Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
| Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | George Lucas |
| Produced by | Rick "Denser Than Ever Before" McCallum |
| Written by | George Lucas |
| Starring | A Hollywood Prettyboy Whose Acting Career Barely Existed Before or After the Release of This Movie Ewan McGregor Wasn't She in Léon: The Professional? Oh, and SHE DIES Alright, He's Darth Sidious Samuel L. Jackson DIES Christopher Lee ALSO DIES Antwan Danyells A Midget Frank Oz |
| Music by | John Williams |
| Cinematography | Chewbacca |
| Edited by | Ben Burtt, who stepped up his editing game here and made things a bit tighter than the previous prequels |
| Distributed by | Lucasfilm |
Release date | May 19, 2005 |
Running time | 140 minutes, though it was originally four hours (seriously) |
| Country | Mustafar |
| Language | Aurebesh |
| Budget | $113 million, most of which was spent on special effects rather than writing |
| Box office | More than Batman Begins, less than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire |
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film directed by George Lucas. It is the sixth and final film released in the Star Wars saga, the third of the prequels, the third in terms of the series' internal chronology, and the second in terms of everyone finally admitting that the series had lost it.
Set in 19 BBY,[1] three years after the woodenly-acted onset of the Clone Wars, the film follows the war's final week. The Jedi Knights are spread thin across the galaxy leading a massive disposable Clone Army in the war against the Separatists and their even-more-disposable Droid Army. Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi is dispatched to eliminate the asthmatic General Grievous and end the war. With no master around to coddle him, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker grows close to Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, who is, unbeknownst to the public, the cackling Sith Lord Darth Sidious. With some string-pulling by Sheev, Anakin succumbs to his teen hormones and turns to the dark side, putting the Jedi Order, the Galactic Republic, the galaxy, Anakin's wife Padmé Amidala, and even Anakin himself in deep shit (or deep soot, to be precise).
For Revenge of the Sith, Lucas wanted to finish the Star Wars saga with a bang, and give viewers something with the coolest Jedi action, the slickest CGI, the most over-choreographed lightsaber duels, and the biggest explosions this side of Michael Bay. Oh, and he also wanted it to tie-in with the original trilogy. Unfortunately, he forgot to re-watch the films he himself created, resulting in plotholes such as Princess Leia remembering her mother despite her dying 20 seconds after she was born, but none of the other familiar faces that were present.[2] Everyone always assumed Leia was the smart one of the bunch, but who knew she had a photographic memory and remembered her own infancy?
Revenge of the Sith received decent reviews from critics, which compared to the previous two films seemed like glowing praise. It broke several box office records during its opening week and went on to earn over $1138 million worldwide. It is the fourth highest-grossing film in the Star Wars franchise, unadjusted for inflation (of George Lucas's ego).
Plot[edit | edit source]
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
STAR WARS
EPISODE III
REVENGE OF THE SITH
War! What is it good for? The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Cunt Dooku. There are heroes on both sides, even though everyone on the Dark side is a massive prick. Evil is everywhere, like in a haunted house's hall of mirrors.
In a stunning move, the asthmatic droid leader, General Grievous, has coughed out Separatist dust into the Republic capital and inhaled Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.
As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor...
Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his former boyfriend apprentice Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker are sent on a mission to rescue Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, who has been kidnapped very easily[3] by Sith Lord Count Dooku and Separatist leader/portable dialysis machine General Grievous in a last ditch move, and is being held aboard the Separatists' Battleship Potemkin orbiting Coruscant. When the Jedi find the captive Chancellor, Dooku engages them both in a duel; Obi-Wan is rendered unconscious by Dooku, but Anakin defeats the Sith Lord by slicing off both his hands. With persuading and instruction from Sheev on how to properly vanquish a vampire, Anakin then chops off the defenseless Count's head, a violation of the Jedi Code, as well as an indication of being a complete psychopath. Sheev suspiciously tells Anakin to leave Obi-Wan because they are in immediate danger and have to go right now, but Anakin carries him anyway in a rare act of selflessness. During their escape, the three are trapped in a ray-shield; Obi-Wan questions how they let this happen, knowing they're smarter than this.
