Episode III SPOILERS

[VAN]

I hope that this will be better than the Clone War, which I don't liked very much. However, I read many interesting things here, so I think I'll go today to see it, I'm really curious.

[alhoon]

Will you see it before I have the chance VAN? I would also see it today if I was in Chania. . . Alas.

Also: I liked the War of the Clones very much! More than I liked the 1st episode (phantom menace). However, I have to say that I liked both movies very much and I'll certainly enjoy the 3rd.

[Brandi]

Van: By 'The Clone War' do you mean Star Wars Episode II or the animated Clone Wars miniseries that showed on Cartoon Network?

Personally, I thought the latter was the best of all the recent Star Wars stuff, and wish Lucas would let those guys do a TV series....

[Cole Deschain]

As someone who just recently sat through this... film...

1) The script stank. Mace Windu would have been better off channeling Samuel L. Jackson's performance form Pulp Fiction.

"Do you know what the Republic LOOKS LIKE?! DOES IT LOOK LIKE A <censored>?"

Or, of course, the Ezekiel 25:17 speech.

Because Samuel L couldn't sell the lines he got, and came off sounding wooden. That's what we call a bad thing.

Give the love scenes dialogue that doesn't sound like it was written by some machine, please.

2) Anakin has no backbone. After a few slip-ups (like, say, his massacre of an entire community of sentient beings), he jumps into the dark side with both feet, no hesitation, and seems to buy Palpatine's arguments without even a thought. Spineless wimp.

3) The Jedi are pansies. "Hrrrrm, my troops have turned on me... should I use a Force-assisted leap to try and escape? Nah. Should I try to cloud their minds and slip away? Of course not. I'll stand and fight an entire army." Morons.

4) Visually? Quite stunning. Truly. Lots of good shiny bits and things going boom.

5) Alec Guiness II turned in the only performance that didn't make my skull hurt as my brain tried to batter its way out and escape. Ewan McGregor gets to live.

6) The lightsaber duels contained more stupid, usesless flourishes, idiotic pose-striking and moves that do not work than any previous movie. Ouch.


Overall? 3 out of 5. It would have been 2, but I saw it with my girlfriend, and we made out through the scenes that were making me cringe, so I have a slightly better memory of them than I should.

[alhoon]

It is all about what you expect. I expect a trash movie, with good visual effects and things going boom! I liked Darth Veder from the episodes IV-VI very much (the shiny black armor etc) and I will like his return.

[Coan]

I hated this movie.

From the fact Ewan didn't use the force to push the robots off his ship, the enemy shileld generator that was on the outside of the ship! To General Grevious -an interesting character that could have been a lot more, but for some reason fights with lightsabers for 8 seconds (a pointless exercise). One would think he would have dual-core processors and able to attack twice at the same time.

The dialogue was awful and from what I can tell a 10 year old 'youngling' can kill more clone troopers than a Jedi Master. Seriously, was I mean't to feel saw when all the Jedi were being executed? I was laughing at how stupid they were.

And it seemed in the movie you weren't mean't to know Palpatine was Sidious before it was revealed -certainly the Jedi couldn't pierce his 'disguise' of having a hood.

Oh look my security camera is showing a legion of Clone Troopers coming to kill me I better leave -wait I don't use those cameras. I don't use the cameras which RECORD WHO THE VILLIAN IS FROM THE BEGINNING.

I saw no wookies die in this movie. They computer generated basically all the clones when there was no need -I can tell what is real and what is digitally created and that was some shody work. The Emperor's whole scene of fighting Mace Windu was stupid. He's mean't to be really powerful and instead he is screaming 'Help meeeeeee. I can't go on. Help meeeeeee' and what was with his voice? His make up giving him a huge fat face (looked like a toad). Frankenstein Vader? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Did I mention the dialogue? 'Don't make me kill you!' 'Arise Darth Vader' (why Vader? Everyone else was like 'Sidious, Maul, Plaguous') 'I must go into exile' (because you couldn't fight possibly the weakest Sith Lord to ever live?)

