Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

I saw the new Star Wars movie on Thursday. I’ve been putting off writing anything about it because I’m not sure what to say. I enjoyed it and I will probably end up seeing it again sometime in the next few weeks. It really was a great movie. It was such an improvement over the first two prequels.

I thought that Ewen McGregor and Hayden Christansen were exceptional. It was as though they were saving all of their effort for this movie. Unfortunately, Natalie Portman didn’t have a whole lot to do in this movie except be pregnant. Padme’s scenes with Anakin seemed short and redundant and really didn’t seem to change a whole lot of the outcome of the movie. It almost reminded me of the “falling in love” scenes in Attack of the Clones: short, stiff, and silly. Although their chemistry in this movie was much improved, something still felt “off” in their scenes together.

I don’t have many other complaints about the movie. Once Padme gives birth to the twins and they start setting the scene for Star Wars, it just made the ending very satisfying. It was quite amazing to see.

There were three pretty important scenes in the movie that I would like to change a bit.

***** Spoiler Warning *****

The first was when Anakin accepted Palpatine as his master. It seemed to be a bit too quick. The only explanation is that Anakin probably felt like an accomplice in Mace Windu’s death and felt that he had no where else to turn. It just felt really rushed. Instead, I would’ve like to see Anakin fight Mace in order to defend Palpatine and have Palpatine taunt him toward the dark side the way he taunted Luke in Return of the Jedi. That would’ve been more exciting and I think it would’ve made his turn to the dark side more believable.

The other scene was when Anakin was in full Vader gear and he asks Palpatine where Padme is. When finding out that he caused her death, he gives out a fist-clenching “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”. It was almost laughable. I don’t know how I’d rewrite this scene, but it didn’t pack the emotional punch that it should have.

When Padme was in labor and dying, the medical droid implies that she is dying because she “doesn’t have the will to live.” This is ridiculous. She should be dying because of wounds suffered from Anakin (he probably should have done more damage). I can’t think of a better reason to live than two newborn babies. George kind of dropped the ball on that one.

For a great spoiler-filled review that is spot on, check out Ain’t It Cool News.