The prisoners are taken by droids up to the ship's bridge, where they meet General Grievous,[4] who is shorter than Anakin expected. He attempts to add the Jedi's lightsabers to his collection, but they Force-pull their lightsabers out from his cape and use them to break off their handcuffs. Grievous huffs and puffs, and sends his bo-staffed MagnaGuards on a good ol' fight with Obi-Wan and Anakin, which they make short work of. With one decisive move, Grievous coughs up a storm and accidentally blows a hole in his own ship, which begins to fall out of orbit and enter Coruscant's atmosphere. The Jedi try to apprehend the General, but Grievous twirls his mustache, says "I'll get you next time, Jedi scum!", and uses a leftover MagnaGuard staff to break open the bridge's window, which gets him sucked out into space by gravity. He then uses a grappling hook attached to his wrist (that he never uses again) to get back onto the ship, and maniacally laughs and wheezes while jumping into an escape pod. After airlocking the broken window, and getting assistance from clone firefighters who extinguish the ship's flames, Anakin manages to rockily land the half-broken Battleship Potemkin on an airstrip, but accidentally knocks over the control tower killing the control room worker Johnny.
After another happy landing, the three are greeted by a welcoming of senators, where they are told the Clone Wars must go on until the threat of a bunch of secessionists wanting to be left alone is no more. In the shadows of the Senate rotunda, Anakin sees his secret wife Padmé Amidala for the first time after five months away at war; she thought he was dead and now she's pregnant. Anakin then proceeds to complain how the Jedi won't let them be together, and although he's given his life to them, he'd only give his death to her — even though his life has been one of potentially dying all the time in service of his faith's teachings ever since he was nine. Later that night, Anakin becomes troubled by prophetic dreams of Padmé dying in childbirth, like that time when he had those prophetic dreams of his mother being savagely murdered by a tribe of Sand People, who Anakin then slaughtered like animals. He promises to Padmé that this will never happen, which of course sets it up to happen.
The Jedi are informed that Anakin will now serve as Palpatine's eyes, ears, and voice on the Jedi Council, which now reports directly to him, like the supreme military commander of some kind of executive branch. However, the Jedi view this as a power grab that's more like if the Catholic Church had to take orders on how to run their religion from JFK, as Sheev tells Anakin that the Jedi cabal is out to get him. Anakin returns to his whiny roots and becomes angry at the Council for not granting him the rank of Master, even after they begrudgingly let him sit with them during meetings. Anakin's close friendship with the Chancellor also arouses suspicion among the Council, so they try to move the shoe over to the other foot and ask Anakin to spy on Sheev, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Padmé too has been pulling in overtime at her job, as she and Senator Basil Oregano Bail Organa form the beginnings of the Rebel Alliance, an underground political opposition party tied to protest movements growing on college campuses across the Republic.
While attending a night at the opera, specifically held for heads of state trying not to get assassinated during a civil war after imposing "draconian security measures", Palpatine tells Anakin a fairytale about a Sith Lord named Darth Geppetto-Plagueis who had the ability to create life — like plagues, one could imagine, were that someone as genius as those meddlesome child detective Younglings who told Obi-Wan that Kamino was deleted from the archives. "He",[big fat lie] being this totally real person who Sheev didn't just make up, could even use the power of the dark side to stop people from dying, like through some Frankenstein science or becoming the Sith Grim Reaper or something — all decent enough explanations, none of which the other Sith appear to have any access to, or else they would be immortal and wouldn't need apprentices.