'Love has blinded you'
'No it has blinded you'
'I look more beautiful because I love you'
'No you look more beautiful because I love you'

Padme is pregnant -but early stages at the beginning, yet in the dialogue they say they have been seperated for what seems like 'forever'. Luke is blonde and Anakin has dark hair. Hmmm?

How about I try to kill someone I care about and then when my friend (who is willing to not kill me if I come to make peace) tries to help me I shall stop him from 'getting her'. Obviously turning to the dark side also turns you into an idiot.

'Fear of loss leads to the dark side'

Hey Yoda I think by your logic using security cameras leads to the dark side.

'I think there may be a plot against the Jedi' I think everyone's response was 'Duh'

Feathered Lizard mount that barks? Real stealthy. Oh look I'm a Jedi I can infiltrate the seperatists base and just appear next to their leader! I use the force to cover this plot hole. Oh wait as a Jedi in this movie I can only use the force at the most inappropriate times (like closing a door) and never when I really need to! (re: in a fight)

Ewan's experession when Count Dooku grads him with his powers
'My god Anakin. It's like I'm being.... pushed by somekind of 'invisibile'....'force'.

Perhaps he should have just thrown Dooku into a chair to land head first into the 'arse section' -oh wait Yoda did that to supposably the most powerful Sith Lord around. All that was missing was some canned laughter. Cause I know there was plenty of groans from the audience members and giggles from 6 year olds (who were at a movie rate M15+ -but that is another rant).

I could go on, perhaps go through scene by scene what was wrong with this movie. Which believe me: I could.

But in the end I hated this movie. I wish I could get my memory wiped to remember Vader as Vader and not as Vader Frankenstein. On second thoughts I guess I can -they were handing out free memory wipes for C3PO for no explained reason. I guess it was just the kind of thing they do in Alderaan, wipe droids and adopt baby girls.

Oh just as an aside,, why were General Grevious' organs flammable? Did he bathe them in gasoline to relieve that cough of his? Flame bullets?

[ScS of the Fraternity]

One would think he would have dual-core processors and able to attack twice at the same time.

Okay, we've offically reached geek factor 5.

The saddest thing is, when the movie started I was thinking:
"Gee, this is an awsome fight. They finally got it right."
But I was wrong, I was very wrong....

[Charney]

I suddenly remembered one of my first expectation for Revenge. Ten years ago or so, when I was watching Return of the Jedi, I understood that Luke was facing the same dilemma as Anakin faced. THat's when Luke looks at his hand and then at his father's mechanised hand when he's lying down helpless. Well ten years ago, I expected that Anakin would face the same thing if they made prequels.

Now, that expectation was delivered at least. And I must say that it closes the circle with Return of the Jedi because Anakin turned to save his familly and in Return, the Emperor is killing his son.

I'm still angry that they contradicted the whole Leia remembering her mother in Return. And I still think Lucas is far from being the genius he thinks he is.

Anyhow, just thought I'D share that.

[Dr Bloodworth]

I'm still angry that they contradicted the whole Leia remembering her mother in Return. And I still think Lucas is far from being the genius he thinks he is.

I agree about the Lucas thing, but I understood Leia's memories of being of Senator Organa's wife, since she'd remember her as mother.

[Dominique]

I actually liked it. I didn't love it, but I'd definitely give it a solid B, maybe B+.

Cons, to get them out of the way:

1. The dialogue. Especially the love scenes. Holy crud. (Also, on the subject of the love scenes, was it just me or did Padme look incredibly scary in that "love has blinded you" scene? It looked like she'd fallen victim to the power of the Ring or something.)

2. The fan service (i.e. Chewie, Qui-Gon). Although it wasn't as bad as in the first two.

3. The first half was unbelievably slow. I don't care about the war against the separatists; I want to see Anakin turn. Also, I seem to be alone in this, but I found General Grievous to be an incredibly dull and unappealing villain without Christopher Lee's charisma, Darth Maul's cool design and choreography, or Palapatine's built-in thematic weight.

4. On a related note, the second half was too fast. Anakin goes from turning to the dark side to slaughtering children in a matter of minutes. Huh?

