Revenge of the Sith
May. 19th, 2005 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSo, the last chapter of the prequels and in all likelihood the last Star Wars film. As stated on various previous occasions, I'm fond of the prequels in general and of Anakin Skywalker in particular. Considering that this last installment is his tragedy, you can bet I was looking forward to it in my masochistic doom loving way. And boy did I ever get indulged. Was Revenge of the Sith perfect? By no means. None of the SW movies are, including ESB (sorry, but I fast forward through the battle for Hoth each time); there is always the occasional corny dialogue, and each time some detail or the other I'd have changed. But at its best, SW also has that grandiose mixture of fairy tale and space opera going for it. The prequels are all about the destruction from within, which makes them to me a more challenging and interesting narrative than the plucky good rebels versus big bad Empire narrative of the OT. And with this last film, they arrived at the pitch black core.
To get the complaints out of the way first, so I can rave for the rest of my review: Padmé is too passive. Granted, the woman is highly pregnant, but still, I'd have wished that at least as she witnesses the final moment of the Republic and the declaration of the Empire in the Senate, she'd do more than just comment on this bitterly to Bail Organa. I don't mean take up a gun; Padmé isn't a soldier like Aeryn Sun, she's a politician. But I'd have loved a gesture like, say, the one by the leader of the SDP who was the only one to protest Hiitler's effectively ending the Weimar Republic after the burning of the Reichstag. I suppose I can fanwank this by her pregnancy - i.e. she thinks of the child/children - but it still irked.
This being said; I loved this movie. Lucas gets the obligatory chase sequence out of the way right at the beginning when Obi-Wan and Anakin come to the rescue (they think) of the imprisoned (ahem) Palpatine, and the rest of the film has duels for the action stuff but is far more reliant on character scenes. I had expected the parallel/contrast to RotJ - Anakin, encouraged by Palpatine, kills the beaten Dooku where Luke stops and does not kill Vader in the exact same situation - but what I had not expected was that this early plot point gets counterbalanced by Anakin refusing to leave the unconscious Obi-Wan behind (which naturally displeases Palpatine), saving him instead. The turning to the Dark Side process really happens step by step, and as demanded by Aristotle, it's through a mixture of flaws and circumstance. The flaws were already apparent in AotC - Anakin's utter inability to accept loss through death coupled with an increasing ambition - but the circumstances get as difficult as they come.Revenge of the Sith is also the tragedy of the Jedi, who really do their share to create their end. It's in fact surprising how long Anakin holds out; I had thought at one point he already made his decision but no, he was still loyal to the Jedi then. There aren't any reliable moral authorities anywhere in this film (or in the prequels in general); Yoda, who comes closest, is the world's worst counselor when Anakin comes to him for guidance, Mace Windu signs his own doom when being willing to kill Palpatine instead of letting him go through a trial (this is when Anakin takes the plunge and for the first time strikes out against the Jedi), and Senators like Padmé or Bail Organa might be appalled by what's going on, but they don't do anything to stop it.
All of which does not excuse what Anakin does (if it were all circumstance, it wouldn't be a tragedy), and Lucas makes the depth to which Anakin sinks more than clear by letting him kill the Jedi children as well. Anakin might have started out motivated by the wish to save Padmé and his own child, but he dooms himself with this crime, which is what turns Obi-Wan against him. Incidentally, the Obi-Wan/Anakin relationship on the one hand and the Palpatine/Anakin relationship on the other are the emotional touchstones of this film. Ironically, the former actually has improved from its strained state in AotC in the first part of the film; the two do come across as true friends. The big duel at the climax is everything a fan could hope for, both in terms of fighting and in terms of the emotional context. (Sidenote for slashers: it also has a moment where their hand almost touch in an affort to use the Force against each other. I didn't see the relationship as slashy in AotC - where it's a strained father/son thing - but they're more equals here, so if you want to, you can say the imagery is... ambiguous.) What is actually the emotional gutpunch for me is the end of the sequence, when Anakin burns, and Obi-Wan declares, with tears in his eyes, he loved him - but makes no move to help him, and lets him burn alive. (I know we saw the charred bodies of Beru and Owen in ANH, but that's not's not the same thing in terms of both drama and on screen graphicness.)
