I have just seen it.
I really enjoyed it.
Let me address just a few criticisms I've read in the 130 posts I've just read:
General Grievous is my new Boba Fett. Boba Fett was my favourite character from 4-6, and I love Grievous too. Not as much, but I love him. Sure - he doesn't do much, but hey, it's all good fun. Let me address the criticisms of Grievous - people think he was cooler in Clone Wars.
So was everyone.
The power levels of each character is
through the roof. I mean, Yoda takes out four starships on his own. Mace Windu takes on an army. If you look at the end of Episode II, when the Jedi are surrounded - the cartoon Mace would've taken
all of them. Basically, because its a cartoon, they can do more outlandish things than the film. Also, in Chapter 25 of Clone Wars, Mace Windu force crushes Grevious' heart, which is why he's coughing. Also, let's not forget the parallel of Grievous and Vader, both are organic beings contained within their metallic shells.
But remember, everyone was powered up in the cartoons, so let's not just have a go at Grievous for not being more nails.
Plus, guys, this guy is a brilliant villain. C'mon. Let go of the serious side, this is a droid, that walks on tip-toes, with a red cape, laughing to himself. I mean, he even does the total villain thing of when he's confronted with the heroes, instead of attacking them himself, he gets his minions, who don't have a chance, to do the fighting for him..... and then he runs away. But not only does he run away, but he fires off all the escape pods so
no one else can escape. The guy's a genius. I love him. He's
fun. C'mon. He has a toy car that spins around and runs people over uncontrollably. Look at it with more innocent eyes - I mean, he's not a patch on the Emperor, who was outrageously over the top (but I loved that too).
Which brings me to something I find quite effective. Lucas, despite it being 30 years later, and all the people have grown up, he still makes these films, no matter how dark, very attainable for children. I was watching this, and I saw things where I went; "Man. I love this stuff as a child." I didn't see the need to look at the film as a serious adult; I looked at it like a child. The darkness becomes more dark, the dialogue less poor, it shines a bit brighter. I dunno, I saw it as a child. I was happy.
Another criticism is the plot holes. Well, plot holes are in
everything. Back to the Future II for example has a big one. Chinatown, a masterpiece of film, has a plot hole. So does the superb Casablanca. And, if you can believe it, even Hamlet by William Shakespeare has a plot hole. Hamlet's uncle sends Hamlet to England, escorted by Rosencrantz and Guildernstern who carry a letter telling the English to kill Hamlet. As they sail across the ocean, the ship is attacked by pirates. Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are killed, and Hamlet is dropped off in Denmark by the pirates. Obviously, these are good-will pirates.
My point is, plot holes crop up. When they do, either you ignore them and hope no one picks up on it, or you confront them, or you eliminate them. In Hamlet's case, Shakespeare knew his audience would ignore it if he put it off-stage and just quickly swept it under the rug.
I don't think there are many plot holes that are worth griping about in Ep III. Yes, they are there, but it's not that bad.
Indeed, I don't think the film is a masterpiece. It is a lot of fun, and Ourchair gave a very fair criticism in noting how it's a 'paint-by-numbers', it just goes from plot point to plot point. While I think this grants the film a certain sense of doom and inevitability, as well as intensity (do
any of the Star Wars films start like this one? WOW), it's true that in some cases it's just too fast, too intense, and you want a little breathing room to settle. In some cases it felt things happened because, well, they have to or the other three don't make sense. That said, the film is just one long ending. Once Anakin saves Palpatine from Windu, the film is just a very long ending. (Not that it's bad, mind you - it's a story structure that I think works okay in this film. I mean, if you think about it, every James Bond is just one long ending.)
The only real problems I felt the film had, were two: The love scenes (though, each love scene got progessively better) were very poorly written. Not because of dialogue, but because
there is no story. As the romance got weaved into the main plot, more story arrived and so it got better. But when there's nothing to talk about, it's hard to write dialogue. The second problem I had... was the dialogue. In some cases it was unnecessary and poor: "The Jedi are evil. From my point of view." was probably the worst timed and worst written line. But, it does try to make us not give up on Anakin, so it had a purpose. Yes, it doesn't work too well, but at least he's trying to do it as well as he can.
I mean, sure, Lucas isn't that great at story structure or dialogue (sure, he's good, but not a master), but he is a terrific visual director. The sheer use of colour and the incredible amount of technological mastery he uses is incredible. He's been a pioneer of visual special effects since 1977 and he still blows everyone else out of the water. The only film I've seen that's as visually impressive as these new Star Wars films is The Lord of the Rings.
