Alright, saw it last night. I’m not even going to attempt to organize these thoughts, so bear with me. Or don’t if you haven’t seen it yet, because there will be spoilers in here. You have been warned.
First impressions - yes, it’s definately the best of the three prequels, but that’s a bit like saying you picked out the best out of three day-glo leisure suits. Saw it at the Arclight, totally sold out, blah blah blah… and you could tell people desperately wanted to cheer. It was a pretty quiet theater throughout the movie.
There are good moments. But I can vividly remember walking out of the same theaters after the Lord of the Rings movies (and those were NOT quiet theaters) and being so excited, jabbering away about all the parts of the movies I LOVED. We walked out and starting talking about all the parts we hated.
Again, it’s not so much that this one was spectacularly bad. But it’s the last one. And the other two, frankly, sucked. And this one did not redeem them.
Which brings me to the best part of the third movie - at least it’s all over now. Lucas, you suck. I don’t want to see another three movies, so I’m glad you’ve just decided that you were never going to do them. Your revisionist history tendencies make me ill. If there is to be a TV show, as people are saying, I’m not going to watch a second of it unless you’re so perephrially involved you don’t actually write a damn thing. These three movies you made have sullied a universe that was part of my childhood. You nerf-herder.
So, where to begin? The completely useless inclusion of the Wookies, purely so you could throw Chewbacca in to get a cheer? And then leave us wondering why, if Yoda and Chewie were such good friends, surely Chewie knew Luke was training with him? How did Obi-Wan go from a relatively young Ewan to a, well, not very young Alec in just 20 years? If Vader built C3P0 by hand and R2D2 was his personal astrodroid, why didn’t he recognize them in IV, V, VI?
And then we can start in on the completely bullshit way Lucas had Anakin turn. No build up. So many subtle things that could have been done, but no, we’re left with a few scenes that rang so hollow. A very thin and small Darth Vader in the costume. What, did he eat a ton of pan-galactic burgers in the 20 years inbetween movies? Spend a lot of time at the gym beefing up his entirely robotic body? The fact that a fucking medical droid basically tells us that Padme dies because she’s “lost the will to live”. The WORST SCENE IN A STAR WARS MOVIE EVER - the “vader scream”. That one scene alone but the nail in the coffin for me. Sure, Star Wars kind of jumped the shark with the ewoks, but really… I half expected to see the Burger King guy from the lame commericals walk in on this scene. The clueless nature of the Jedi, who were actually never really all that badass in any of these movies. What a bunch of yokels. No wonder they lost the republic.
Oh yeah. The none-too-subtle stabs at our current political situation. Hey Lucas, this is supposed to be escapist sci-fi fun, a space opera for fuck’s sake. While I agree with the scentiments, I’ll pop in Farenheit 9/11 for my political viewing, thank you very much. Having Anakin drop good ol’ Bushies “You’re with me or the enemy” line was a little OTT and totally unnecessary. So quickly after Padme’s crap line about how liberty ends.
Some good battle scenes, but even those were flawed by Lucas’ inability to exercise any self-control whatsoever and jamming each and every frame full of so much useless background CGI that there was never any focus. Of course, with his dialogue and crap acting, that was probably a good thing. Light saber battles so over the top and packed with CGI and twiddling and flinging about so there was never any real tension or sense of danger. No characters I actually cared about.
One scene, and one scene alone was done right - the end of the duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan’s final anguish.
Other than that, the past six years have been a total wash.
