Revenge of the Sith!!!!!

[rusty_halo]

It was so good. I saw it twice last night.

The first time, I started crying when Palpatine gave order 66, and sobbed through the whole ending (Poor Obi-Wan! OMG, Luke and Leia! Alderaan! Luke's house! The twin suns! The music!)

The second time, the flaws stood out a bit more. McDiarmid was wonderful until he went all over the top goofy evil. The "romantic" dialogue remained laughable. "She's lost the will to live"??? WTF??? How pathetic and out of character and hello, TWO BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN and you can't think of ANY reason to live? And Vader's "NOOOOOO!" will go down as one of the most embarrassing moments in film history.

But I still loved it. All the ties to the original trilogy, the parallels to RotJ and the lead-ins to ANH. *sigh*

So happy.

I can't really write a real review now because I'm exhausted (I saw it at 8:15 and at midnight, so I didn't get to sleep until 5am). But a few more thoughts, with spoilers:

The aesthetic. It finally LOOKED like a Star Wars movie! Bail Organa's same ship! The fighters that look like TIE fighters and X-Wings, the Imperial ships that look like Star Destroyers! That room that looks like Palpatine's throne room in RotJ!

Anakin's transformation made total sense to me. Probably because I went along with it; I'd have done the same thing, well, minus the killing of children, but I'd have so rejected the Jedi. "Your wife is dying, but who cares, everyone dies"? Who the hell says things like that? Bad Yoda. Those passionless, uncaring asshole Jedis brought about their own downfall. The Dark Side is so much cooler.

The lava fight! So, so cool. My heart completely broke for Obi-Wan. (And Ewan McGregor, amazing job, I completely bought and cared about the character.) The lava was beautiful and so cool. Anakin probably would've won if he hadn't been blinded by arrogance, poor guy; I loved that too. (Oh, and the HoYay! "I loved you." And some really slashy line at the beginning that I forget now.) Anakin's betrayal of Obi-Wan was much worse than his betrayal of Padme.

And I loved the beginning--finally, appropriate humor! I love Artoo. And the fight was so good, engrossing instead of distracting. And the way they established Obi-Wan and Anakin as friends--finally, I actually cared about those two.

The Clones slaughtering the Jedi was so heart-breaking. Made perfect sense, too, to explain how the Jedi could've been so easily wiped out. Anakin killing the kids was awesome; thank you, Lucas, for not sugar-coating.

I loved the parallels to Return of the Jedi--seeing Anakin fail where Luke succeeded. And the moment he makes his big choice to go evil, where he has to decide whether to save Palpatine from Mace Windu, and he chooses Palpatine. It's the perfect parallel to RotJ, where he's in the same situation, Palpatine or Luke, and he chooses to save Luke, his big redemptive choice.

I can't wait to go home and re-watch the original trilogy many more times.

Comments

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

So... question (I haven't seem RotJ in a while), didn't Leia have a memory of her mother?

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

That's the thing we were all fanwanking within about two minutes of the film ending... we were able to come up with some reasonable explanations, but really, we shouldn't have needed to.

The prevailing thoughts were that Leia did say that all she remembered were images and feelings, which may have happened right after she was born and she remembered because she's strong in the Force. OR, that she didn't actually know that she was adopted and her original adopted mother died when she was young. I think of the two, the first is the most likely, but still... it's such a simple thing to have worked around, if they'd been paying attention.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

You can fanwank that it's Bail Organa's wife... who may also have died when Leia was young. Even if Leia knew she was adopted, she still thought of those two as her parents. (And remember, she shared her memories of her mother before Luke told her that they were siblings, so maybe she didn't realize that he meant "birth mother" not "person you think of emotionally as your mother.")

I think originally (waaay back when) the vague assumption was that Obi-Wan took Luke to Tatooine, and Padme took Leia to Alderaan. But when it came time to make the prequels, it worked dramatically a lot better to have Padme die in childbirth. And it doesn't take too much fanwanking to get around it, and it probably is a better dramatic decision. (If only she'd really died for medical reasons and not "a broken heart," ugh.)

[kellyhk.livejournal.com]

Just remember, Lucas is worse than Whedon for continuity?

I am still a firm believer that making Leia Luke's sib was a complete afterthought.