Speaking of The Lord of the Rings... Star Wars isn't really science-fiction. It's only science-fiction in that it has space ships and aliens, but these are cosmetic differences. There's no functional difference between say, a Wookie or an Ent, or say a Clone Trooper or an Uruk-hai. They're similar narrative devices. Indeed, Star Wars is more like The Lord of the Rings in space rather than say, a Philip K Dikc story. It's a fantasy film that borrows the sci-fi setting (hell, they even use swords and sorcery!), just like Firefly is a western that borrows from the sci-fi setting. Science-fiction and fantasy are very different genres. Fantasy is mainly about the struggle of life, often displayed through the metaphor of humanity versus mother nature. It echoes the situations of more natural societies that must quest for food and shelter. Science-fiction however, explores the role of technology. Technology has always been designed to make our lives easier - either it's easier to kill, find food, make love, have shelter, what have you - and science-fiction asks us about the consequences of technology - if God made Man in his own image, are we reflected in our technology? And it is about the fact that when a culture's needs for food and shelter are met, it's thoughts turn inward, and in that vein science-fiction begins to ask us just what makes us human? Both use their settings to help, but if you look at pure sci-fi, it's generally about this quality. Star Wars is not so pensive. Yes, the setting is sci-fi, and some aspects of its themes are, but the trilogies are far more fantasy.
Which also brings me to another point. Anakin could never be too complex a character. If he was, it would take away from all the action and fun. Action stories, by convention, must have 'thinner' characters because we want action. That doesn't mean we should have paper-thin characters, I just mean that for an action tragedy, I feel enough complexity was brought to Anakin. This is not the same genre as MacBeth after all.
I'd also like to point out the fugues in the score. At several points in the film, you could hear multiple Star Wars themes occuring simultaneously, which I found particularly impressive.
And, my God, doesn't Mace Windu buy it? I mean, wow. Poor guy. He get's really, really, really, blammed out of existence.
A personal favourite element of mine in this film was 'the good laugh'. The good laugh is when you have a tense situation and the writer makes you laugh when he wants you to in order to defuse the situation (as opposed to the bad laugh where the audience laugh at a poignant bit). This film has loads, which is a good counterbalance to the darkness of the overall story. R2-D2 was brilliant, as was Yoda. Yoda managed to play group protagonist and good laugh. He walks into the room, and knocks the two guards out without a thought. Good laugh. He then has all his great action lines, all are good laughs. Then the fight comes, and it's really powerful, which helps us considering the horrendous fate Anakin gets during the Mustafar fight.
One thing about highest-grossing weekend of all time: Unless those figures have been treated for inflation... of course they have. Think about it. Granted, it got more than it's relative peers, but the current benchmark is going to be higher than say the 70s when tickets were simply a lot, lot cheaper. I don't know how accurate these figures are in terms of actually depicting which film has been seen by the most people within that space of time, but maybe it is.
But, enough criticism. Onto the fanboy geek part of my diatribe:
Wasn't the "Order 66"
great? I didn't see the pre-programmed nature of the clones coming. Took me totally by surprise. I was thinking Vader was going to hunt them down personally, but of course, he doesn't. Palpatine is much cleverer than I gave him credit for...
One of my favourite scenes was at that weird dance-opera thing where Palpatine just pulls all of Anakin's strings. Masterfully done. Also, when he talks of his master, Darth Plageus (sp?) the Wise, he mentions how his master could just infuse things with meticlorians, but could never save himself. I assumed, straight away, that Plageus created Anakin. Perhaps as revenge against Sidious, or perhaps he truly was wise and by examing the Dark Side he had indeed become greater than all before him (as Sidious says is possible) and had created Anakin to fulfill the prophecy. Not sure, but I just thought that he was responsible. Maybe Sidious knew he had done it, and fearing that Plageus created him in order to be his new apprentice killed him, and when discovering it was Anakin, sought to make him his own apprentice.
I tell you, I'm really looking forward to the DVDs. A lot of DVDs have documentaries and commentaries, but generally, they're all very dull and crap, with no insight. The Star Wars DVDs however, have amazing features that really take you behind the curtain and don't just tell you everything, but they show you it, the work that goes into it, and why one choice was made over all others. I can't wait.
Well, that's it from me. I'm off to bed.
Before I go... did anyone else see the Millenium Falcon?
I did...
