Fair warning to any that have not seen Revenge of the Sith, If you do not want any details revealed you should turn back now.
I suppose I am what you could call an epic Junky. I am a sucker for epic stories. And for me it all began with StarWars. And now it is over. With Revenge of the Sith, Lucas has finally completed telling the story of Darth Vader. Before I get into whether or not I liked his ending I will clear the air of a few things. First, fanboy I may be but I do not make any claim that StarWars is the greatest story ever told. I harbor no illusions that they are the greatest movies ever made. Much as I love them I grant them their flaws. Dialog is wooden, characters 2 dimensional and the story simplistic. But I must say, I feel nothing but pity for those who allow such unimportant details to cage their imaginations when we are given such memorable moments as that of Luke gazing across an alien landscape into the setting of two suns. This is because of what StarWars IS. It IS one of the most fantastic expressions of imagination ever. Its true genius lies in its unerring power to sweep people into its world. It is a world that we want to imagine and for good or ill the master of this world has failings as a story teller, yet we forgive him for it because thanks to him we have this wonderfull limitless playground for our imaginations to run wild in.
So thanks George Lucas. For the good and the bad. For Jar Jar - Yoda. Well I really really really could have done without Jar Jar.
That aside my thoughts regarding Sith is all about the two halves of the movie. The First half is more everything is grey, sappy please belive we are in love dialog delivered like they were practicing lines hung over at waffle house. But then a magical thing happens. Lucas finally reaches the point where he says 'OK, enough, now he is giving in to the Sith in order to save what he loves'. Out go all the tortured thoughts and in with the supreme bad@$$ we all came to love to hate in Starwars Darth Vader. The tragic moments left have little to do with shades of grey and everything to do with people doing what they believe in to the fullest and being torn to pieces by it. In short the Second half Rocks. It Rocks for a simple reason. It is Starwars. Not this behometh unweildy overpowering economic force we have been exposed to since Luke first blew up the Death star. But that simple expression of imagination of people engaged in great deeds for the best and worst of reasons. That first movie was anything but complex. It was dirt simple and there was never any hedging in it. We knew who the characters where. We knew what the stood for, what they would fight for. And it did not matter that we knew. It was a classic story of good overcomming evil. George had the absolute perfect setup for simply inverting that entire formula for the prequals and largely in my book failed to deliver. With a few exceptions here and there (most of the sabre duels were damn entertaining) it seems to me like he only delivered half a movie out of 3.
Some problems I had with it.
The Jedi. This magnificent powerfull force of justice that is supposed to have reigned supreme for 1000's of years is snuffed in about 4 minutes of screen time. Vader plays a big role but not the role you would expect... he takes out the school scrubs that are not yet ready to go out into the galaxy to deal with the on going war. We could have had a movie of Vader falling deeper and deeper to the Dark Side. Seeing the will and commitment he had to saving what he loved. Instead we get him slicing a couple kids and a bunch of Jedi Shot in the back by Storm Troopers. I thought that a bit dissapointing.
Grievous. Damnit... how many enemies did we go through ? Grivous wound up being pretty cool but even so that battle never had any intensity to it... it was just a special effects tour de force which was pretty cool to watch. I really thought Lucas screwed up with not just sticking with Darth Maul. He had some serious vibes going for him and he was used for all of one real fight and about 4 lines and a couple of good snarls. Tragic waste of a powerfull image.
What I liked.
The final battle with Obi Wan is about as epic as you could ask for. It is brother against brother and no quarter is taken. How much more powerfull an image can you have than Obi Wan leaving Anakin burning by a lake of lava with his legs freshly severed by his light sabre ?
Windu/Yoda's tangles with the Emperor where both good as well.
If I were George Lucas ?
Episode one never happens, pick Anakin up farther down the road and use clues later that he is an oddball case. Not sure about Qui Gon in general. He was used so much for exposition that he never really comes across as a character. More as a narrator. Could have just put Obi Wan in the same role and traded on the fact people already valued and knew him as a character. Hell even pick him up on Tatooine at Lukes age and avoid the whole problem of an 8 year old acting like an 8 year old which was Jake Loyd's only real fault. That way the whole argument about being to old would have made a lot more sense.... I mean hell if he was to old at 8 then when do they start the training... when they are born ?
NEVER NEVER NEVER try to explain the force. Leave it mystical. Faith is a hard thing in the modern world but Lucas created something people were willing to swallow because it was futuristic... and because it had tangible manifestations of the power of the faith. It did not need explaining.
Let the Love story be a lot more subtle. Its not hard to believe a boy and girl fall in love. Its not hard to put them in impossible positions. Its not hard to have people believe that people do crazy things for love. Nobody had a hard time believing Han loved Liea and they had all of a few seconds of looks and dialog in two movies leading up to his delcleration. Its a simple story... and since he is doing the most horrible things for love it actually would behoove it to remain a very simple almost stylistic love that is pure and perfect. The foundation of Starwars is the use of archtypes and classic epic storylines. The atempt at putting more modern shades of grey into the plot was largely a mistake and nowhere was it more in evidence than the 'love story' sequences.
Of Courese that is all easy for me to say in hindsight. Lucas didn't present himself with an easy task. And if he had done it that way perhaps he would have actually managed to slay the golden goose. As is, good bad or indifferent each movie shattered box office records and the trillogy as a whole created a new record book. Perhaps none of them were as ground breaking as the original. But then they were not original were they ? All in all they are still a testament to creativity and damned entertaining.
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