Obi-Wan is transferred to confront General Grievous on Utapau, a sinkhole world whose dinosaurs never went extinct and have feathers, unlike those dinosaur knockoffs at Jurassic Park. Elsewhere, things are bad in the jungles of Kashyyyk, an Outer Rim colony torn by civil war between the two blocks of the godless Trade Federation, and the Republic. When Master Ki-Adi-Mundi randomly blurts out "What about the droid attack on the wookiees?" during a Council meeting, the Jedi generals decide they need to deploy a WMD in the form of Grand Master Yoda deep in the jungles of Southeast Space Asia, as popular opposition to the war continues to grow at home. After sneaking into Utapau's Separatist encampment, Obi-Wan announces his presence rather than wait for reinforcements to arrive, leaping down from the shadowy rafters into a circle of battle droids where he challenges General Grievous to a gentleman's duel. His Kaleesh honor unable to refuse such a request, the asthmatic general takes off his cape, splitting his two cyborg arms into four and unraveling his lightsabers, and marches ten paces before Obi-Wan takes off his arms. After clone reinforcements arrive, Grievous flees, and Officer Obi-Wan engages in a high-speed chase between his giant lizard and the general's dorky wheelbike. He eventually pulls Grievous over on the edge of a cliff and kills him by shooting that poison arrow blaster through his heart, in a fashion so uncivilized.[5]
With Obi-Wan on the opposite end of the galaxy, Palpatine reveals himself as Darth Sidious (Dun! Dun! Dun!) to Anakin (Dum! Dum! Dum!), and tells little orphan Ani that if they work together, they can save Padmé's life somehow;[6] Anakin rejects the kindly old man's offer of a shoulder to whine on and snitches him out to Motherfucking Jedi Master Mace Windu, at no point considering he could just torture the information he needs out of the Sith Lord. Officer Windu decides Sheev needs to be stopped, but not until after his lunch break. Overnight, Windu goes with three other Unidentified Jedi Council members to apprehend the Chancellor, having suspended Habeas corpus.[7] Sheev says "It's treason, then," a statement thin as his permaglass window, then spontaneously pulls a lightsaber out of his cloak sleeve and does the Sheev Spin toward the Jedi while screaming like a banshee. A poorly-choreographed duel occurs, where the other three Jedi somehow die quickly (despite supposedly being "Masters") but Mace holds his own. The duel takes the Dark Lord and the dark-skinned over to a window, where Mace manages to knock Sheev's lightsaber away and corner him.
In Padmé's apartment, Anakin begins weeping and becomes instantly convinced that only with the power of the dark side could he save her life, his lifetime as a monk preparing him to believe anything on pure faith alone and with no actual evidence. He darts back to Palpatine's office, where Mace has the old man at a standstill. Sheev shoots Force lightning at Mace which he deflects back, causing Sheev's face to inexplicably turn deformed.[8] Rather than simply grabbing Mace's arm, Anakin chops it off to prevent him from killing Sheev, who then electrifies Windu and throws him out the window[9] whilst shouting "POWAH! UNLIMITED POWAH!!!".[10] Through persuasive, polysyllabic, strangely suggestive dialogue — unheard of in any other Star Wars film — Sheev convinces Anakin that he is "not a crook" and it's the Jedi who control everything, knighting him as his Sith apprentice, Darth Vader. He then sends Anakin and a legion of clones to kill all the Younglings in the Jedi Temple, with "Eye of the Tiger" playing as he marches up the steps; never again will those meddling Younglings and their talking green cat figure out Sheev's obvious plots, as the Night of the Short Lightsabers begins.
Palpatine then issues Order 66, directing clone troopers to massacre their Jedi generals. On Kashyyyk, Yoda realizes the apocalypse is now and is nearly fragged by some of the enlisted clone soldiers, who had become disgruntled that they were drafted from birth and disillusioned by the Republic's colonialism.[11] Wookiee guerrilla fighters Tarfful and Chewbacca get Yoda to the chopper, through the sounds of full-metal battle droids firing lasers and the smell of napalm-burning forests, and the audience feels the terror of war as they are horrified that at any moment young orphaned Han Solo is going to show up around a corner and bless everyone with a happy Life Day. On Utapau, Obi-Wan, being one of the few Jedi with any resourcefulness or initiative, survives the clones' attempt on his life and escapes by stealing Grievous's starfighter, then meets with Senator Bail Organa and Yoda aboard Organa's ship, the Tantive IV.
Palpatine sends Anakin to the lava/Chroma key planet Mustafar, where the remaining Separatist leaders foolishly chose to hide in a mining facility instead of their mostly-finished, if a bit under-furnished, secret Death Star construction site, or remain in separate locations to ensure a continuity of government. Anakin massacres the Separatists, who foolishly chose to be guarded by low-quality battle droids and do nothing but plead forgiveness when confronted, effectively ending the war. Sheev then addresses the Senate, transforming the Republic into an Evil Empire and declaring himself Emperor 4 Lyfe while donning stylish maroon robes that he only wears in this one scene, thus causing liberty to die with thunderous applause. More impressive even than getting them to approve a super-soldier slave army, he gets the Senate to accept the Youngling massacre as a cult mass suicide during a botched raid on their compound.
