WARNING: SPOILERS, I guess?
Previously, on Matt Reviews A Star Wars Movie…
In the debate on which is the worst prequel – The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones – it was decided
that Attack of the Clones was worse
due to how unmemorable and dull it was.
Now, a different question still remains. Which is the better
prequel: Revenge of the Sith or Rogue One?
I’d rewatched Rogue
One fairly recently enough to where it’s still fresh in my mind, but seeing
as how it’s been about ten years since I’ve seen Revenge of the Sith, let’s revisit that one.
The end of the Clone Wars is dawning. As Jedi Knights
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) take
care of the remaining Seperatist leaders, forces from within strive to drive
them apart. Fearing the predicted death of his pregnant wife Padme (Natalie
Portman), Anakin turns to the teachings of Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid)
to save her, which leads him down a path to the Dark Side that will eventually
transform him into Darth Vader.
Unfortunately for Episode
III, it falls into many of the same pitfalls that tripped up Episode II. The romance between Padme
and Anakin is still god-awful. No chemistry, eye-rolling dialogue that belongs
in a crappy Hallmark movie, yadda yadda, you’ve heard all of these complaints
before. Fortunately, and unlike the previous prequel, the romance doesn’t take
up half of the runtime. It’s mercifully relegated to a subplot that feeds into
Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side. Unfortunately, this does mean that Padme has
practically nothing to do in this movie as compared to the previous one. At
least in Attack of the Clones, Padme
participated in the climax, kicking ass and taking names. In Revenge of the Sith, her entire role is
to stand around, be pregnant, and complain about Anakin turning evil. Oh, and
die. Can’t forget that.
Side note: How does her pregnancy exactly work in this
movie? We never really get a good glimpse as to the progression of her term
throughout the movie, so we have no idea how far along she was when she dropped
the news to Anakin. Given the timeframe of this movie, this either means that
A) Anakin had been gone from Padme for quite some time, to the point where her
pregnancy was already quite far along by the time she told him, B) this movie
takes place over the course of over half a year to give Padme enough time to
come to term, which means the Jedi are moving at a snail’s pace to capture
General Grievous and end the war, or C) Padme went through some sort of magic
Jedi-pregnancy that accelerated her term greatly and allowed her to carry and
deliver twins in two hours and twenty minutes. Regardless, sometime about the
timeline in this movie doesn’t make any sense.
 |
| How much funnier would this scene have been if it played out like Raiders of the Lost Ark's scimitar scene? |
The writing in this movie is still not an improvement over
the previous prequels, particularly in the dialogue. Ian McDiarmid’s
delightfully hammy performance of Palpatine makes the majority of his stupid
lines enjoyable, and the same can be said for Ewan McGregor’s snarky and fun
outing as Obi-Wan. But once again, the major faults in the writing can be truly
seen any time Hayden Christensen opens his mouth. His acting ability hasn’t
really changed since Attack of the Clones,
but at least he looks more threatening to go along with his switch to the Dark
Side. That longer hair, dark robes, and Edgy Face Scar™ really do his character more justice than that gross-ass
rat-tail from the previous movie.
The film introduces the new villain General Grievous to the
big screen, and despite being one of the film’s primary antagonists, he barely
leaves a mark. He’s got a cool and menacing design, a neat gimmick involving
collecting lightsabers from fallen Jedi, a unique fighting style involving four
arms, and he’s an important figure as the leader of the droid army, and yet he
feels incredibly wasted in terms of potential. He’s got all of these cool
character attributes about him, and yet they decide to make his character a
coward, always looking to escape from battle rather than face his opponent. The
dude’s basically a killer cyborg skeleton spider, and they make his two
defining character traits coughing and running away. By the time the movie was
wrapping up, I had almost completely forgotten Grievous was a character in the
film. If it weren’t for the two Clone Wars cartoons, I would have no idea how
big of a deal Grievous really is in the grand scheme of the Clone Wars. But
judging his presence in this film on it’s own, he’s unimpressive.
