At Last Some Sith Sense
So we get to "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" the final of the prequel movies which to be honest as a whole didn't live up to my expectations. Now "Revenge of the Sith" not only brings together everything which has been ever so slowly building in the first two episodes but delivers what everyone was waiting for which is Anakin's turn to the dark side, his transformation into Darth Vader and of course the birth of Luke and Leia. For that simple fact "Revenge of the Sith" is the best of these Star Wars prequels because it finally gives us storyline rather than just a box of CGI tricks, although having said that it is still a movie where the CGI is over indulged and at times now looks little more than a dated computer game.
Three years after the Clone Wars, General Grievous has captured Chancellor Palpatine leading to Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker heading on a rescue mission to save the Chancellor leading Anakin into a dark confrontation with Count Dooku. It starts to bring doubts and dark thoughts into Anakin's head which Chancellor Palpatine plays upon as he reveals that he is in fact the Dark Lord of the Sith offering Anakin the chance of greatness which the Jedi seem to be with holding from him.
I will be totally honest with you as the only reason why I like "Revenge of the Sith" and feel it is the best of the Star Wars prequels is because it finally delivers what we know is coming, which is Anakin becoming Darth Vader and the birth of Luke and Leia. It is what I had been waiting for as I had wanted to know how Anakin had ended up entombed in what amounted to a mobile life support system and I wanted to know how Luke and Leia ended up separated. And that side of the movie works brilliantly to nicely explain how Luke ended up with Uncle Owen with Obi-Wan living nearby whilst Leia ended up adopted by Senator Bail Organa. Plus of course there is the power moment as we see the Darth Vader mask lowered on to the burnt face of Anakin having witnessed how he ended up in such a bad way.
But then like with the rest of these prequels "Revenge of the Sith" has the other side, shall we say the new George Lucas side. Now that does mean that everything finally comes together but we also get a lot of the poor writing which had filled these prequels. So we have some terrible unromantic romantic scenes between Anakin and Padmé whilst Obi-Wan trots out so much macho dialogue it is embarrassing. Throw in all the martial art style poses with light sabres and "Revenge of the Sith" has that corny side which had dogged the previous two movies.
And talking of what has dogged these movies there is the CGI and to put it simply when we have a scene which features characters talking it looks good, still not what I truly like from a movie, but there is nice details. But when we have CGI action especially light sabre battles featuring Yoda you might as well just watch someone play a computer game. It did absolutely nothing for me and actually looked quite tacky. Thankfully on the subject of tacky we only get to see Ja Ja Binks once and thank goodness it doesn't get to speak.
Truth be told whilst "Revenge of the Sith" is the best movie from the Star Wars prequels it is still not a good movie and to sound like a broken record lacks pretty much everything which made the original movies classics. Now the thing is that as I write this it is the year 2013 and as we know Disney have bought Lucasfilm and have said they are making more "Star Wars" movies. That means we will be getting Star Wars: Episode VII, VIII, IX and I just hope that those they put in charge of these new sequels and any other Star Wars movie they decide to make remembers why the original movies were so good and remain classics and don't just try and turn these future episodes into another trilogy of CGI tricks for those who struggle to pay attention to any scene featuring more than one sentence.
What this all boils down to is that "Revenge of the Sith" is not as bad as the previous movies from this trilogy of prequels but that is more to do with the fact it gets us to where we want to be rather than because of the characters, action and CGI.
