Please forgive my rather abbreviated review of last night's American Idol; I was pre-occupied with Star Wars.
Some guys from work were going to the midnight show and one of them even left work at 3:45 and went straight to the theater. I waited until a little after 10:00 pm to head over, but my buddies who went early got into a "VIP" party hosted by a local radio station that provided them with special badges, catered dinner and gave away some Star Wars posters, etc., so on one level, I'm sorry I skipped the party to work in my deck and watch American Idol.
They started seating for the movie at about 11:15 and my friends who were "VIPs" got to go in first so they saved me a seat and even hooked me up with a collectable Star Wars: Episode III cup.
All in all, I enjoyed the movie. It had some glaring shortcomings, such as stilted dialogue, bad directing and "acting" that was wooden at best and laughable at worst. Still it was a good time.
One other thing: depending on your kid, I would seriously consider whether or not you want to take young children to this movie. It's very violent, with lots of lightsaber fights, dismemberments, a little bit of gore and, in my opinion, parts are too intense for younger kids. We babysit a little girls who will be 5 in July, and I don't think I would take her to see this movie.
You guys know your kids best, make the call, but if you are unsure, you might want to screen it first yourselves before taking any kids under the age of 9 or 10.
Spoiler Alert!!!!!!!!
If you do not want parts of the movie to be spoiled for you, STOP READING NOW!!!!!
For major spoilers, I will use white text, select the text and highlight it to read, but you still may not want to read the entire review if you have not yet seen the movie.
Consider yourself warned!
Much like
Titanic (the boat sinks!), we all know how this movie is going to end: Anakin is going to do lots of evil stuff and become Darth Vader. Vader is, after all, a very evil guy. Within the first five minutes that we had seen him, Vader had taken over Princess Leia's ship, choked a guy because he had a bad day and then covered the whole thing up. Later, he leaves a handful of dead Star Destroyer captains in his wake, tortures Han and Leia for no reason and then cuts off his own kid's hand. You just don't want to like him.
At the end of
A New Hope and
Return of the Jedi, there is something to cheer about. The Death Stars blow up. Vader is redeemed. All is right with in the universe.
There's no such ending in this movie. In fact, if you didn't know that it led into ANH, it would be downright depressing. Cheering at the end of ROTS would be like clapping at the end of
Saving Private Ryan.
All the jedi are dead, except for Yoda and Kenobi. Luke and Leia are in hiding. (Spoiler: highlight to read)
Padme died in childbirth from a broken heart. The Chancellor has become the Emperor and is building the first Death Star. Anakin has become Darth Vader and is in the suit.
It's hard to feel anything other than to be anything other than depressed at the end of this movie. When the Special Edition of ANH came out, I went to the theater, watched Luke blow up the Death Star and got a high five from some guy I didn't know. When ROTS ended, I was like, "Yup. Sith happens."
The story of this final installment is not a happy one, but it was necessary. I just wish I could have left the theater feeling a little better than I did.
As a film, ROTS is much like the other two Star Wars prequels
The Phantom Menace and
Attack of the Clones: visually spectacular but hindered by bad directing and cheesy "dialogue".
George Lucas is not a good filmmaker. In fact, his directing is downright horrible. I've always said that he is a much better idea factory than he is at making movies. Look at the innovations he has brought to the movies: Pixar, ILM, Skywalker Sound, the THX standard. But his directing sucks. Flat. Out. Sucks.
But consider that he was the executive producer of
Willow and the Indian Jones movies (it makes him look
real good to have directors like Ron Howard and Stephen Speilberg at the helm, too), so his abilities as a visionary are very good, but when it comes to making the movie, he's not even close to being in the same league as other, even grade C or D, directors.
Lucas's writing and directing is the downfall of ROTS. The dialogue is straight out of a poorly-written comic book. The "plot" is almost non-existent. Lucas's directing is so bad, the "acting" turns otherwise good actors into cardboard cut-out charicatures.
Lucas let Irvin Kirshner direct
The Empire Strikes Back and he let Richard Marquand direct
Return of the Jedi. While neither of those guys are going to ever win an Oscar® for anything, at least they're not Lucas. Lucas also got help with the screenplay on those movies from Lawrence Kasden and ROTS could have used some script doctoring as well.
As a fan, what bothers me is that ROTS (and TPM and AOTC, too, for that matter) could have been soooooooooooooooooo much better. With a little bit of script doctoring and an even half-competent director, all three of the prequels had the potential to be very good movies. Unfortunately, because of Lucas's medling, we had to settle for a product that overall was mediocre.
Of course, George Lucas can buy me and sell me a thousand times over, so why would he listen to what I have to say about making a movie?
That said, ROTS is visually spectacular. Lucas has always pushed the envelope of movie technology and while they say that there was no new technology used for ROTS, what they did with the existing technology was brilliant. In TPM and AOTC, Yoda looked computer-generated, his movements were very still, but in ROTS, he could be a real person.
The battle scenes and the landscapes are superb and the computer-generated sets blend seamlessly. Depending on what other movies come out this year, ILM could sweep the technical awards again this year.
I have a few minor nitpicks with the movie, but overall it wasn't too bad.
- Spoiler (highlight to read): Since Padme dies in childbirth, it makes me wonder how Leia can remember her birth mother as she claims to in ROTJ.
- At the end of ROTJ, Kenobi is in his 30s (Ewan McGregor is 34), but at the beginning of ANH, Kenobi is in his 60s, even though only about 18 years have elapsed (Alec Guinness was 63 when he filmed ANH).