Obi-Wan and Yoda return to Coruscant, where they discover that every Jedi in the Jedi Temple has been murdered, even the Younglings — Who will solve their mysteries for them now? — but thankfully, the clones were nice enough to mop up the blood and ashes before they left. Obi-Wan sends a beacon to all Jedi, instructing them to scatter across the galaxy and remain in hiding, which presumably fails seeing as they're already dead. A heartbroken Obi-Wan then watches a security video revealing Anakin as the assassin and child-killing SOB. Him and Yoda agree to split up and confront the two Sith Lords: Obi-Wan to fight Darth Vader and Yoda to battle Darth Sidious in a classic samurai Jedi stand-off. Obi-Wan wishes to fight Sidious to avoid having to kill his best friend,[12] but Yoda insists that Obi-Wan is not strong enough to fight Sidious and would just get in the way, and he would have to accept that Anakin had been "by Darth Vader, consumed." Yoda then reminds Obi-Wan of all the times Anakin bitched at him, and how they probably should've seen this day coming when he went all Vietnam on those poor Sand People; Obi-Wan now realizes what must be done, having just read Old Yeller at the Jedi Archives.
Unaware of his former Padawan's location, Obi-Wan visits Padmé and explains to her Anakin's rap sheet. Padmé, being naturally blonde with dyed brown hair, refuses to believe him, and will not reveal Anakin's whereabouts, knowing that Obi-Wan will kill her husband. Before departing, Obi-Wan tells Padmé that he knows Anakin is the father of her unborn child, as he can sense an entire world exploding like a million miles away, not to mention the size of her stomach in her third trimester and the fact that he's not blind. Father Obi-Wan then chastises both of them for not using a condom in this advanced technological age. Padmé sets out to Mustafar to confront Anakin herself, while Obi-Wan secretly stows away in her ship.
Arriving on the blunt metaphor world of Mustafar, Padmé confronts Anakin and realizes with horror that Obi-Wan had been telling the truth: condoms really are easily available. When Obi-Wan steps out of his ride, Anakin acts like a paranoid gangster seeing his girl cruising around with another guy, immediately suspecting that Padmé brought Obi-Wan here to kill him. Angered, he Force-chokes her into unconsciousness like a Sith pimp, earning that PG-13 for sci-fi fantasy domestic violence. Anakin says to Obi-Wan, "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," a statement deep like a lava pit, and Obi-Wan responds, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes"[13] — which in itself would be an absolute, but nevermind George; that line was genius, like poetry. The two then engage in a highly-choreographed wrist-twirling lightsaber duel, deftly hitting each other's glowsticks instead of each other. They pass studio backlots, sets with greenscreens, sets with bluescreens, and even a set with redscreens.
This time around George chooses to focus on two climactic final battles, like in The Empire Strikes Back (instead of the one in Clones and Hope, three in Jedi, or four in Phantom), cutting between Obi-Wan and Anakin in a video game platformer and Yoda and Palpatine throwing Senate seats at each other like Washington power brokers. Yoda informs Sheev that Mace Windu was wearing a wire and the Jedi have the secret tapes of his administration's corruption — just kidding, the green religious nutjob tries to attack the democratically-elected leader of the free world with no evidence. Unfortunately, Yoda ultimately suffers a fall like many 877-year-olds, and Sheev levels up from the fight from Space Nixon-level to Space Hitler. Back on Mustafar, after fifteen minutes of two men jumping around platforms and twirling their toy laser swords at each other, Obi-Wan jumps atop a hill and says to Anakin that he "has the high ground," both literally and metaphorically. Anakin, in his arrogance, jumps up to Obi-Wan but gets his legs and left arm sliced off before he even touches the ground — and in a double-whammy, tumbles down near the lava bank, where he gets the shit burned out of him. Rather than mercy-killing his former friend, Obi-Wan cruelly lets him suffer in agonizing pain out of spite. He then takes Anakin's lightsaber, reciting a Jedi mantra of compassion and brotherly love over his apprentice's tortured screams, and returns to the ship.
