Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith was better than I was expecting. In fact, it almost felt as good as Return of the Jedi. The problem was that I'm not entirely sure whether my expectations were just that low or whether it was actually a good movie. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it was just low expectations. It still had many cringe-inducing lines, and there were terrible expository dialogue portions. Admittedly, the original trilogy had those as well, but there's just something better about those than the new trilogy. And, I think I finally figured it out. It's because of the ridiculous overusage of CGI. The original trilogy had some impressive matte shots, but the best part was that it felt real. CGI just doesn't feel right when it's used almost constantly. If it's allowed to be only part of the shots, it weirdly feels more realistic than if it is used constantly. It became completely obvious when I watched Serenity and all the bonus materials. You could see that it was somewhat sloppy, the CGI was occasionally blatantly obvious, but they didn't replace characters, didn't have them doing anything completely against the laws of physics, didn't have the digital actors change size at any points (something that is difficult to avoid, but is really distracting in some of the Jedi duels), and just felt real. As Joss says about the mule chase, comparing it to the pod race in Episode I, the fact that there are real shots in there, and that there's very little CGI, gives everything a weight that is completely missing from CGI now.

I hate to harp on this constantly, because there were some very impressive shots in Episode III, but the problem is that Lucas spends much too much time focusing on how to get the shots rather than attempting to make the viewer care about the people in them. The parts that affected me the most in Episode III were the playing of Leia's theme and Luke's theme at the end. I didn't care about Anakin's fall. It was forced, and not even remotely right. "What have I done? I'll do anything master!" WTF? Seriously, Lucas, you need someone to tell you how poorly you write dialogue. And you need to listen. I only cared about the things that were call backs to the original trilogy. I have, also, decided that if I have kids, they're watching the Star Wars films in the order they were made. There is no way in hell Revenge of the Sith gets any response without having seen the original trilogy. That is not how you are supposed to make a movie. You're supposed to make it so that it stands on its own, and any call backs are supposed to enhance the effect of the movie. When you make a movie, we're supposed to care what happens to the characters. Oh, and Lucas's hand fetish needs to die the same death as Count Dooku. Also, what's up with that name? Was he just trying to make people think of shit? Because that's all I think of. Maybe it's the movies.

Anyway, it's a sad state of affairs that fanboys the world over have hailed this as either somewhat better or almost as good as Return of the Jedi, because that one was the sign of what was to come in this movie. If only Lucas had kept the Wookies in Return, I am convinced that there would be nothing comparing the two movies. Just the pacing was much better. Lucas is a hack. Unfortunately, he's an incredibly rich hack who doesn't have to listen to anyone else. Think what a talented director could have done with the last two movies. Nothing could have saved the crap that was Episode I. If only he'd just cut that movie down (say, by taking Jar Jar out) and put that as a very short part of a real first movie that actually had some use.

Damnit. I think I actually hate Episode III after writing this. I didn't hate it when I started. All I could think about when writing this was how much was bad. What was good? Mace Windu? Ruined by the end of that fight. Obi-Wan? Almost saves the movie singlehandedly, except that he has to play too many scenes with Hayden "I Will Get Through the Movie with Only Three Expressions" Christensen. Everything that was good in it was almost immediately undercut by either completely unfunny humor or by some line that would be immature in a high schooler's livejournal. I can't even think of anything that was completely enjoyable in it. George, in trying to make me have a good idea about this movie, you just lost points on the entire trilogy. You, sir, suck.