Ian McDiarmid finally gets more than three or so scenes per movie, and makes the most of it, though sadly, after the demise of Windu he's stuck with the heavy living corpse makeup of the OT era again. I know it has to be for continuity reasons, but I regret it, because he's so good in the Palpatine seducing Anakin scenes. (BTW, am I ever glad I can see this film in the original here in Munich; I saw the trailer dubbed, and whoever speaks the German voice for Palpatine ruins the performance.) High points: when he gets a bit ahead of himself and tells Anakin to leave Obi-Wan behind, and Anakin refuses, because that's one of the few times you see Palpatine displeased and surprised and immediately covering it up; and when he makes his most risky move, the scene where Anakin figures out he's the Sith, and Palpatine basically pulls that good old Richard III (Shakespeare, not the real one) "take up your sword again, or take up me" stunt of false alternatives (i.e. the Sith version is "kill me or join me", and as indicated before this was when I thought Anakin would fall, but he actually does hold out a bit longer).
Oh, and about the Vader getup. Basically, the trailer shows you all the Vader getup scenes there are, with one exception, but the real terrifying moment isn't the Whale's Frankenstein's thing when he rises, it's before. Lucas keeps cutting between Padmé giving birth and Anakin's charred body being transformed into a cyberbeing, and then we see, from his pov, the mask sinking down on him. And you understand it's a living tomb, a prison (of his own making, but a prison nonetheless). That mask sinking down was about the most frightening thing image of the film.
The final image is what many a fan has guessed, and a good lead into ANH. One last note about the performances: I know I'm prejudiced, but Hayden Christensen was really fantastic here. Ian MacDiarmid always is, but excelled particularly before he gets burdened with the heavy Emperor makeup. Natalie Portman did the best with what she was given, which, as said before, was too little. Ewan MacGregor was a bit subdued and could have been more intense; he had two outstanding moments, though, Obi-Wan's realization that it was Anakin who killed the younglings, and the last minute of the duel and the immediate aftermath, from "you were the Chosen One" onwards.
I don't think people who dislike the prequels will change their minds because of Revenge of the Sith; but if you're neutral or somewhat favourable about the SW saga, including the prequels, it should be a good cinematic experience. I'm certainly going to watch it again pretty soon.
To get the complaints out of the way first, so I can rave for the rest of my review: Padmé is too passive. Granted, the woman is highly pregnant, but still, I'd have wished that at least as she witnesses the final moment of the Republic and the declaration of the Empire in the Senate, she'd do more than just comment on this bitterly to Bail Organa. I don't mean take up a gun; Padmé isn't a soldier like Aeryn Sun, she's a politician. But I'd have loved a gesture like, say, the one by the leader of the SDP who was the only one to protest Hiitler's effectively ending the Weimar Republic after the burning of the Reichstag. I suppose I can fanwank this by her pregnancy - i.e. she thinks of the child/children - but it still irked.
This being said; I loved this movie. Lucas gets the obligatory chase sequence out of the way right at the beginning when Obi-Wan and Anakin come to the rescue (they think) of the imprisoned (ahem) Palpatine, and the rest of the film has duels for the action stuff but is far more reliant on character scenes. I had expected the parallel/contrast to RotJ - Anakin, encouraged by Palpatine, kills the beaten Dooku where Luke stops and does not kill Vader in the exact same situation - but what I had not expected was that this early plot point gets counterbalanced by Anakin refusing to leave the unconscious Obi-Wan behind (which naturally displeases Palpatine), saving him instead. The turning to the Dark Side process really happens step by step, and as demanded by Aristotle, it's through a mixture of flaws and circumstance. The flaws were already apparent in AotC - Anakin's utter inability to accept loss through death coupled with an increasing ambition - but the circumstances get as difficult as they come.Revenge of the Sith is also the tragedy of the Jedi, who really do their share to create their end. It's in fact surprising how long Anakin holds out; I had thought at one point he already made his decision but no, he was still loyal to the Jedi then. There aren't any reliable moral authorities anywhere in this film (or in the prequels in general); Yoda, who comes closest, is the world's worst counselor when Anakin comes to him for guidance, Mace Windu signs his own doom when being willing to kill Palpatine instead of letting him go through a trial (this is when Anakin takes the plunge and for the first time strikes out against the Jedi), and Senators like Padmé or Bail Organa might be appalled by what's going on, but they don't do anything to stop it.
