STAR WARS….Miscellaneous Star Wars Episode III thoughts….
UPDATE: Yes, yes, this post contains spoilers. That’s why it’s all below the fold. There are probably going to be spoilers in comments too, so don’t go there if you don’t want to hear them.
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They sure did have the sound cranked up in the theater Marian and I went to. It’s a good thing I’m slightly deaf.
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What the hell good is the force if it doesn’t even tell you your wife is carrying twins? Sheesh.
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I know this is just a little id?e fixe of mine, but I’ve always wondered who the Russian-y looking dudes in the throne room in Episode 6 were. Partway through E3, I was thinking the trade federation guys looked sort of like them, but then Anakin/Darth sliced their heads off. So I guess not. I suppose I’ll never get an answer now.
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Of all the sins George Lucas should pay for, the one at the top of my list is casting Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker and then writing/directing his journey to the dark side as little more than a sullen stew of teenage angst and alienation. Sure, there was all that pop psych stuff about his mother too, but really, Anakin mostly seems to be just a standard issue kid pissed off that his elders don’t take him seriously enough. Not exactly the stuff of legend.
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Speaking of which, were the idiots on the Jedi Council trying to drive Anakin into Palpatine’s slimy hands? For a bunch of Jedi masters who are constantly blathering on about “searching your feelings,” they sure were clueless about the feelings of their most promising pupil.
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Why the reference at the end to Obi-Wan continuing his training with the ghost of Qui-Gon? I didn’t object to it or anything, but it seemed kind of pointless since we know it will never be followed up on.
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Why exactly did Yoda think that Anakin’s family on Tatooine would be the last place anyone would look for young Luke? Seems like pretty much the first place to me. This has been a loose end ever since the end of the first trilogy, and I was hoping for some kind of explanation, even a lame one. But no.
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Seriously, what’s the deal with the force? Here’s what it gets you: lightning reflexes, an occasional and unreliable ability to forecast the future; the ability to leap great distances, but only when it’s convenient for the script; the ability to mildly influence the behavior of others, but only if they’re distracted or weak minded; and a telekinetic ability that affects objects up to about a ton or so, though only with great effort.
Now, that’s all very nice, but is it really more powerful than a battle station that can destroy a planet (per Darth Vader in E4)? I don’t think so. If the Death Star engineers hadn’t had their fingers up their asses, the force would have done no one any good at all in the first movie.
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Overall, Revenge of the Sith wasn’t bad. Like the others in the second trilogy, it was too much by the numbers, with no real surprises anywhere, but at least the action moved at a sprightly pace. And the story itself wasn’t too bad, even though we already knew most of it.
And one last thing: can we please knock off all the puerile political analogies to the present day? Christ. I am well and truly sick of popcorn entertainment being routinely psychoanalyzed as ideological drama. (Yes, I know Lucas started it all with his Vietnam/Iraq comment at Cannes. I don’t care.)
