Having rewatched Revenge of the Sith, I'm reminded of the Howard Hawkes quote," a good movie is defined as three great scenes, and no bad ones." The problem with Revenge of the Sith is that it's pretty much the reverse- a bunch of good scenes almost ruined by three bad ones. Revenge of the Sith is by far the best of the prequels, but it still wasn't good enough to compete salvage how bad TPM and AOTC were. On this re watch, I actually enjoyed it way more than I remember mainly because it was obvious this was the only story George Lucas had enough story to tell. He almost pulls it off, but three main scenes really stop him from doing so.
The good:
There's actually more good here then many people will admit. For one thing, Anakin's reason for joining the dark side actually kind of makes sense in an immature Star Wars kind of way. When I first saw it, I actually hated it,( he turns into Vader so he can stop people from dying. How stupid is that?), but, after seeing Anakin's immature and borderline sociopathic behavior in the other films, this kind of crazy thinking actually fits nicely in the character's arrogance, navet, and ego. It weirdly works 14 years later.
Ian Mcdormand really makes the case for a guy who borderline almost saves the prequels himself. He's having a blast playing pure evil, and it'd s blast to watch him. I know it's been memed to death, but his seduction of Anakin at the opera is actually a really great scene almost solely because of him.
The final battle between Obi Wan and Anakin is cgid to death and doesn't have the impact it should, but it's well choreographed and intricately put together with with the sidious/ Yods fight that it pretty much works. Fighting Yoda annoyed me in AOTC, but here it actually kind of works.
I also think the film does a good job of sidelining Padme. That relationship makes no damn sense and Lucas knew it, so he focused on the one relationship that has any kind of emotional attachments-Anakin and Obi Wan. It doesn't always work,( mainly because the previous films do such a poor job of defining their friendship), but Christianson and mcgregor try their damndest to make work.
General Grievous also more or less works. He's an obvious example of foreshadowing in terms of Vader, but the fact that Lucas even bothered to put that in here shows he actually have a **** about what he was putting out there on this one.
I'm also a huge fan of the final shot. I love the use of the fuel suns to call back to Luke. It's a little manipulative, but it works in the context of the film.
The Bad:
It's really not the film's fault for this, but as great as Lucas is at staging things here, all of it kind of rings hollow due to the poor characterization and set up from the previous films. When Obi Wan screams, " you were the chosen one!" It's meant to mean something-a friendship destroyed, innocence lost- but none of that comes through because he spent time showing Anakin and Padme frolicking in fields like Heidi instead of developing the core relationship of Anakin and Obi Wan Kenobi.
Also, rewatching this with my wife, she commented that," this might as well be an animated film," in response to the absolute deluge of cgi in this thing. The final attack of General Geivious with the Wookiee's might as well be a video game.
The Ugly:
You know how I said at the beginning it's really three scenes that prevent this movie from being much better than it is? It's nit so much that these scenes are bad, it's that they're bad at the worst possible times.
Bad Scene One: The emperor takedown.
This first really bad scene is when they attempt to arrest Chancelor Palpatine in his office. It'd the scene where you see Anakin become Vader, Macr Windu is killed by Anakin, and the story shifts. The problem is that Lucas, actually a very strong action director, stages this essential encounter
in a stilted, kind of hilarious way. Palpatine croaking, "no!" While fighting of Mace Windu is actually kind of hysterical, which this scene shouldn't be at all.
Bad Scene Two: Padme dying
Dying from a broken heart? Really? Anakin had already gone evil-to the point of killing children by the way-why not have him kill Padme? It'd kind of implied he does, but this major scene that ultimately robs Anakin of his true love just falls flat because of that statement.
Bad Scene Three:Becoming Vader
This is the one Scene this film has to get right. After all, it's the reason we eased through two terrible movies-we wanted Anakin to become Vader. And he becomes him in a scene that starts off perfectly, but ends in hysterics because of one simply bad choice. Everything from the suit going on, James Earl Jones booking through the sound system, Vader's psychic freak out when he finds out Padme is dead, is perfect, with Lord Sidious grinning in the back ground. It all works until Vader, scream"nooooo!" in that hysterical, torn deaf way that Kucas managed the entire series. It's a hysterically bad finish to a scene that was about to work like gangbusters.
IN the end, if I'm being honest, I enjoyed this way more than I remembered. Revenge of the Sith is overall a pretty damn good movie that just happens to have a couple of scenes that being it down. It's not good enough to save the prequels as a whole, but it got close.
*** out of ****