All of which does not excuse what Anakin does (if it were all circumstance, it wouldn't be a tragedy), and Lucas makes the depth to which Anakin sinks more than clear by letting him kill the Jedi children as well. Anakin might have started out motivated by the wish to save Padmé and his own child, but he dooms himself with this crime, which is what turns Obi-Wan against him. Incidentally, the Obi-Wan/Anakin relationship on the one hand and the Palpatine/Anakin relationship on the other are the emotional touchstones of this film. Ironically, the former actually has improved from its strained state in AotC in the first part of the film; the two do come across as true friends. The big duel at the climax is everything a fan could hope for, both in terms of fighting and in terms of the emotional context. (Sidenote for slashers: it also has a moment where their hand almost touch in an affort to use the Force against each other. I didn't see the relationship as slashy in AotC - where it's a strained father/son thing - but they're more equals here, so if you want to, you can say the imagery is... ambiguous.) What is actually the emotional gutpunch for me is the end of the sequence, when Anakin burns, and Obi-Wan declares, with tears in his eyes, he loved him - but makes no move to help him, and lets him burn alive. (I know we saw the charred bodies of Beru and Owen in ANH, but that's not's not the same thing in terms of both drama and on screen graphicness.)
Ian McDiarmid finally gets more than three or so scenes per movie, and makes the most of it, though sadly, after the demise of Windu he's stuck with the heavy living corpse makeup of the OT era again. I know it has to be for continuity reasons, but I regret it, because he's so good in the Palpatine seducing Anakin scenes. (BTW, am I ever glad I can see this film in the original here in Munich; I saw the trailer dubbed, and whoever speaks the German voice for Palpatine ruins the performance.) High points: when he gets a bit ahead of himself and tells Anakin to leave Obi-Wan behind, and Anakin refuses, because that's one of the few times you see Palpatine displeased and surprised and immediately covering it up; and when he makes his most risky move, the scene where Anakin figures out he's the Sith, and Palpatine basically pulls that good old Richard III (Shakespeare, not the real one) "take up your sword again, or take up me" stunt of false alternatives (i.e. the Sith version is "kill me or join me", and as indicated before this was when I thought Anakin would fall, but he actually does hold out a bit longer).
Oh, and about the Vader getup. Basically, the trailer shows you all the Vader getup scenes there are, with one exception, but the real terrifying moment isn't the Whale's Frankenstein's thing when he rises, it's before. Lucas keeps cutting between Padmé giving birth and Anakin's charred body being transformed into a cyberbeing, and then we see, from his pov, the mask sinking down on him. And you understand it's a living tomb, a prison (of his own making, but a prison nonetheless). That mask sinking down was about the most frightening thing image of the film.
The final image is what many a fan has guessed, and a good lead into ANH. One last note about the performances: I know I'm prejudiced, but Hayden Christensen was really fantastic here. Ian MacDiarmid always is, but excelled particularly before he gets burdened with the heavy Emperor makeup. Natalie Portman did the best with what she was given, which, as said before, was too little. Ewan MacGregor was a bit subdued and could have been more intense; he had two outstanding moments, though, Obi-Wan's realization that it was Anakin who killed the younglings, and the last minute of the duel and the immediate aftermath, from "you were the Chosen One" onwards.
I don't think people who dislike the prequels will change their minds because of Revenge of the Sith; but if you're neutral or somewhat favourable about the SW saga, including the prequels, it should be a good cinematic experience. I'm certainly going to watch it again pretty soon.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 10:37 pm (UTC)Have to disagree with this part of your review:
"Padmé isn't a soldier like Aeryn Sun, she's a politician."
Two words: aggressive negociation. This is the woman who led a guerilla strike to reclaim her planet when she was FOURTEEN years old, and knew how to shoot a gun then. So -- take up a lightsaber, probably not, but a gun? She's never had any problem using guns.
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Date: 2005-05-18 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 10:55 pm (UTC)Two links on this topic:
and
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Date: 2005-05-18 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 11:13 pm (UTC)My major gripe: Leia remembers "her true mother... she was beautiful but sad... died when I was little...": unless Bail was cheating on Madame Organa with every Twi'lek dancing girl on Alderaan, this is a major continuity blooper. My second major gripe: who the FUCK was the Sith Palpatine mentions who mastered midichlorians and could very well have caused Anakin's virgin birth? And who was the apprentice who killed him in his sleep? (Although I strongly suspect this was granpa Palpy.) This cpould have been a whole fold of the movie, and it's just thrown away, never to be elucidated; Geeeeoooooorge???