Obi-Wan and Yoda watch as Padmé bears her offsping, which turns out not to be one child but instead twins.[14] Her robo-doc says that her "will to live" has run out, and she dies (huh?). Meanwhile, Anakin, using his cybernetic right arm to claw himself out of the lava, lingers on long enough to be rescued by Palpatine, who rebuilds him as a black armor-clad samurai cyborg, completing his transformation into Darth Vader. This epic sci-fi moment, much-anticipated by fans and once considered impossible to make lame, is somehow ruined by George Lucas, as when Vader is told his wife is dead, he throws out his arms and shouts:
| “ | NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! | ” |
Luke is to be taken to his Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen on Tatooine,[15] as Vader would never look there because it's covered with rough, coarse, irritating sand that gets everywhere. It is there that Obi-Wan, hoping Vader had forgotten about his only living relatives, will look after the boy in secret — rather than train him from a young age to be a Jedi like all those other kids, say somewhere a little less obvious. Leia gets a cushier life, and is adopted by Senator Bail Organa and his wife Queen Breha of Alderaan. Yoda bids farewell to Obi-Wan and tells him that he has more work for him: the spirit of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan's old master, will teach his former Padawan how to become a Force Ghost after death. This will allow them to go on the run from the law in a buddy cop supernatural thriller, setting up the potential spinoff Episode I Part II: A Star Wars Side-Story, as well as possible cameos for the next trilogy. Having failed to defeat Sidious, and effectively losing society's faith in the Force pretty much overnight by dooming the galaxy, Yoda exiles himself to the dreary swamp planet of Dagobah, blending into a middle-class neighborhood of swamp monsters as part of the witness protection program.
Vader, Palpatine, and Grand Moff Tarkin oversee construction of the Death Star, kindly left in mint condition for them by the Confederacy of Idiotic Shitheads, who had seriously underestimated the number of decades it would take them to make their superweapon into anything more than just a moon-sized bunker.[16] The film ends as Obi-Wan gives Luke to his stepfamily and rides off into the binary sunset, content to live the rest of his life drinking heavily in a sand-igloo, trying to forget.
Cast and characters[edit | edit source]
- A Hollywood Prettyboy Whose Acting Career Barely Existed Before or After the Release of This Movie as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: Now a full-fledged Jedi Knight, Anakin has become less of an irritant than he was in Attack of the Clones. Possibly sometime in-between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan gave him that long overdue slap. However, this doesn't last long, as Anakin turns to the dark side and transforms into Darth Vader.
- Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi: Now a Master on the Jedi Council and a general in the Republic Army. He remains Anakin's partner, and the two have become war heroes and best friends. But as mentioned before, this doesn't last long.
- Wasn't She in Léon: The Professional? as Padmé Amidala: A senator of Naboo and Anakin's secret wife — up until he throws a tantrum and Force-chokes her to death.
- Ian McDiarmid as Sheev Palpatine/Alright, He's Darth Sidious: The calm, reserved Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, who is secretly the campy, bombastic Sith Lord Darth Sidious. With the help of Jar Jar Binks, he obtained vast emergency powers, effectively turning him into Space-Hitler.
- Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu: A Jedi Master who gets electrocuted and thrown out a window by Palpatine.
- Christopher Lee as Count Dooku/Darth Tyrannus: A Sith Lord who dies within the first 20 minutes of the movie.
- Lucasfilm Sound Editor THX #1138 as General Grievous: The latest line of cybernetic combat blenders from Trade Federation consumer products, the people who brought you toaster-headed battle droids.
- Antwan Danyells as C-3PO: Padmé's gold-plated protocol droid, who doesn't do much other than say "I feel so helpless" and "Oh no!"
- A Midget as R2-D2: Anakin's astromech droid who doesn't really do anything, other than zap a few buzz droids in a cutesy fashion, or coat super battle droids in gasoline and set them on fire with rocket boosters that, again, he doesn't have in the original trilogy.
- Frank, the Wizard of Oz as Yoda: A green midget who, as was the case in Attack of the Clones, jumps and flips around with his lightsaber as though it's "cool", contradicting his characterization in the original trilogy where he valued spiritual combat over flashy physical combat.
Production[edit | edit source]
Ignoring major plot holes set up within the previous episodes, such as those detailing the mystery of who erased the planet Kamino from the Jedi Archives, who Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas was, or who Anakin's "father" was, Lucas instead turned to a more cerebral story. In an interview, Lucas stated that it was his intent to make the final prequel movie more like My Dinner with Andre, but with the two hours of introspective dialogue on the human condition replaced with two-and-a-half hours of CGI explosions, embarrassing "romantic monologues", and the infamous and widely-derided "Do not want" scene where Darth Vader discovers that in his temper tantrum, he was complicit in the death of his beloved Padmé.