The same thing can kind of be said for Count Dooku, who
exists literally to die at the beginning of the movie to show Anakin being evil
and stuff. Though considering he had a presence in a previous movie, this is forgivable.
And of course, the film has the controversial plot point of
having a lot of the Jedi being executed by Clone Troopers. In other words,
powerful space wizards with laser swords and super senses were easily
eliminated by the precursors of the Stormtroopers. This can be justified
somewhat by saying that the Clones were their allies and their surprise attack
came when their guard was down. But then again, the movie shows there were
plenty of opportunities for the Jedi to suspect something was wrong and attempt
to retaliate, so the movie itself contradicts this theory. If Obi-Wan and Yoda
could defend themselves from the Clones, why couldn’t Aayla Secura or Ki-Adi-Mundi?
Fortunately, future expanded universe material revealed that there were several
Jedi that managed to escape Order 66, and that Darth Vader and the Sith
Inquisition later got involved to hunt down Jedi more efficiently, but in this
movie on it’s own, the explanation is kind of lame.
The same problem happens when Mace Windu and the other
masters face down against Palpatine. I know they probably weren’t expecting a
60-year-old politician to suddenly do a screaming spin-flip with a lightsaber,
but nobody except for Mace even tries to defend themselves from being skewered.
Not even my man Kit Fisto, probably my favorite “background Jedi.” A moment of
silence for everyone’s favorite smiling Nautolan.
 |
| Kit Fisto ?? - 19 BBY "He Smiled When No One Else Would" |
The latter battle is what everyone is here for, though.
Anakin against Obi-Wan. The final battle for Anakin’s soul among the fiery pits
of Mustafar, with constantly shifting scenery and the very battlefield itself
being a player in the struggle. When it’s not being peppered with cheesy,
trying-way-to-hard-to-be-dramatic one-liners (“From my point of view, the Jedi
are evil.”), it’s an emotionally charged final battle between master and
apprentice, and more importantly, between friends. The fight choreography is
pretty impressive between Christensen and McGregor, showing that the two Jedi
Knights are equally matched with quick strikes constantly met by rapid parries.
Even when Obi-Wan is delivering clichéd, flimsy dialogue after leaving Anakin to
die, Ewan McGregor pretty much saves it with his emotional performance. For a
moment, you don’t see George Lucas’ inhuman writing style. You see a man who
has been forced to kill a man he calls brother, a man he has practically raised
since he was a boy, a man he feels he has failed as he falls further into evil.
The same can’t be said for Christensen, as he sits there
burning alive while screaming “I HATE YOU”, like the angriest three-year-old
known to man. Though, in his defense, his performance as Darth Vader is pretty
intimidating…when he doesn’t speak. When he’s standing there glaring with his
evil sometimes-yellow-sometimes-not eyes, it can get pretty chilling at times.
Especially when he kills those kids. Brr…
Other fun action set pieces include the opening battle over
Coruscant, which includes high-flying spaceships doing battle with a bunch of
new and inventive droid types. Opening with such a battle really makes this
film start to stand out from the other prequels. It’s as if they’re saying “Listen,
we know you guys didn’t like the politics, so we’re starting this one off with
a bang instead.” Also, we get to see various other battles in the waning days
of the Clone Wars, such as the battle on Kashyyk with various Wookiee warriors
– including Chewbacca – fighting alongside the Clone Troopers and Yoda against
the droids. After only seeing one badass Wookiee during the original trilogy
(if one doesn’t count the Holiday Special), it’s pretty cool to see an entire
army of walking carpets engaged in warfare against a common foe.
