Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
The Empire should look into using firewalls.
... an interesting quote from the author of Darthside:
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.
-- i drop mine in braille so you blind cats can read me
I am both a Star Wars geek and a performance/theatre geek, a dangerous combination which leads to over-analysis. Since seeing Episode III earlier today, I've been thinking a lot about how the presentation of Episodes I through III alter Episodes IV-VI. "Star Wars," as a single story told through film (ignoring books/videogames/comics/fan films/etc), now functions in six episodes tied together by numerous characters and over-arcing story threads. So how does this single narrative affect how Episodes IV-VI should be viewed?
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
The main site has a lot of Star Wars stuff on the front page: http://www.decentfilms.com/index.html
An interesting excerpt:
To Harrison: It wasn't THAT good.
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.
While I thought the special effects were astounding in Episode III, I felt something was sorely lacking with the physics when applied to humans. It seemed as if he didn't even try to make it seem realistic.
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?
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.
This is what Lucas had to say about Yoda, when they introduced him in The Empire Strikes Back:
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?
Is it me, or is the Death Star shown at the end of Episode III way too complete? At the beginning of Episode IV, there is some doubt about whether the station is fully operational, but there is a full skeleton of the Death Star visible at the end of III. Surely this is a mistake, just for continuity's sake. The DS could not have taken 16-18 years (as long as it takes Luke and Leia to grow up) to complete!
Lucas doesn't realize that just because you have new technologies available, they are going to add to the storytelling. So we have new high-resolution timers? That doesn't mean we want to see counters all over the action and getting in the way of the actors faces! We didn't need big counters in the original trilogy. Anyone that paid to see this in a theater must feel terribly deceived.
I have two kids, under age 5. Of course most of us saw the trilogies in the order 4-5-6-1-2-3. When the kids are old enough, should we maintain that order or do we show it to them in 1-2-3-4-5-6 order?
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?
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.
didn't like it.
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.
Both of these reviews are terrible. They're worse than the movie. See the movie; it's good. It doesn't redeem Lucas's transgressions against the original trilogy when he Special-Ed'ed them, and it doesn't quite make up for the first two episodes of the new trilogy, but standing on its own, it's pretty decent. Not a perfect movie by any means, but no more flawed than either of the three original films.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Please report to the nearest MPAA reprogramming station!
They closed them all. The MPAA couldn't afford the upkeep because nobody is paying to see movies anymore.
SPOILER WARNING
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.
Tomorrow, I may eat another house plant
For some reason there is a large timestamp running across the film. I guess Lucas wanted to add an air of suspense with that effect.
__________
|rip/\/\aster
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.
Spending the year studying in Barcelona, I ended up seeing Episode III dubbed to Spanish, and I truly and sincerely believe this made the experience better.
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?
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
That's because all those support copyright are plants by THE MAN, man. Don't you get it, they're listening to everything we do man, it's like a total conspiracy, they're even reading this post man! Oh god they're everywhere...
Being a VFX artist myself, I felt the movie was extremely lacking in certain respects. The first battle scene was amazing, without any doubt. However, Lucas, for some reason, put way too many blue screen shots towards the middle and end, where he relied heavily on CG imagery to back landscape shots.
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.
It was bad enough before that we had to wait 3 years to find out what happend to Han after he was frozen, but with this schedule, we would have to wait 12 years!
(spoilers maybe below) Honestly, although I have mixed feelings about this trilogy, I think that this movie produces a tragic sadness that hovers over the original trilogy. Anakin wasn't just an asshole who turned to the darkside, his turn may not have totally been his fault both the sith and the jedi share the blame. I think that makes darth vader a sad tragic character instead of the evil demon he is made out to be in the OT.
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
You know that bit where Obi-Wan says "It's like...she's lost the will to live"? She wasn't the only one.
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'
No, Vader destroys Sideous and himself in one selfless act. Vader does fulfill the prophecy, and destroys the Sith, bringing balance back to the force. Luke was almost dead when this happened, and without Vader's interference, would have died.
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.
A lot of people were (and are) reluctant to see it because the previous one was such a God-forsaken disgrace.
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The flashback after "Empire" is indeed good. But all you need is Episode III. Episode II has too much nonsense about flying R2 units and bounty hunters and 50's diners. Episode I proves that little kids can only be the hero in little kids' movies, in addition to just having too much Jar-Jar.
I surmize that the real reason for the hideousness of the later episodes is simple: George can't write worth a damn.
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...
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...