Among the most drastic decisions made during post-production was the selection of the ending sequence. In the original ending for the film, Anakin manages to beat Obi-Wan's High Ground during the Mustafar duel and kills him. Anakin is then greeted by Palpatine, who presents him with a new lightsaber; Anakin betrays Palpy and slaughters him, taking control of the galaxy for himself, and thus causing an undesirable chain of future events (for example, without Obi-Wan, Padmé would've died on the landing platform before childbirth and Luke and Leia would've never been born, thus leaving the galaxy without any new hope forever). In pulling this confusing plot twist on his audience, Lucas had hopes of opening up a new avenue for alternate-universe "re-quels" involving time travel and metaphysical paradoxes. This alternate ending was removed from the final cut of the film, though it was included in the video game adaptation.
Revenge of the Sith is the only Star Wars film to be rated PG-13 by the MPAA, due to the scene where Anakin kisses Padmé continuously for over five seconds; it appears the scenes of beheading, mutilation, child murder, dismemberment, and immolation were only worthy of a PG rating. Quentin Tarantino called for action to be taken, as his film Kill Bill contained the same level of violence, yet was given an R rating; where was his cheap plastic toy money? The MPAA responded to Tarantino's complaints by saying he was "a cheapskate who wouldn't bribe the Grim Reaper to spare his own life."
Working titles for the film were Star Wars Episode III: Rise of the Empire, Star Wars Episode III: Fall of the Jedi, Star Wars Episode III: Return of the Sithi's Revenge, and Star Whores Episode 1337: Revenge of the Tshi. The latter title was a revenge attack from disgruntled former Lucasfilm employee Dave Prowse, who had broken into the Lucasfilm publicity department and changed the spelling. The change in the title went unnoticed largely because most of the staff couldn't give a toss, and some publicity still exists with this title. Prowse's mischief did not end there as he also hired a computer hacker to alter any reference to "Force" and substitute it with the word "duck meat" as well as "Sith" which was substituted with the word "tshi". These changes went unnoticed until the film was well into post-production; no one on staff had picked up that there had been changes made to the film's audio, and as was the case throughout the entire prequels, no one dared argue with The Maker George Lucas. Prowse, who had been a work experience trainee for Lucasfilm in 1983 wherein he liked to dress up as Darth Vader, had become obsessed with revenge after his face was not shown as Anakin Skywalker in Return of the Jedi. He was later banned from coming within 100 yards of any Star Wars fan conventions, as he burnt too many bridges. Evidence has recently surfaced that suggests Prowse may have been acting on behalf of Lucas's old producer-turned-nemesis, Gary Kurtz.
Revenge of the Sith marked the end of Lucas's work on the Star Wars saga, leaving him free to focus on ruining his other franchise, Indiana Jones.
Reception[edit | edit source]
Revenge of the Sith was, in comparison to the previous two prequels, relatively well-received. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 79% approval rating, with the consensus being: "This sixth and final installment of George Lucas's epic space opera will please die-hard fanatics and non-believers alike — largely due to the awesome! and radical! digital effects and the sheer power and deepness of the mythology and stuff." Metacritic gave the film a 68 out of 100, which indicates "It's ok."
Most critics considered Revenge of the Sith the best of the prequels, which still isn't saying much. A.O. Scott of The New York Times rather preposterously said that it was "the best of the four episodes Mr. Lucas has directed," apparently forgetting that A New Hope exists. Jonathan Rosenbaum, a critic who somehow managed to dislike A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, gave the film a positive review saying that it had a "relatively thoughtful story", particularly the scene where Anakin abruptly turns to the dark side in just five seconds, setting a land speed record for fastest character development. Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times, who had deemed Attack of the Clones as one of "the most awful things that will ruin your childhood memories forever...", gave Episode III 4 out of 4 stars, praising it for its hammy acting and unintentional comedic value.
