Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

From the theatrical trailers I'd seen about this film for the past 5-8 months, I had been highly anticipating its release. As I worked on Thursday, I wasn't able to make the opening day showing as all times were sold out. I even had to buy the ticket on Thursday in advance for the Friday showing, so I ended up watching the movie on Friday, May 20 2005 at 9:45pm.

The film started off badly with an attack sequence by the Jedis, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), to reach a ship to rescue the Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). Yes, that does sound like it should be exciting, doesn't it? Yet somehow Lucas and his crew manage to make it too dizzily active with everything going on at once so much so that instead it becomes confusing on one hand and boring as hell on another. This is just a setup to the rest of the wretched events, the worst being the dialogue.

If you've read reviews from others on the dialogue, I won't bore you myself by going on about it other than to lament further about the romance scenes. If I live another 150 years, I can happily never undergo another romantic moment with Hayden Christensen acting it and George Lucas directing it. Thankfully this is the end of the trilogy, so my wish will be granted on that score.

There were good moments in the film centering primarily around Yoda (the best parts of the film), R2D2 (the funniest scene of the film), and Palpatine (the most sinister and best acting done). I felt badly for Ewan MacGregor, an actor I personally like, who had so little to work with for lines and most of the time due to his phony accent ended up sounding pretentious and like a twit.

After seeing the film, I spent quite a bit of time considering how I would have reacted if this had not been Star Wars. Did it being an episode in the Star Wars series make me harsher in my expectations, more likely to want to consider it awful because it dashed them? I believe, however, that had this film been the first movie ever made about Star Wars and even released back in 1976, it would have also bombed back then and soundly. In fact, it would have ensured no further Star Wars films were ever produced and George Lucas would never have went on to fame and fortune. Truly, it is that bad a film.

As such, I am giving it the rating it deserves of ok, which is an average rating. This film barely makes an ok, but Yoda saved it. I think I'm actually being too kind and had it not been part of the Star Wars series, I would have given it a crummy just for putting up with the lines I had to sit through. After seeing the film, I went home to watch the real first Star Wars (I am going to refuse to call it Star Wars IV as it is actually the real and original Star Wars), and I encourage anyone considering going to see Star Wars III to do that instead, too. :)

Please feel free to comment on this review or on the movie itself at the forum thread devoted to it at this location.