Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
George Lucas
Cast :
Ewan McGregor……….Obi-Wan Kenobi
Natalie Portman……….Padmé
Hayden Christensen……….Anakin Skywalker
Ian McDiarmid……….Supreme Chancellor Palpatine
Samuel L. Jackson……….Mace Windu
Jimmy Smits……….Senator Bail Organa
Frank Oz……….Yoda (voice)
Anthony Daniels……….C-3PO
Christopher Lee……….Count Dooku
Keisha Castle-Hughes……….Queen of Naboo
Silas Carson……….Ki-Adi-Mundi & Nute Gunray
Jay Laga’aia……….Captain Typho
Bruce Spence……….Tion Medon
Wayne Pygram……….Governor Tarkin
Temuera Morrison……….Commander Cody
When it comes to developing a story, George Lucas is one of the best. By taking the better portions of storylines and character development arcs from samurai movies and westerns alike, and then meshing them with the wonders of space and the imagination of science fiction, his Star Wars trilogy still holds up as one of the true classics of cinema.
And I honestly wish that I could say the same thing about the movies that precede the original trilogy. Lucas has a definite story arc he wants to follow with the rise of Darth Vader and the fall of the Republic. And in Revenge of the Sith, the fall of Anakin Skywalker (played by Hayden Christiansen) and the rise of Darth Vader is the sloppiest way to create a villain this side of Monday Night Raw.
The crux of this latest episode is that Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader and the Republic becomes the empire. This has been foretold since the prequels began, as the beginning of the original trilogy has the Empire firmly in control. The events of this episode are predictable as they have to be; in order to maintain the canon of Star Wars the past must go through as the future has been already been written. Too bad getting there involves an awful story, worse dialogue and some truly bad acting set amidst some gorgeous scenery.
The problems with Revenge of the Sith begin with the story itself. Anakin has to become evil, that is foretold, but the problem is that the story itself doesn’t turn him evil. At the end of Attack of the Clones the storyline progression for him to be truly stripped of his humanity and leave the viewer disgusted with him is there. His hatred and anger should be enough to drive him over the edge and turn him into the darkest, most evil man in the galaxy. His transformation into Darth from Anakin should be complete and total; the last vestige of his humanity needs to be ripped away and replaced with the black vestige of the signature helmet.
And he has to walk that line, per se, by himself. The movie takes this walk from Anakin and complicates it beyond measure by involving way too many distractions and plot twists. He involves too many people and their agendas with Anakin; in doing so Lucas compromises the very fabric that the original trilogy clings to.
The Jedi are the bastions of goodness able to tap into this mystical entity called the force; they are a combination of samurai and sage, myth and man alike. Lucas takes this and after the first two episodes turns his heroes into a combination of the Swiss Royal Guard and the lucky sperm club. He takes away the rest of their luster in this episode, as they act quite un-Jedi-like to top off the desecration of everything that makes them special.
Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side is justifiable in light of the actions of this movie; the fact that he can believably occupy the moral high ground in any context of the matter. His turn is reasonable in comparison to the events around him. His hatred is his Achilles heel, his one tragic flaw that defines him, and yet the fact that you can identify with the reasoning behind it and can almost empathize with his actions betrays everything about the character itself. It violates the morality of the universe that Star Wars occupies.
Beyond this, the dialogue and acting contribute to knocking down the movie. While George Lucas will never be known for inspiring performances from any of his actors, his ability to tell a story has always compensated for it. But when the story is as flat and insulting as this then the acting and dialogue stand out like a sore thumb.
It’s as if Lucas opted to write the most insulting lines that completely distract from the story itself in one volume and then combine them all into one movie.
With uninspired at best performances from Natalie Portman and Christiansen dominating the screen the movie’s breathtakingly good scenery melts away. Their lack of chemistry is the least of the problems with this movie. Even actors who normally provide quality performances no matter how bad the source material like Ewan McGregor and Samuel L Jackson, as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Wandu respectively, are terrible at best throughout the movie. Frank Oz, the voice of Yoda, provides the only acting highlight. And when a computer animated puppet shows more emotional depth than any of your main stars something is wrong.
Revenge of the Sith is a disappointment at best and a travesty at worst.