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Your commment about the story focusing on Anakin/Vader is abdsolutely correct. I've read the books, seen the movies and it has always been my impression that Star Wars is mostly about father Skywalker's life and how he is saved by his son then it is about just Luke. Luke the son is important, but the story is about the father's fall and redemption.
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.
Respect the Constitution
There are issues with the storyline between where we start in Ep4 and where we were going with Ep1-3. Lucas just couldn't avoid boxing himself into a corner. A corner you can't get out of no matter how many greenbacks you throw at it if you can't (or don't hire someone who can) write a decent screenplay.
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.
n/a
the couple were married from 1969-83
Note the release dates: Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and The Return of the Jedi (1983)
"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."
Some of the effects were decidedly ropey - the giant lizard ridden by Obi Wan was not that good (I'm not sure any CGI yet is good enough to create 100% convincing living beings yet) & the bit where several of the clones had their helmets removed so you could see their faces was atrociously bad - why Lucas didn't cut that scene I'll never know.
As to the vehicle animations, I have nothing but admiration for ILMs ability to do what they have shown they can do but the ship battle at the beginning was just too busy. I really get the impression that as many new vehicles as possible were crammed in just to generate toy sales meaning we had a battle scene that was confused and kept drawing your attention all over different parts of the screen.
Lucas however, can do myth very, very well.
I won't argue that he can tell a good story but his pace and directing leaves much to be desired in the first trilogy.
Child Anakin should have been the first half hour of episode 1 and Hayden's Anakin standing on a balcony arm-in-arm with Padme should have been the end of that same episode.
Episode 2 should have shown the gradual fall of Anakin and ended at a point where Palpatine has already placed some doubts in his mind so that he has his first piece of internal struggle at the end of the movie - this would have mirrored Luke's struggles at the end of Empire Strikes Back very well.
Episode 3 should have just been about the fall of Anakin and the rise of Palpatine. This was done far too quickly in episode 3 and lessened the effect as a result. We should have been aching to see Episode 3 just like we were with Episode 6 when Han was left encased in Corbomite.
In summary, the movie is the best of the first trilogy but not a patch on any of the second trilogy movies. And before anyone mentions Ewoks, at least in Return Of The Jedi we were all rooting for the Rebellion and the little bears because we had saw real people.
In the case of "droids vs clones", who really cares how many were killed on each side because more could always be wheeled on - the first trilogy turned warfare into something very sterile and remote whereas in the second trilogy we saw and felt genuine loss, whether it was an X-Wing pilot, Hoth infantryman or an Ewok.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
...was not that Leia knew about her mother in Episode 6. If one actually reads the dialogue, he says the following:
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.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Anakin didn't turn because of love, he turned because of fear. Watch episode 1 and 2 again. Anakin is almost continually motivated by fear. He wants to become a great jedi, but at his core is fear. At first it's fear of failure, but he also fears he will lose his mother. The first visions he consciously has are of his mother's death, and when he cannot save her, his fear gives in to anger and hatred, exactly as Yoda said it would. Sidious sees this inside Anakin and feeds that fear like a pet. A little suspicion here, a false hope there, and the fear grows. When it comes time to make his choice, Anakin choses entirely out of fear of losing another person he loves, not for the love itself.
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...
I thought the balance was that once Annakin kills off everone, all that's left are:
Dark Side: Palpatine/Vader
Light Side: Yoda/Obi-Wan
Thus being perfect balance.
Ok. I saw it. I really liked it--it's Star Wars.
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.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Anyone notice that, in the star wars movies, like episode 1 and 2, yoda is all bad ass and serious all the time. But in Empire and Jedi, the fucker is like, laughing all the time? Hanging out in a swamp in a hut? I think i figured out what happened. After everything happened with all the jedi dying and shit... yoda started sportin the ganj! It's the only explanation possible. Dude's got a bad case of the munchies when he first meets luke and he's giggling up a fit. I bet it's because he just smoked a bowl!
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
While this movie wasn't as bad as the previous two prequels the plot and the acting really did little to present a compelling story of a man's descent into evil.
...he can't pull it off.
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
You know, I was going to do the spelling correction bit, but this -
ends up saving Anakin's sole
is priceless.
"Dad, I caught the fish you lost!"
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
I see many posts saying how bad the actors were. Most of them are some of the best actors around. In other movies they are extremely talented.
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?
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
"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."
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!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Ever notice that the star wars universe hasn't evolved the sophisticated, space-age technology of the hand or balcony rail? While we're on the subject, they build the most deadly blade-like weapons imaginable and then forget to include little details like hilts. Then again in a universe populated by so many individual life forms I guess it makes sense to let safety take a back seat so that nature can cull the herd of the exceptionally stupid.
