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Review: Star Wars Episode III
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.
...without David Brin's latest review.
I don't know, that woulda been cool but I think the emotional impact of anakin killing the 'younglings' (what an annoyingly redundant word) is greater.
Seeing Darth Vader doing it would have just been 'eh, yea, figures'
Actually, you listed the wrong version of Windows...saying -59768 B.C. is a double negative, like -(-59768) A.D.
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?
AFAIR, the battle takes place in the upper atmosphere, not in space.
I believe it's Star Wars cannon that there was a prototype Death Star built as a testbed before the the "first" DS seen in Ep. IV
I suspect that what was shown at the end of ep. III was the prototype.
-- -- The Dragon De Monsyne
Watch out, this movies isn't exactly kid friendly. When they say its dark and violent, they mean its dark and violent for a movie, not just a star wars movie.
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.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
That line would be "to thunderous applause."
mplayer -aspect 2.35 -dvd-device ./ dvd://1
Wanna get nasty? - DaNasty
That was one of the things that bothered me about this movie. Is it kid friendly or not, and if it is not kid friendly, then why add all the campiness that is intended for kids. The film had the dark vibe going on, but Lucas kept adding the campy, lighthearted bad guy comedy (something Tolkien did in his books to tame the Orcs and Goblins down, which the LotR screenplay did away with). The previews, at least in the theater I saw it at, were of opposite ends of the kid zone too. There were a couple CGI kids movie previews and then the preview for the "Smiths" which *might* be suitable for a 13 year old. I'm talking lots of cleavage (and other in your face sexuality elements), guns, family dysfunction, and things blowing up.
he does it to the guards (who go oink) on his way in to jabbas palace.
The prototype was smaller and much less powerful. That was where the super-laser was first designed and perfected. The first REAL Death Star was built around a prison world, using the prisoners as slave labor. After construction was done, there was so much debris in the atmosphere that resupply ships could not get to the prison. And the prisoners couldn't hunt for food because the jungles that surrounded the prison were filled with nasty animals. Eat you alive and stuff.
The Second Death Star, BTW, had millimeter wide heat dispersion vents instead of the proton-torpedo sized one on the original. It was also increased in size to allow for more of those vents.
It took longer for the first one to be built because of the prisoner/slave laborers. The second was built with storm-trooper construction crews and droids, so it went faster. Both took a while though... and the second one was only about 60% completed. The living quarters for the crew weren't built yet, only enough for the construction crews to live in were done. The weapons system had a higher priority than the living quarters. Go figure.
The Star Destroyers that you see in the movie are Victory-class Star Destroyers. They are smaller and can enter an atmosphere. The Imperial-class Star Destroyers are larger and cannot enter an atmosphere. There is an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer that went into production shortly after Yavin. The Super-class Star Destroyer is 9 km long (1 km for an Imperial) and, "bankrupted an entire system" according to one of the books. 4 total built, all destroyed but 1 which was captured by the New Republic.
Leia's adoptive father and mother were the King and Queen of Alderaan. That's why the dad is in the Senate (and later Leia). They are the Royal Family. Luke gets it in the shorts and is stuck on the armpit of the galaxy.
*** Warning: Spoilers ***
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There is continuity in the way you describe; however, it is not when Anakin loses his hand (which, as noted, happens in Episode II, and does not result in his turning). It is when (*** Last chance spoiler warning ***) he cuts off Mace Windu's hand, resulting in Windu's death. When Luke loses his hand, and then takes Darth Vader's hand, he decides to reject the dark side; when Anakin loses his arm, and then takes Windu's hand, he succumbs to the dark side.
It might also be interesting to note that Anakin's turn to the dark side, and his return from the dark side, both coincide with the lightning attacks against people close to him.
(Aside: Wasn't Anakin's sudden and complete turn completely unbelievable?? It felt like the last few scenes of the movie were very rushed. Same with Padme's too-quick rejection, and Obi-Wan's quick change from reluctance to acceptance of his assigned task to kill Anakin.)
If I were in charge of designing and building a massive space ship for a routhless psycopath and the manager over me has a habbit of killing people who piss him off.
I'd use off the shelf proven standards systems and I'd drop anything (and I mean ANYTHING) not entirely vital to making the ship work.
Such as wepons to repell small fighters. I mean who in there right mind attacks a moon sized ship in tiny fighters?
Oh yeah... I have an endless supply of storm troupers to defend everything. I've got phisical security down pat so what do I need electronic security for?
After all if only a R2 unit can access the computers it's not a problem. R2 units don't have personalitys. After each flight they get wiped. You don't let them develup indupendence.
Oh sure occasonally a an R2 unit saves roialty and is preserved or a nutty pilot gets attached to his. However that is the exception rather than the rule.
However an R2 with a complex personality can pritty much punch a hole in security systems. It's the ability to outsmart the much simpler lock.
Of course I wouldn't include one becouse that would slow down develupment of the death star.
The empire learns. By eppisode 6 the empire is using security codes and shields.
The rebels fully expect an old frighter code to still work becouse the Empire hasn't been very smart about security in the past.
However instead of just blindly accepting the code the security officer calles the emperor.
The original death star, No codes, no security officer and hotline to the emperor should something odd happen.
The new super death star, shields, codes, security officer, emperor using the force to recognise what is going on.
I don't actually exist.
He was telling Mace "he should go to trial" so that Palpatine could teach him how to keep Padme alive. He didn't actually care about the trial and was only using that as an excuse.
I think he said something to the effect of "I need him [Palpatine]" during that whole ordeal. I don't know how much more obvious they could have made the situation.
The books which go beyond the trilogy, however, disagree. Supposedly the Emperor lives in cloned bodies, and the dark side consumes the bodies so he has to get a new one ever so often. At the point where he's thrown out, and he falls through that hole, ostensibly someone catches him and transfers his spirit into yet another clone. The Emperor never dies according to some comic books.
Those "some comic books" are all Official Sanctioned Star Wars products. Lucasarts (or someone else similarly close to Lucas) dictates or approves every major plot arc, including the Emperor's brief-but-futile ressurection and Luke's temporary fall to the dark side.
And, y'know, Anakin did invite Luke to join him and overthrow the Emperor. In Cloud City, right after he cut off his arm.
Wrong. The calendar to which you refer was created around 525 AD by a Catholic monk named Dionysius Exiguus, who was attempting to calculate an accurate date for Easter. The sort of people who concern themselves with things like this believe his numbers were incorrect, and that The Man was born around 8BC (with other estimations placing it as late as 4BC). Another monk named Bede was trying to work out these descrepancies (I think around 725) and apparently concluded there wasn't "room" for a year zero if the known BC dates were to be reconciled with the known AD dates. Naturally, it's all much more complex than what I'm going to write in a slashdot post, but in any case, it is utterly unrelated to the Romans not having a zero in their numbering system.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Some observations:
1. The emperor talked about using the dark side to keep things alive. This appears to have completely evaporated in the second half of the movie. Thus it may have been a lie.
2. Was the emperor "faking" losing to Windu for the purpose of turning Anakin? It seems so, although allowing his face to become mutilated seems a bit extreme. Although maybe not for the Sith Lord. Also their tech could clearly repair it so it's more of a temporary badge of honor. Or a badge of "see how bad those power hungry Jedi council people are?"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.