(Side note: Do you think Chewbacca ever got mad at Han for
not believing in the Jedi since Chewie literally served alongside a Jedi during
the Clone Wars? Also, is it bad that after this movie, I kind of see Han and
Chewie’s relationship as similar to the Dude and Walter’s from The Big Lebowski? Han’s the sarcastic
rogue who doesn’t believe in much, and Chewie’s the jaded war veteran. “This
isn’t the Clone Wars, Han. There are rules!”)
 |
| I hate when people talk during the movie. |
But the best scene in the movie – and quite possibly in the
entire prequel trilogy – has to be the opera scene, or as it’s more commonly
known, “the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise.” It has a surprisingly quiet
atmosphere to highlight the captivatingly haunting performance by Ian
McDiarmid. It has an engaging story that builds the world of Star Wars without
resulting to boring political debates. It’s one of Anakin’s pivotal moments on
his path to the Dark Side, and it’s given the gravitas it deserves. Like most
things in this movie, the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise has found a home
in meme circles on the internet, but that should not understate how awesome
this scene really is.
Before I answer the big question, I’ll answer this one: Is Revenge of the Sith a good movie? I
don’t think I can say it’s a great movie, but it is an okay movie. Which, given
the quality of the other prequels, that’s saying quite a lot. It still falls
victim to several of the same problems as the other prequels – the bad acting
and dialogue, cringe-worthy romance subplot, and stuff that doesn’t add up to
details in the original trilogy – but it also adds in more action, genuinely
exciting moments, and some better performances than in either two previous
prequels. And not to be biased, but Revenge
of the Sith will always hold a special place in my heart as the first Star Wars movie I saw in theaters.
The real tragedy of Revenge
of the Sith is that on a broad sense, the story is fine, only the details
land it into mockery. The same can be said for the entire prequel trilogy,
really. From a distance, the story of Anakin is intriguing: a tale of a slave
boy from a backwater planet who is rescued by Jedi and trained to hone is great
power, falls into a forbidden romance with a senator, and is eventually turned
to the Dark Side to save the woman he loves. It’s only when we add in details
like pointless politics and Anakin’s whiny characterization that the prequels
begin to suck.
Also, when you think about it, Revenge of the Sith is really the only prequel you need to see to
understand Anakin Skywalker’s fall to evil. This movie features all the
necessary information you need to understand Anakin: he’s the former apprentice
of Obi-Wan Kenobi, he’s a more emotional and vengeful Jedi, and he’s in a
forbidden romance with Senator Amidala. Really, the previous two prequels are
just padding and don’t really need to be watched at all. I mean, unless you
really need context to Palpatine’s line about what happened between Anakin’s
mother and the sand people, an explanation on Anakin’s family on Tattooine, or
more screentime for Count Dooku.
 |
| "From my point of view, the Prequel Trilogy is bad." "Well then you are lost!" |
And now, the big answer. The superior prequel: Is it Revenge of the Sith, or Rogue One? Honestly, both of these
movies are pretty close in my opinion. On the one hand, I think Revenge of the Sith is a better-structured
film with a more satisfying climax, and doesn’t suffer by many of the problems
that plagued Rogue One during
reshoots. On the other hand, Rogue One
doesn’t have nearly as horrible of dialogue, and while Revenge of the Sith does have awesome moments, they are constantly
offset by stupid moments. Rogue One
is most consistent with what kind of movie it wants to be. Also, Rogue One has that freaking awesome
scene at the end with Darth Vader, which is far more badass than anything Vader
does in Revenge of the Sith.
I think I’m going to have to give this debate to Rogue One, but only barely. They’re both
on nearly the same playing field for me, but there were multiple points during Revenge of the Sith where I was thinking
to myself “I wish I was watching Rogue
One” or “Remember how cool Vader was in Rogue
One?” But the cool parts of Revenge
of the Sith should not be talked about lightly, and this debate is one that
has rocked me to my very core. (Okay, not really. I mean, they’re just movies after
all.)
Final verdict: 5.5/10.
In case anyone’s wondering, this means that my definitive
ranking of Star Wars movies goes:
1)
The
Empire Strikes Back
2)
A New
Hope
3)
The
Force Awakens
4)
Return
of the Jedi
5)
Rogue
One
6)
Revenge
of the Sith
7)
The
Phantom Menace
8)
Attack
of the Clones
I’ll of course update this list when The Last Jedi earns its spot.
No comments:
Post a Comment