People are fanwanking that her memories are actually of Lady Organa.

But in ROtJ, Luke asks, "tell me about your mother...your REAL mother"

So yeah, there is a little continuity flaw.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

The second time, the flaws stood out a bit more.

Yeah, I noticed all of those things the first time through, but for the most part was willing to sort of skip over them because the rest of the movie was so incredibly cool. Probably the most disappointing for me was that Palpatine, who was such a fantastic, intelligent villain, suddenly became a cackling whacko. Although maybe it was just an effect of having been fried by his own Sith lightning. (Okay, and I'm fanwanking again...)

Anakin's transformation made total sense to me.

It was so elegantly done!

"Your wife is dying, but who cares, everyone dies"? Who the hell says things like that? Bad Yoda. Those passionless, uncaring asshole Jedis brought about their own downfall.

I think they actually had a hubris problem, which is what led to their downfall... they'd gotten very set in their ways and became convinced that any deviation was unacceptable. I mean, come on! Way back in Episode 1, they had a kid who was incredibly strong in the force and was likely the subject of some sort of prophecy, and they're NOT going to train him? So they're just going to let him wander around the galaxy left up to his own devices with all that power? Sheesh!

Then, of course, how smart can you be when you're all looking forward to the guy who is supposed to "bring balance to the force" -- and you don't even consider that, duh, there are a thousand or more Jedi and only two Sith. Um... my definition of balance wouldn't indicate that means he's going to kill off the Sith. Seriously.

The Clones slaughtering the Jedi was so heart-breaking. Made perfect sense, too, to explain how the Jedi could've been so easily wiped out.

That was so perfect, and so horrible... because the clones were trusted, they were friends! And, of course, I have a whole new view of the Stormtroopers... they're not bad, they're just programmed that way.

I can't wait to go home and re-watch the original trilogy many more times.

Hee! That's my plan, as well... though I won't be getting home for another few days still.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

I'm over the moon, the moon, I tells ya. This is like finding a hundred dollar bill in a pair of old jeans -- I never, ever expected it to be this good. My friends and I left the theater doing spring dancs, and did the whole post-movie squee late into the night.

SO HAPPY.

[kellyhk.livejournal.com]

Still haven't seen the film.

*glares enviously*

I'm glad they are paralleling RotJ. The first two prequels were bloated and really didn't focus on the purpose of the entire arc: telling Anakin's story.

and yes, I firmly believe that Anakin's betrayal of Obi-Wan would have more of an emotional impact than his betrayal of Padme. If you thought Whedon had problems with intimacy and relationship issues in his 'verse, then Lucas is ten times worse. There was zero chemistry between Anakin and Padme in Attack of the Clones. But, the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan was already starting to gel quite strongly even in Phantom Menance. Obi-Wan was his mentor, father-figure and brother. (And in some really really good slash--the perks of keeping one's toes in one's original fandom, his lover.)

There is a bond on so many levels with Obi-Wan, so I can assume that is why the lava fight is so incredibly resounding.

I remember being a little kid and my buddy Andy was spouting off about some big lava fight backstory. Back then I thought he was making it up, wondering where an eight year old got his 'spoilers.'

but now it makes perfect sense.

Hoping to see the film this weekend. Already a conspiracy in place where some friends and I kidnap the husband and force him to watch.

[rockgoddes.livejournal.com]

It's so interesting to see all my friends' different reviews of it (I'm going to see it tomorrow night) because, for instance, some of the stuff that you said made complete sense to you and made you care about the characters, another of my friends has said made no sense to her whatsoever and that there wasn't enough time spent on characters to make her care about them.

It's all fascinating and of course I'm really looking forward to this, although I'm already upset about the killing-the-children thing, I'm not looking forward to seeing that...

[gorthead.livejournal.com]

I agree with pretty much everything you just said. It went SO far above my expectations (even though, upon rereading it, my 'review' of it sounds pretty negative, but I cared enough to nitpick, and that means something!)

It finally felt like Star Wars, I can't wait to see it again.

I loved the parallels to Return of the Jedi--seeing Anakin fail where Luke succeeded.
This was one of my favorite things about it, as well. The whole thing just restored my faith in Lucas. It's all I've been capable of talking about the past couple days!