Mel, Tony and I saw Star Wars: Episode III last night. Everybody’s claiming this is the best of the first three and even a very good movie overall, but Mel & I came out of it more annoyed than anything.
Without being spoilery, George Lucas seems to have an utter hatred of subtext and either hates or just doesn’t trust his actors. If a character in this movie is scared they say “I’m scared”. If they love someone they say “I love you.” If they are confused and not sure if they’re going the right thing or if they’re even on the right side they say “I’m confused and not sure if I’m doing the right thing or even if I’m on the right side.”
Sure, the action was pretty great and the humour added to it actually got a chuckle or two out of me rather than the previous episodes’ Jar-Jar antics which made me cringe. And yes, aside from his scenes with Amidala, Hayden Christensen was much better in this one.
But… (SPOILERS FOLLOW DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU’VE SEEN EPISODE 3)
Amidala was worthless. In Ep. 1 she was a kickass Queen going undercover as one of her decoys to find out what was really going on. Forthright, headstrong, cool even though she was young. In Ep. 2 she kicked all sorts of ass. In Ep. 3 she’s “the crying pregnant chick”. Granted she has one of the best lines in the movie, “This is how liberty dies—with thunderous applause.”
Palpatine… I loved him in Eps 1&2. The subtlety of his plotting and machinations was something I really loved about those two. Everyone but the Sith thought that the good guys won in both movies but really “Everything is proceeding as planned” for him. It was clever and cool and showed off how the Sith could win by intelligent planned manipulation rather than the outright “We’re evil, we keeeel you!” moves that the Jedi thought they were overcoming.
But in Ep. 3 Palpatine made some crazy risky moves that could have very easily resulted in his death and it seemed incredibly out of character. He tells Anakin he’s a Sith Lord without knowing fully how he’d react. That moment should’ve been planned perfectly. He’s a master manipulator and should’ve known exactly when to bring that up. Instead he took that huge risk and almost died.
And let’s not start on his stupid overacting once he was “drained” and looked fully evil. Sheesh.
Best Actor award goes to the youngling who approaches Anakin in the Jedi Temple and asks him what they should do. His line was delivered well but his reaction to the lightsaber being activated was about the only time Lucas let an actor portray something rather than SAY IT and he did it well. There’s a reason people are calling that scene powerful and the youngling’s reaction is a big part of it.
Worst line, despite a shit-ton of crappy dialogue between Anakin and Padme, goes to Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) at the end with his ridiculous “NOOooooooo!” after learning Padme’s fate. Mel & I both looked at each other and rolled our eyes at that. The only thing it missed was Vader dropping to his knees to deliver it and it could’ve been on par with the Dungeons and Dragons movie.
My Rating: Annoying (this transcends “out of 10″ ratings)
Groan… I’m going to see this today and I’m already regretting it. Bah.
Actually, I liked it. The nooo scene was pretty lame but other than that, I was glad I went. It’s still cheesy star wars, and yeah Amidala is useless, but it was cool. We jsut watched the original three and holy cow… they’re about as bad. Hard to complain. I agree with the masses - episode 3 is the best of the new three.
I guess it is the best of these new three, but as Fahrv points out on his blog we can handle fully BAD movies as long as we get some of the goods we want, but a movie that’s a near miss like Episode III is becomes much more annoying. I think that explains precisely why my initial reaction was so negative.
I’m going to give it some time and then watch it again.
A bunch of friends and I have discussed this at length, and we all came to a concensus of why these first three movies can’t hold a candle to Ep4 and Ep5.
1. No loveable comic relief. No Han Solo. He was by far the character that everyone related to in the original movies. The best lines, the “coolest” character.
2. Lucas didn’t have awesome special effects back in the day, so he actually had to have a good PLOT. Ep1-3 seemed to have scenes in them that didn’t carry or push the plot forward, but were there just because Georgie-boy could show off some special effects. The most glaring, was the out of the blue light saber duel in the desert.
3. No strongly entrenched villian (you could argue it was the emperor but the movie needed an “in your face” villian like Vader in Eps4-6). Darth Maul started out cool, or could have, were he given some DIALOGUE, but he died like a punk. If he had been established in Ep1, and pushed as the main villian in Ep2 and the first half of Ep3, to be finally killed by Anakin (ala Dooku, the Sith with the dumbest name ever) to finish his turn to the dark side, all three movies would have been better for it.