The Jedi are destroyed by their smug hubris. I felt for Anakin throughout: again and again and again, they treat him like dirt. I'm glad you saw the slashy overtones in Ani/Obi - the "I loved you" scene should spawn a thousand fanfics. And indeed McDiarmid is a genius; so far above in word delivery it's like an object-lesson in How To Deliver A Line: The RSC Reminder. Whereas Sam jackson is a disappoinment, and his death isn't especially exciting.
Yes, not perfect, but haunting. I felt indeed devastated when we saw Vader stalking the ship's corridors at the end. Want more!!!
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Date: 2005-05-19 01:31 am (UTC)Palpatine mentions that Darth Plageus (Jesus H. Motherlovin' Christ on a pogo stick, where does George pull those names out of?) was killed by the apprentice who had mastered all those new powers - and IIRC he also mentions Plageus didn't really get around to using them between discovering them and being murdered (will try to confirm this at tomorrow's showings).
To me it seems painfully obvious that Sidious was Plageus' apprentice and that he used the life-creating power to bring about Anakin. It's the only reason to even put those bylines into the movie, and I think it is a nice touch that this is all it is - a throwaway line that leaves the audience thinking, with the avenue of doubt always open as a last escape hatch. WAY better than an all-too-obvious "I am your father, Anakin" could have ever been. Sometimes ambiguity is better.
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Date: 2005-05-19 01:48 am (UTC)Ahahaaaaaahhh, you may be onto something here. But didn't Sidious then monitor baby Anakin at ALL?
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Date: 2005-05-22 05:16 am (UTC)No, he figured that dumping the kid into abject slavery with a mind-wiped mom was a bad enough fate and he would get the kid back eventually. He just wasn't expecting those meddling Jedi to show up.
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Date: 2005-05-19 03:26 am (UTC)His arse.
Palpatine was originally to be called "Cos Dashit". And I am NOT making this up.
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Date: 2005-05-19 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 05:27 am (UTC)Which is an odd parallel to RotJ where Mark Hamill for the first time outacted and outshone Harrison Ford, who was majorly on autopilot. (McGregor at least came out of of autopilot mode for those two scenes. Mind you, not that either he nor Ford are bad when on autopilot, they're just not nearly as compelling.)
The big continuity break with Leia remembering her mother: absolutely. I suppose if I ever tackle that one in fanfic, I'll have to conclude Leia thought Mrs. Organa was her real mother, and Mrs. Organa died early on whereupon Bail remarried.
The Sith who mastered the midichlorians and his apprentice: I agree with Re. Tobias below that this was Palpatine's master - that's how I understood it. As to why Palps didn't keep an eye on little Ani, two explanations:
a) Plageus was the one who caused Anakin's virgin birth, but Palps didn't know just where the midichlorian experiment was located until Qui-Gon brought Anakin to Coruscant.
b) Sideus did it, but figured early childhood on Tattoine in slavery was just ideal for a future Sith mindset.
(Now I'll actually have to read the novel to find out whether there's more there, as these things tend to be based on uncut scripts.
The Jedi are destroyed by their smug hubris. I felt for Anakin throughout: again and again and again, they treat him like dirt.
True. Making it clear that they distrust him but expect him to spy on Palpatine for them is bad enough, but when Anakin actually does deliver the "Palpatine is a Sith" news (and I really thought he either wouldn't, or would do so as a trap) and Windu reacts like he does? Argggh. Though not in terms of bad storytelling (as opposed to "arggh, Padmé is too passive"). It's utterly consistent with the attitude from the moment Qui-Gon brought Anakin in front of the Council onwards, especially from Windu.
I felt indeed devastated when we saw Vader stalking the ship's corridors at the end. Want more!!!
There must be fanfic. (Actually, I hear there is a hardcover novel planned on Vader directly post-Sith as well, but you know, tie-ins are problematic...)
And fallible as George is, he's right: when we see Vader after this, we're aware of the enormity of the tragedy and what he has lost.
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Date: 2005-05-18 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 12:07 am (UTC)This SO an example of me wanting the four-hour complete DVD...
... which george will NEVER give us.
The rat.