- At the end of ROTS, they show the first Death Star about 20% completed, but at the beginning of ANH, it has just been completed (18 years later). Five years after that Death Star has been blown up, the new Death Star is nearing completion.
- General Grevious starts the movie with a horrible cough, but that is never fully explained. Did the warranty on his bionic lung expire? Computer generated lung cancer? One too many death sticks?
- Explaining one of the great mysteries of the Star Wars universe, at the end of ROTS, Captain Antilles orders C-3PO's memory to be wiped clean. Throughout the original trilogy, everyone wonders why C-3PO doesn't remember that Anakin built him and that Anakin is Vader. However, this doesn't explain how Vader doesn't recognise 3PO when he encounters him on Bespin or why R2-D2 doesn't ever chime in about who Vader is, who Luke is and how the two are related.
- Leia goes to live with Bail Organa and Luke goes to Tatooine to live with his "uncle" (Owen, Anakin's stepbrother). Why wouldn't Vader/Anakin go to Tatooine and either wipe out his family or turn on them, too. If I had been raised in slavery and had such bad memories of a planet, and then I suddenly had the power to do something about it (plus a disposition towards revenge and wholesale slaughter), I think I would have destroyed the planet.
- All of the clone troopers have sealed environmental helmets, except your clone pilots, who have open faced visors and they pilot ships in a vacuum.
- Four Jedi Masters go to arrest Palpatine/Darth Sidious. Let's say you're Mace Windu. You're going to arrest a Sith Lord. The most evil being in the galaxy. Not the most evil person in your office. Not the most evil person in your apartment complex. Not even the most evil person in your country. This is the most evil person IN THE ENTIRE GALAXY. 1) Why do you only take three other guys with you? 2) Why don't you lock up the Jedi Temple before you leave? and 3) Why don't you send out a blast email to all the other Jedi around that if you don't make it, they all need to go after Palpatine, who is, once again, the most evil person in the galaxy
- Let's say your Obi-Wan Kenobi. (Spoiler: highlight to read) Anakin (aka "Stumpy") is lying on the ground. He can't hurt you. He's got one half-working robotic arm. He bursts into flame and his horribly scarred. Why don't you kill him?
- What's up with Chewbacca in ROTS? He didn't really do anything. It seems kind of a reach that the same Chewbacca would know Yoda, get released from slavery by Han Solo, join up with Luke in the Mos Eisley cantina, help blow up the first Death Star, get captured on Bespin and then have a hand in blowing up the second Death Star and then have to get his rightfully-earned medal from MTV. He could have been substituted for any other wookie and it wouldn't have felt so contrived.
- In the world of Star Wars, the technology exists to build cybernetic limbs to replaced those severed by a lightsaber, travel from star system to star system, holographically project someone's image across hundreds and thousands of light-years in real time and clone one guy into an army of millions without any sort of DNA degeneration, but they don't have a single ultrasound machine that can tell a woman she is carrying more than one child in her womb.
Despite all my gripes, I did enjoy the movie. I'm sure I'll go see it again in the theater (maybe even two more times) and when the prequel trilogy comes out on DVD, I'm sure I'll pick it up then, too.
It's a good show, despite its shortcomings, but that may just be the fanboy in me.
A word of warning though. There are at least 7 limbs that are severed (Spoiler: highlight to read)
Dooku loses both hands and his head, Mace Windu loses an arm, and Anakin loses both legs and his non-cybernetic arm), plus Grievious loses all four of his hands (does that really count as dismemberment?) in lightsaber battles.
Most of the other violence is of the standard, sterile Star Wars type; laser blasts that don't open wounds or leave markes. Lots of battle droids get chopped up. Spaceships blow up and that sort of thing. There's just a lot more violence than in any movie other than ROTJ and the Endor battle.
I would caution anyone bringing young children to the movie; again, depending on your child. When Anakin and Obi-Wan are fighting on Mustafar, things get ugly (that's how Vader ends up in the suit). (Spoiler: highlight to read)
Anakin is near some lava and his clothes burst into flame, singeing his flesh, burning away all his hair and leaving him disfigured. Then later, we see Vader on the operating table, being put in the black armour and you get to see his burned skin, he's writhing around in pain, the stumps of his arms and legs covered by cybernetic caps. I could be too intense for younger children.
And then there's another scene in the Jedi Temple. (Spoiler: highlight to read)
Anakin has gone to the Temple to destroy all the Jedi there. He takes several hundred clone troopers and they're gunning down Jedi. Anakin enters a room with several Jedi children in it. The door closes. One of the "younglings" says, "Master Skywalker, there are too many of them." Anakin has an evil look in his eye. He ignites his lightsaber. The scene cuts away. Again, I would seriously consider screening this movie first if your younger children are wanting to see it. I read one review that said that if your kids were okay watching
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, they'll probably be okay watchinng ROTS.
I've also read that Lucas is making a statement against the current administration with several jabs at Dubya.
Read more here and
here. Here's the thing: Lucas finished the principal photography on this film almost two years ago. And while Dubya was saying things like "Either your with me or you're my enemy", the Iraq war hadn't started so I don't see how you can draw an intentional parallel between ROTS and Dubya, not that I'd ever want to defend Dubya, but I also don't want to hammer the guy for something he didn't do.
So my evaluation on ROTS would be 6½/7 out of 10. As a cinematic piece of work, the writing and directing probably comes in at about 3½ out of 10, the technology and visual effects are 9½ out of 10 and as a fan of the Star Wars franchinse, I'd rate it about 8 out of 10.
May the Force be with you.