept. I would agree if movies and television didn't hold so much potential, but they do, and so standards are important. It's difficult to take them seriously without imagining that it's somehow comparable to a tall slender man is standing in an art gallery, dressed in black with a goatee and non-prescription eyewear, pondering the significance of a pile of shit on a pedestal in front of him. Now maybe you missed Kangaroo Jack or the thousands of equally shitty productions out there that we call works of creativity, but either the implications of our particular pile of shit are of concern to you, or they are not. But you can't really argue that they shouldn't be.