**SPOILERS HEREIN**
There are two scenes in this
movie that are absolutely great. In the nearly seven-hour running time of the whole prequel
trilogy, there’s a grand total of two sequences that are truly well done and memorable, both in the third entry and comprising about five minutes of total screen time. That's way too little and way too late to redeem the three pictures, but I'll give credit where's it's due. Both of them are awesome.
One is the opening flyby, which
starts like the original trilogy with a slow-moving starship, before two Jedi
fighters fly into frame, and a pumped-up militarized version of John Williams’ Force theme starts blaring. The unbroken take zooming through a space battle
nearly first-person-style, just sound effects and the epic music on the
soundtrack, gets our adrenaline pumping and makes us think maybe, just maybe,
we’re finally in for a good movie. Unfortunately, after a minute or so, Anakin Skywalker
(Hayden Christensen) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) open their mouths, and
instead of the prequels’ answer to the battles of Yavin and Endor, we instead get
some dopey ping pong ball droid action and a mediocre rescue mission aboard Count
Dooku’s (Christopher Lee) ship. But damn, is that flyby impressive. If J.J.
Abrams is smart, The Force Awakens
will copy the opening, music and all, only replacing the Jedi fighters with the
Millennium Falcon followed by a squadron of X-Wings flying into battle. Even
the most jaded and skeptical fans will be won over for all time.
The other is the Order 66 scene,
where the Jedi are massacred on the various front lines across the galaxy. It’s
a darker and more brutal scene than anything in Star Wars since Luke Skywalker lost his hand in the bowels of Cloud
City. It’s all in the music, as Williams’ piece (one of the best in the prequel
trilogy) evokes utter tragedy, and the image of Yoda (Frank Oz) staggering at
the disturbance in the Force is almost powerful. Had this sequence been the
climax of a good movie, it would have been absolutely heartbreaking. Alas, it’s
just one great scene in a film, and trilogy, that’s not, and a regretful
reminder of what we all once hoped the prequels would be.
The rest of Revenge of the Sith has all the same flaws as its two predecessors:
terrible dialogue, flat acting, lifeless exposition, catastrophically bad romance, and
unimaginative, piecemeal action. The narrative plays out less like an organic
story than just a checklist of everything that needs to happen to set up the original trilogy. As a result, there’s no flow
or consistency to the picture, and nearly every plot resolution is so fleeting
and quickly left behind that none carry any dramatic weight or importance.
On top of everything already on
that list—Count Dooku, the Cone Wars, the Jedi purge, the overthrow of the
Republic, Anakin becoming Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia’s birth,
and Obi-Wan and Yoda’s exile—the film adds another plot point and new villain:
General Grievous (Matthew Wood). In the argument that George Lucas cared more
about Star Wars as a moneymaking
franchise than telling a quality story, this character’s a strong piece of
evidence. Any casual fan who hadn’t been following the Expanded Universe or
supplementary cartoons prior to the picture’s release would have seen his name
in the opening crawl and had no idea who he is or what he looks like. He was
also clearly designed to appeal to toy-hungry kids: in addition to having a
name like a cartoon villain, he even looks like a giant plastic figure.
Even the showdown between Obi-Wan and Anakin that leaves the latter dismembered, toasted, and in need of his famous armor—the moment we've been waiting all trilogy to see, the event only spoken of in fleeting whispers up to that point and which every fan envisioned as the most epic fight imaginable—is
underwhelming. Sure, the swordplay is impressive enough, but it goes on so
long, becoming more and more ridiculous as the volcanic terrain gets worse and
worse. If that doesn’t take you out of the scene, the awful dialogue that punctuates
the action sure does (and even by the standards of the prequels, it’s
particularly atrocious). And it ends on such a horrendously stupid note; apparently,
regardless of your opponent’s skills as a swordsman, a weak swing of the
lightsaber is all you need to render them limbless if you have “the high
ground” (never mind the fact that Darth Maul clearly had the high ground on Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace). But above all, after two and three-quarter movies of offputtingly bad characterization, it's nearly impossible to muster any emotional investment in the duel or either participants' fates.
Worst of all, the film doesn’t pay the slightest bit of
fan service by introducing the iconic Darth Vader armor in an applause moment.
No, it’s instead part of a weepy, somber sequence that fails to elicit any
sort of feeling but tedium. Many think the infamous “No!” the dark
lord bellows like a cartoon character ruins the moment (and it’s still
inexcusable; what the hell were they thinking?), but it’s actually a moot
complaint because the scene wasn’t the great moment it was supposed to be,
anyway.
There’s little emotional reaction
to be had watching Revenge of the Sith,
or even much sense of satisfaction. No, the prevailing feeling is relief
that it’s over, and with it the prequel trilogy. So instead of dwelling any further on the
prequels, let’s just enjoy that feeling and pretend The Force Awakens is the first Star
Wars movie since Return of the Jedi came out in 1983.
No comments:
Post a Comment