Star Wars Episode III

I saw Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith recently. Yes, I went to the midnight showing. No, I didn't dress up. Yes, I adhered to the theater's ban of light-sabers, masks, and blasters. The scene was better than the past two episodes. I saw a husband and wife dressed up as Jedi Knights but the best was seeing someone in a Darth Vader suit. It was quite a spectacle.

I liked the film. Ok, I liked the first two films too but this one was definitely the best of the three new films. Albeit it being the best, it wasn't devoid of flaws but luckily they didn't completely ruin the movie.

I absolutely loved the opening sequence. The awesome battle between Star Destroyers, X-Wings, and Tie Fighters was fantastic. It was nice to finally see a war in space within a Star Wars film again.

The special effects amazed me once again. It proves once again that George Lucas is a phenomenal technical director. His creativity and attention to detail with regards to scenery and special effects is among the best. The plot and story of the film was good too. There was a dire amount of story to tell and they fit it all in very nicely. They did a great job of tying episode two and four together so that the entire six films were a cohesive sexology (or is it sextology?).

I really enjoyed the political commentary about the United States within the film. Lucas has always been known for blending politics into his movies (THX 1138 is probably the best example). I loved the line from Anakin stating: "If you're not with me, you're against me." Anakin used this as his reason to attack Obi-Wan. I found it extremely similar with what extremists did prior to the Iraq War. They had successfully popularized the belief that if you disagreed with God's will, oops I mean Bush's agenda, then you were unpatriotic and therefore a traitor of a sort.

Now, onto the complaints. Once again, most of the dialogue was absolutely rubbish and made me wince. As much as I praise Lucas for his technical skill as a director, I feel the opposite in his ability to direct actors and write a script. I wish he had relinquished his role as director and only been a producer. This worked fantastically well for Episode V and VI and to a degree for IV, where he was the director but had a massive amount of help. Seems as though Lucas has let his ego get in the way of his filmmaking. Such a pity.

I laughed through the entire scene of Darth Vader being reconstructed after having his feet and arm loped off and catching fire. The entire scene was so reminiscent of Frankenstein and the Six Million Dollar Man. I was just waiting for the line "we can rebuild him, we have the technology."

My last complaint is about Jar Jar. Although I was extremely happy that he didn't speak in this film, why couldn't Darth Vader kill him as a symbol that he had converted to the dark side. It would have been every Star Wars' fan's dream. Imagine this: Anakin has just been persuaded by Palpatine to join the dark side and in walks Jar Jar with some message from Padme when BAM... Anakin busts out his light-saber, splits him in two, and says: "shut the fuck up Jar Jar". It would be awesome. Lucas missed out.

As I said earlier, I liked the film but I would have liked it lot more had someone else written the dialogue and directed the movie. Lucas has a great imagination and the film is technically fantastic but it could have been so much more if only Lucas had decided to let go of his ego and only produced the film.'