Review: Revenge of the Sith
Well, the hopes I had for Star Wars III came to very little. It was pretty, that was good. I've avoided ranting about it elsewhere, but I really think that Lucas lost the plot completely and possibly literally. There are spoilers hereafter, so read on in caution.
First and foremost, the movie would have been far better without all the bits where the actors were talking - the dialogue was absolutely abysmal. Second, the actors had clearly given up trying. There were the overdone motifs. And then, then you get to the plot holes and the lack of continuity. And those were absolutely, unforgivably dire.
The main plot hole is that Anakin takes the words of Palpatine at face value. He knows Palpatine is evil. He even turns him in to the Council on that basis. And yet, he trusts him when he says that the Sith have the power to prevent death.
The secondary plot hole is that the Jedi council can be around Palpatine for decades, and not sense anything in him. The phrase "The Force is strong in this one" mean anything to anyone? It's definitely an established Jedi ability in the original trilogy to sense the Force in other people.
That leads into continuity. So, in the 18 years that Luke takes to grow up (as much as he does, anyway), Chewbacca - and the rest of the galaxy - have completely forgotten the Jedi? And after his centuries-in-a-moment thing, the Emperor doesn't age a single day over that time? And it takes 18 years to construct the first Death Star, and how long for the next? And Vader never asks where Padme's body is - or doesn't notice the records of the huge state funeral where she's clearly not pregnant? And while I know R2D2 is a stubborn little machine, he could have been a bit more helpful to Luke, given that he saw everything happen to Anakin.
And those motifs! If I saw one more hand cut off, or one more person hanging over a huge drop by one hand, I might have started to cry.
And then there's plain old suspension of disbelief. The ship that Anakin and Obi-wan "rescue" the Chancellor from has the most impractical artificial gravity ever, which always points toward the surface of the planet below, no matter what the ship does. That's got to be uncomfortable in flight. And speaking of that ship, was that the worst place possible to place the bridge of a warship, or what?
It looks like long ago, in a galaxy far away, there was air in space, too. It carries noises, and aerodynamic ships bank and turn in it. And while they had incredible amounts of high-tech gear, mobile communications and birth control were beyond them. Droids need to speak Galactic Standard to each other too, it seems - isn't that a bit of a waste of processing power?
In short, Revenge of the Sith pissed me off to a degree that no film since the remake of Planet of the Apes has. Lucas, if he ever had it, has clearly not got it any more.
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Posted by Drew Shiel at May 31, 2005 1:13 PM