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?
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.
*** Warning: Spoilers ***
-
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.)
Well then, welcome to the demographic of 'general viewing public'. You're an entertainment advertiser's wet dream. Let's see....
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.
In a world where nearly everyone uses Windows, the idea of a machine - including a government-owned machine - being totally open to intruders is hardly novel. It is only too believable.
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.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Mace turns and said "I don't remember askin' you a G@#DAMN thing" - - [Whacks Palpatine]
Or
[Mace whacks Palpatine] , [Big dark force energy explosion]
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did that break your concentration? I didn't mean to do that. Please, continue. I believe you were saying something about 'not supposed to kill.'"
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
You've got it down precisely.
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.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
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.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
SPOILER WARNINGS ALL OVER
...
... hmm ...
..." was, I think, Anakin trying to excuse himself.
Nice review! Just a coupla points:
1. Speaking of Jedi inconsistencies, Yoda indicates that Qui Gon has achieved an ability unique, or at least highly unusual for a Jedi - he learned to commune with the living through The Force. Clearly he's going to teach this ability to Yoda and ObiWan over the next 16 years; so how in blazes does Anakin manage to show up for the group photo at the end of RoTJ?
I was wondering about this too when I came out of the theatre. The answer (I think) is that Qui-Gonn had to do-the-ghost-thing to teach Yoda the trick in the first place. So, once you're dead, if you're smart, you can figure it out - and in the ways of the force, Anakin is really, really smart.
Of course, that doesn't explain why a ghost army of Jedi doesn't turn up at Yendor just to fuck with the Stormtrooper's minds, but eh.
2. "Hiding in plain sight" doesn't pass the laugh test.
Agreed. I guess they were hoping that Vader would not realise he had children. Still, they'd better be hoping he never visits the in-laws
3. Did Windu just grab some trainees from the cafeteria to arrest the Dark Lord of the Sith?
This must go into the review unchanged. I mean, wtf? Four Jedi go to confront a possible Dark Lord of the Sith, THREE get chopped up in about ten seconds, and the last one SINGLE-HANDEDLY kicks Imperial butt? Makes no sense.
4. This is demonstrated in ESB when Luke is leaving Dagobah: ObiWan: "That Boy is our last hope" - Yoda: "No, there is another."
Yeah, the Special Special edition is going to change to that to: "Good thing we've got a spare, huh, Master?"
5. The ObiWan we've grown to know, even until the very end of the fight on Mustafa would have killed Anakin mercifully.
The Obi Wan of the later years, definately. The Obi Wan of the ROTS, maybe, if all Anakin had done was turn to the dark side. I think the death of the younglings (what a funny thing to call Jedi children!), the extermination of the Jedi, the destruction of the Republic, the almost-murder of Padme, and the to-death battle with his own, beloved Padawan took it out of Kenobi. And yet, Padme is the one who dies of the mysterious yet fatal "broken heart"
6. Anakin suddenly decided at that point that the Jedi Order was corrupt, despite his years of training and his force-enhanced ability to sort out truth from lies, he didn't mention it
Agreed it was rushed, but the way I saw it, right from the moment Anakin rushes to see for himself, he knows what he's going to do, and which way he's going to turn. It felt like he was going against hope: maybe Palpatine wasn't a Dark Lord, after all; maybe Windu would have killed him already. But if it came down to Anakin to make that decision, he knew he would choose the Emperor and Padme. His speech to Padme later on about "they were trying to kill the Councillor, I had no choice
Two other things struck me as odd about the movie:
1. Anakin's face (somewhat silly, i know)
So he gets horribly mutilated, burnt, etc. and ends up looking like a boiled egg. But he looks like a boiled egg at the end of ROTJ! Did the Emperor's final lightning attack have no effect on him? Look what it did to Mace Windu, after all.
Possible explanation: Dark Lord of the Sith, Palpatine, against his apprentice, The Chosen One, most-powerful-Jedi-in-years Anakin Skywalker. No contest.
2. Jedi Destruction
Like you said, the Jedi were a real let down in the movie. I found all the surprise the Jedi showed to be a bit odd - aren't they supposed to be able to feel when people are attacking them? I would have liked to see more badass fighting, as the Jedi - even as Order 66 is going out - turn around and attack their would-be attackers, even before the order is properly transmitted - but slowly get bogged down by enemy fire. Or e