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Date: 2005-05-19 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 11:57 pm (UTC):)
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Date: 2005-05-19 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 10:44 am (UTC)Overall, though, Lucas got it right.
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Date: 2005-05-19 12:33 am (UTC)I am so with you on Padme being too passive. Hayden was good, for the first time IMO. The transition from good to evol was convincing, he showed the struggle.
This was actually a good movie. So glad about it. Couldn't have supported another crappy one.
Thanks for that insightful review! I'll link from my journal, if you don't mind.
And yes, thanks for the original version! This dubbed? ::shudder::
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Date: 2005-05-19 05:30 am (UTC)Sometimes, we get good dubbing, but not with the SW movies, and if the trailer is anything to go by, definitely not with this one. To live in a big city really pays of here.
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Date: 2005-05-19 11:01 am (UTC)McDiarmid kinda disappointed me in this one though because once his face melted it seemed like he stopped any and all attempts at subtlety, the constant evil cackling was pretty annoying.
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Date: 2005-05-19 10:28 pm (UTC)I think the most interesting battle here was the war of the script doctors. I just can't believe that the same person who gave Obi-Wan the line "Only a Sith speaks in absolutes" (OMG, irony in a Star Wars film?) had Anakin say, "From my point-of-view, the Jedi are evil" (alarums, for anybody who missed the moral ambiguity).
But, yes, I dug it a lot, and I completely agree with the highlights you noted. I just have to be an Obi-Wan fangirl and note that I finally felt he came into his own here -- not just as a shadow of old Ben Kenobi from the prequels. Oddly, the more I liked him the more I realized that EM was sort of wasted in this role -- he's much more suited for the 'lovable rogue' role that this trilogy lacked. But I liked his performance here, and my favorite moment in the film happened when he cut down those drones with the light sabers, and walked toward Devious, or whoever, swinging his saber like a gunslinger. "That's right, I'm bad." Much more to say about this when I have a minute (and a working computer :()
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Date: 2005-05-20 05:35 am (UTC)True. They both go darkside initially trying to save family/the person they love and thereby become the very monsters who destroy it.
and if Anakin is Michael, Padme is stuck being Kay, only she's a Senator and a fighter, so it doesn't sit well on her.
Also true. I caved and read the novelisation, which is actually not bad for a media tie-in, and apparantly there were some cut scenes in which she has somewhat more to do - i.e. she does organize a protest by a large group of senators (which Palpatine dismisses, of course) and has meetings with Bail Organa and Mon Mothma which are clearly the seed for the later rebellion. But only on screen is canon, so this is just fannish extrapolation.
You didn't think EM was good in AotC? I thought he only had moments in TPM because his unease with the whole blue screen acting process really showed there, but was good in AotC. Actually, the prequels were what gave me sympathy for Obi-Wan, because, Sir Alec not withstanding, I was having "manipulative git!" thoughts in the OT.
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Date: 2005-05-20 08:54 pm (UTC)As for RotS. . .I didn't have high hopes for Obi-Wan based on the opening sequence (whining about hating to fly, Anakin saving his butt), but once they got to that "polticians" exchange, the whole relationship made a lot more sense to me. Their (obvious) final farewell as friends made me sniffle, and Obi-Wan holding his own against the droids, followed by his gradual realizations about Anakin, finally gave him a compelling character arc, that works both as a sequel to AotC and a prequel to ANH.
As for the OT's Kenobi, I won't argue with the manipulative git, but somehow Sir Alec pulled that off in a way that made it kind of endearing. The character that I confess to loathing is Yoda. Fortune cookie bromides and garbled syntax, yikes. Though he does turn out to be useful to an English teacher who has to explain the delayed subject to a confused class of freshman.
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Date: 2005-05-24 10:44 am (UTC)And! CHEWIE! :D Also loved the bits with Bail Organa's ship, and the last bit with Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. But I love continuity like that, anyway.
The bit that gave me chills up the spine was Vader's first breath in the suit. Ooooh.
Padme totally should have organized the seeds of the Rebellion. Going to take that as my personal fanon. Was glad to see her with the Leia hairdo at the beginning of the movie, though her sleeping in a dress with pearls for shoulder-straps made me go "WTF?" And Leia has a good memory, to remember her mom! (Must have been Mrs. Organa, I guess.)
Loved the final scene on Tatooine. :D