Though many critics and fans saw the film as the "best" of the three prequels, others thought it was more or less on-par with The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones (i.e. lamer than a quadriplegic man covered in burn wounds on an iron lung). Richard Roeper, contrary to his peers, thought Lucas "managed to make a film that makes the Star Wars Holiday Special look like Citizen Kane." Much of the criticism for the film was directed towards the embarrassing-yet-memeworthy acting and dialogue, particularly in the romantic scenes, and for yet another stale performance from Hayden Christensen, who had one last chance to pull his head out of his ass but wasted it. Critics and fans alike were quick to jump on such lines as "It's over Anakin, I have the high ground!", "You're so beautiful. / It's only because I'm so in love," "Hold me, Ani. Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo...", and "NOOOOO!" Critics have claimed this demonstrated Lucas's inability to write dialogue containing any human emotion, a subject with which Lucas openly agreed when receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Woody-Diao Film Institute.
Revenge of the Sith was advertised as the finale to the Star Wars saga, supposedly completing the entire story. After the saga ended, many fans attempted suicide with their toy lightsabers as they had nothing left to look forward to in life, except reissues of countless Special Edition DVDs and Blu-rays where Lucas sprayed cartoony updated CGI on top of the old practical effects, like poetic graffiti. However, once the franchise was bought out by Disney and they announced new installments, beginning with Episode VII: The Force Awakens, these fans too awoke from their comas, after nearly a decade of plastic-induced catatonia. Unfortunately, the honeymoon was short-lived.
Re-release[edit | edit source]
3D re-releases of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were planned by Lucasfilm after the box office success (and critical unsuccess) of their Phantom Menace re-release. However, after Disney bought the Star Wars franchise, these re-releases were postponed indefinitely; Disney claimed they were doing it to "look to the future" and "focus more on Episode VII", but fans speculate Disney is trying to Jedi mind-trick the public into believing the prequels never existed.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Time in the Star Wars universe is reckoned using as a basis the exact moment in A New Hope when the stormtrooper entering the control room on the Death Star bangs his head on the door and yells. Using this system, events occurring before this moment are designated BBY (before bang/yell), and events after ABY.
- ↑ Like how in A New Hope, Obi-Wan said the Jedi had been defenders of the Republic "for over a thousand generations," but in Attack of the Clones Palpatine says the Republic "has stood for a thousand years." Years aren't the same as generations, George.
- ↑ George Lucas would recommend you pick up on this subtle red herring.
- ↑ Who has a nasty cough and raspy voice that, depending on which Star Wars canon you follow, was either caused by Mace Windu Force-crushing his chest half an hour ago, or is something he's always had due to the imperfections in his cyborg technology.
- ↑ 'Cause he'd never torture someone for information like "Who do you work for?" or "Where's your base?"
- ↑ Fans are divided over whether or not Sheev would've helped Anakin save Padmé, had Anakin not killed her in his hissyfit. Some believe Palps was merely bullshitting, while others believe he would've used telekinesis to do surgery and clamp internal bleeding or something.
- ↑ The Jedi Church was notorious for refusing to work with the police and disclosing testimony of criminal activity received during confessionals, instead taking matters into their own hands, fins, and tentacles and enforcing their strict religious law.
- ↑ Despite Anakin and Luke being Force-shocked in the other movies, or Mace being shocked a few seconds later in the very same scene, and having their faces still look normal afterward.
- ↑ In the words of George Lucas, "It's like poetry, they rhyme."
- ↑ As he plummets, Mace deeply regrets doing this arrest secretly at night instead of in broad daylight. That way, hundreds of witnesses outside the broken window watching the fight from their hovercars could've testified in court about the Chancellor having Force lightning and a red lightsaber.
- ↑ Also because there's a chip surgically planted in their heads that the Jedi had put in there to prevent them from becoming evil, which subsequently allowed them all to turn evil.
- ↑ And also because that way they can simply double-team Sidious while Anakin is busy returning from killing the Separatist leaders, then just ambush Anakin together when he goes to meet the Chancellor.
- ↑ Which logically would mean that rule must be absolutely true, and as the one who said it is Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan must thus be a Sith.
- ↑ Once again, it appears as though Anakin and Padmé chose not to get an ultrasound, despite them being easily available in this advanced technological age.
- ↑ It is here that Obi-Wan copies a move from Padmé's playbook when she hid from assassination on her homeworld Naboo, bringing Vader's son to Vader's own homeworld.
- ↑ Fortunately, none of the Separatists ever had the bright idea to just colony-drop the Death Star, while still under construction in the dying days of the war, onto their enemies' headquarters on Coruscant.
