Revenge of the Sith – A review
By now, unless you live under a rock, or have no interest in the subject matter, or are unfortunate enough to be paired up with someone who doesn’t like movies, you’ve probably seen Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith.
All six Star Wars movies are supposed to take place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. The first three chronicle the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, who would sire both Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, both of whom would bring about the fall of the Empire that Anakin helped build as Darth Vader. Got that? Good.
My first observation is that Lucas could have made Anakin’s conversion to the Dark Side a little more…um…obvious. He is about to slay Darth Sidious/Senator Palpatine for being an evil Sith Lord, Sidious says a few words, and all of a sudden Anakin hates the Jedi. Okay. Um, yeah. I’ve heard all the fanboy arguments, including the interview that says that the second movie built up Palpatine buttering up Anakin’s already massive ego, and trying to make him believe he’s better than his masters. Alright. I can sort of buy that. But the conversion was too quick, too easy, a mere footnote in the third film.
I would have written it thusly
First movie: The Enemy Within: Anakin is born to normal parents (no virgin birth here), who raise him as best they can while being slaves to the criminal Hutts. We see a half hour of his life as a boy, the horrors of slavery (no pod race), and Obi-Wan spirits Anakin, now a young man, off-planet to become a Jedi. The rest of the movie focuses on foiling the Trade Federation’s war on Naboo (I really don’t know why – I would have written some other nastiness they would have to stop). Anakin’s rise & fall would start here. And his romance with Padme would begin with this movie. Obviously, Palpatine, masquerading as a Senator while being a Sith Lord, would be the Enemy Within.
Second Movie: Doppelganger: Anakin foils an assassination attempt on Padme, and kills the would-be assassin, thus giving in to his anger. How many would question Yoda’s words: “Anger leads to the Dark Side.” From there, wrestling with moral questions such as is it wrong to kill a killer, and anger management issues, and encounters with Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious would make this more believable. And, the bulk of this movie would be the discovery of the Republic’s secret clone army. Again, I probably would have written it differently, such as people getting body parts chopped off, replaced by a clone’s body parts, and another deep moral question: Are clones people, too? In this way, the Republic would be plunged into a bloody civil war, with armed opponents on both sides of the issue. The Doppelganger would not only refer to a clone, but also to a ghostly double (Anakin’s evil side), as Dostoevsky would have it.
Third Movie: Rise of the Sith: Played as written, so that the horror of Vader’s acts could be seen in the light of the first two movies. When he chops up children, when he slaughters the Jedi Council, all of that could have been made believable by using the first two movies as a more effective backdrop. If you really wanted to, you could have combined the first two movies into one movie, expanding it to 3+ hours and eliminating the “big plots,” maybe having them discover these plots too late to stop them. Senator Palpatine dissolving the Senate is silly, considering the scene in A New Hope where Tarkin and the others are discussing the transfer of power from the Senate to the military governors on each planet. Duh.
Now that you know what I thought was wrong with the whole next series, let me tell you what was right. The third movie was definitely not on par with any of the original trilogy, unless you count Return of the Jedi, which should have been scrapped and redone altogether – including yet another Death Star, a nice guy Han Solo, a Jedi Luke Skywalker, cute fuzzy Ewoks, and a kindly old Darth Vader. Revenge of the Sith, despite the silly title, was dark. Suitably dark for my jaded tastes. George Lucas had some help on this one, so perhaps that was what made it right. It had all the right elements, all the darkness, a non-whiny more angry Anakin. And there was nary a boring moment, where there seemed to be too much so with the other movies. It was good enough to be a Star Wars film, and a worthy entry to the Star Wars canon. I just wish it had enough of a back story to make the franchise itself respectable.
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