5. Leia remembering her mother . . . yeah . . .

Still, most of these didn't bother me too much except for 3. Star Wars has never been high cinema; it's really good pulp sci-fi. Other than the love scenes and "Not if anything to say about it I have!" *shudder*, the bad dialogue didn't go beyond the realms of pulp sci-fi--or the originals, for that matter. And 4 didn't bother me until the second time I saw it.

Pros:

1. I loved the way that certain scenes echoed other scenes in RotJ, especially the Anakin vs. Dooku scene (Palpatine sitting in the background cackling "Good, good" gave me chills). This is the first one of the prequels that actually enhances the originals for me.

2. The visuals are gorgeous, and I think that Anakin vs. Obi-Wan is my new favorite lightsaber fight. Perfect balance of nifty choreography and emotional brutality.

3. The whole Padme motivation was really intriguing. I don't feel that it was developed as much as it should have been, but I really like the idea of Anakin turning because of love and because he genuinely thought he was doing the right thing. Also, it did echo all the stuff with his mother in Episode II very nicely, so it made logical sense for the character.

4. Palpatine, Palpatine, Palpatine. You manipulative schmoe.

5. The Jedi purge was very nicely directed and very moving. It actually didn't bother me that they were mowed down by clone troopers, since they were all taken completely by surprise and everyone but the guy with the big head didn't even see them drawing. Also, Yoda dropping his walking stick and clutching his chest was a good touch.

6. The "NOOOOO!" may have been incredibly stupid, but the whole "Is Padme all right?" bit did it for me. It was really off-putting to hear that coming out of Darth Vader, but in a touching way. And that one scene pretty much did the job of the entire set of prequels by linking Vader and Anakin for me.

So yeah. Solid B. Not as good as the originals, but then, what is? I count this as a canon prequel rather than a fanfic.

[JinnTolser]

But in the end I hated this movie. I wish I could get my memory wiped to remember Vader as Vader and not as Vader Frankenstein. On second thoughts I guess I can -they were handing out free memory wipes for C3PO for no explained reason. I guess it was just the kind of thing they do in Alderaan, wipe droids and adopt baby girls.

The memory wipe was done to close a plot hole that would've been ten times bigger than the whole thing with Leia remembering her mother. Think about it: When R2D2 and C3PO hit Tatooine in the original movie, Threepio gives no sign of recognition. According to Phantom Menace, he was created on Tatooine. They also had to explain why he does not recognize the name Obi-Wan Kenobi or Skywalker, and why he doesn't know that Darth Vader is Luke's father. They solved the problem with the "memory wipe" explanation, although apparently there was nothing wrong with letting Artoo remember all of this...

The really interesting question is, why doesn't Obi-Wan recognize the two droids that come to find him in the desert of Tatooine? Is he just that senile by that time?

Oh just as an aside,, why were General Grevious' organs flammable? Did he bathe them in gasoline to relieve that cough of his? Flame bullets?

To me, the real question is, why does Grievous cough at all when he has no LUNGS?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I'm pretty sure one of the organs we saw in his chest was pulsing like a lung. He was an alien, so it might not look the same as our lungs. He was coughing because Mace Windu force-crushed his chest at the end of the Clone Wars cartoon, which takes place right before the begining of Episode III, and he hadn't had time for repairs. A nice nod to the cartoon, but it caused a lot of bewilderment to people who haven't seen the cartoon.

[JinnTolser]

Were there other organs? All I saw was the heart... And when I watched the movie a second time I tried to look for lungs and didn't see any.

[alhoon]

He was coughing because Mace Windu force-crushed his chest at the end of the Clone Wars cartoon

Hey! This used on a sentient being is a Dark side attack!

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

True, but:

a) he may have just been trying to hold him, but he was more fragile than he looked. (lame excuse, I know).

or

b) According to outside the movie sources, Mace Windu pratices a lightsaber fighting form that draws on darkside-like emotions without actually falling to the darkside. (I guess that's what makes him a "Badass" other than being played by Sam L. Jackson.) Maybe he dabbled a bit too much in the darkside and was starting to fall himself. Afterall, he was willing to kill Palpatine, when supposedly it's not the Jedi way.