Rewatching Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

 
01/12/08

This post is kind of meandering, all over the place, and betrays me as more of a Star Wars nerd than I would perhaps cop to, but in lieu of editing at some ambiguous future point, I'll just post for now. 

Blogs are built for self-indulgent rants anyway, right?  My nerd status can't really be hid that well anyway.  ;)            -- PD

12/30/07

I'm getting ready to rewatch Star Wars III, last of the prequels.  I've become curious about this movie as a potential bridge between my childhood love of the original films, and the confusion and distaste I felt at Lucas' later works.  On the first viewing, I had to give begrudging respect to Ep. 3 -- It was living from and delivering some of the values I'd come to expect from the franchise, though I was hard pressed to delineate exactly what those values and experiences were.

So, I'm curious to watch again, and see how the movie looks to me a year or two later, separated from the rabid publicity surrounding it, and the cloud of my own initial nostalgia and dread about its release, and the completion of the prequel trilogy.

01/07/08

(Movie watched)

I watched the film on consecutive nightsl, splitting it in half.  It was interesting to see it in two pieces, my reactions very very different on the two nights.  The first night, and first half of the film was rather unpleasant.  Everything seemed unbelievable about the film: the dialogue seemed stilted, the characters wooden, the CGI rendered spaces were confusing to understand, a sort of spatial Frankenstein, patched together in a way that seemed arbitrary and disorienting.  Future CGI work could take a page from traditional stage design, and lay out rendered spaces in a more convincing sequence.  This was a big mystery to me, why the spatial areas seemed so disorienting. 

 

Beyond that, the reason for doing a prequel in the first place seemed unclear, as no one really gave a rip about the geo political makeup in the SW universe that contributed to Anakin’s eventual fall.  It seemed clearly esoteric, partly because so many of these characters will be gone by the end of the movie.  We already know only a small handful of characters survive into the original films: Yoda, Obi Wan, Vader, the Emporer, and Luke and Leia.  You could include the droids and Chewbacca, but they are just window dressing here, totally marginalized.

 

Even with the knowledge of only six survivable characters, we are given this massive world with dozens of principal players, and a galactic Senate to boot, and asked to care about people who will soon disappear from the stage.  This is why this could have been compressed into one prequel, and two sequels, to see the story continue for the characters we are already interested in, and to see time moving forward, instead of being fixated on the past, on Vader, who is a character whose own story loop is effectively closed by the end of Return of the Jedi.  Everything seems to be functioning on a closed loop of possibility.  Ironic for someone like Lucas, who began without such displays of imagination and ingenuity.

 

 

The second half of the film was thankfully, more interesting.  There was a point where things stopped revolving around court intrigues, and events started moving forward.  Lucas’ dialogue was so poor, we had no glimpse into the inner emotional lives of the characters, no sense of intimacy, but their actions remained interesting, particularly starting with Anakin’s moment of turning, cutting off Mace Windu’s arm to protect Palpatine.  That could have just as easily been the beginning of the movie, since that was the first true moment of pathos – Anakin collapsing heavily to against a pole, exclaiming “what have I done?”

 

From there it becomes this fascinating, grisly, tragic unfolding of diabolical schemes, as Palpatine puts his plan in motion to execute the Jedi.  Some real menace here, and the sadness of seeing the noble Jedi fall.  Here even, for being such a central figure, Anakin seems wooden, mind controlled, almost like the Frankenstein monster he later parodies at the film’s end.

 

The action sequences are engaging with Kenobi and Yoda, and seeing the latticework of the Rebellion taking shape as Yoda and Kenobi communicate with Senator Organna. 

 

The final showdown with Kenobi and Anakin on the exploding volcano planet is once again, a moment of action.  This is what we have been waiting for, the moment that truly births Darth Vader as we know him, and the penultimate showdown between master and apprentice.  It doesn’t disappoint.  For once, Kenobi seems strong in Anakin’s presence, rather than distant or codgy.  The swordplay is all out, and the visuals of the collapsing station behind them are both beautiful and dynamic, leading to Obi-wan shouting over the decimated Anakin, “You were the Chosen One!!”

 

 

All in all, I found Lucas’ picture of mature Jedi’s to be very strange.  In Eps 4-6 we have either very young or very old Jedis in Kenobi, Yoda, and Luke.  Eps 1-3 are supposed to give us a picture of what many noble Jedis looked like at the height of their powers.  Instead, they came off as strangely stiff.  Instead of serene, they seemed awkward, grumpy, in a sense confined by their goodness, with the Sith lords got to have all the fun.  Instead of seeming powerful and joyful, the Jedis, as images of goodness and light, seemed largely clueless, and pawns at the mercy of their enemies, sheep led unwillingly to the slaughter. 

 

It is bizarre to feel such a deep sense of disconnect with Eps 1-3.  This is the same universe, the same characters, even more money, and the same creator.  The question is whether Lucas has changed, or we have as viewers.  I watched these films first at a very early age, about 8 years old, and what amazed me was the ability to continue enjoying them as I grew older.  It may have been simply nostagia, but I thought of the first films as true masterworlks, capable of entertaining children and adults by the elegance of their construction, and the strenght of their characters.  I’ve yet to talk with many kids about the later prequels.  I’m curious as to whether they are equally dazzled by the new films.  If so, then perhaps it is only my older age that keeps me from embracing these new films. 

 

The sense of missed opportunity is palpable, though.  When I first heard Lucas was creating a new trilogy, I was disappointed it was a prequel, but even with that, still thought these had the potential to be the greatest movies ever made, simply because of the money invested, and the audience relationship already in place.  The global moviegoing audience was already primed to absolutely love these movies, and if they approached the same quality of the original three films, the sky would be the limit for profit margin, and sheer fan excitement.

 

As it turned out, it made original fans choose between delusion and regret.  Delusion that the new films were equally good, degrading ourselves into a false sense of satisfaction, or regret at how weak the new films were, and a sneaking suspicion that the first films weren’t all that good themselves, and that we were holding dear in memory films that were equally hokey and contrived.

 

Lucas remains an enigmatic figure in this whole question.  He remains publicly unapologetic about the excesses and criticisms of his later films.  As a fan, I’m left speculating as to why the magic seemed so diminished in the later films, and how someone who had such an incredible touch 20 years earlier, could so completely lose touch with his own imagination, or the alchemy of factors that so inspired an earlier generation of filmgoers. 

 

At least we will have our memories, and hopefully the true spirit of imagination, adventure, and wonder will live on in other films created by fans of the true genious of Eps 4-6.