Episode III

Well I wasn't feeling well enough to go to the theater yesterday, but I got to see "Revenge of the Sith" today. The pacing and action is a lot better than Episode I and Episode, with no dreadfully boring parts like the build up to the racing in Phantom Menace. I don't know if I can compare it to the original three movies because I've never cared about them too much. They're good, but I'm not much of a "Star Wars" or "science fiction" nut, so I just enjoyed them for what they were - action movies with a pretty interesting story line.

I enjoyed the effects in Episode I and Episode II, but growing up on movies like Terminator 2 makes CG effects increasingly less impressive. But I'd still give credit where credit is due, because it was ILM that most those movies what they are. Whether Lucas is a master story teller or a moron that got lucky, he's forever changed the way movies are made. If it wasn't for Star Wars in 1977, or Terminator 2 in 1992, the Lord of The Rings movies wouldn't have been what they were. Not that I particularly care about that franchise either, but it shows that CG can go hand in hand with established literature to help amplify the experience.

As I said, this was a very good movie. The light saber fights were awesome (though I still like Darth Maul the best), General Grievous was a badass, and the way Anakin was finally transformed into Vader was well done. There are only a few things that bring the movie down, and they go hand in hand. The first blemish was how dreadfully corny a lot of the dialogue was. The scene where Vader is told how he killed Padme pratically had me laughing. This was a dissapointment since the back and forth between Anakin and Palpatine was pretty good earlier in the movie. Secondly, not enough time was spent with Padme explaining why she and Anakin could have been on the wrong side of the conflict, and the actual naming of "Darth Vader" seemed unreasonably abrupt. The ending was very cool, although I think it would have been better to show how Vader retained his skills as a pilot despite the injuries.

For all the corny bits, the final battle between Luke and Obiwan was classic, and the way Anakin was burned and disfigured was very convincing. He seriously looked like somebody slowly sliding into the pits of hell. Overall the movie could have been better if there were more scenes of Palpatine luring Anakin, and Padme explaining the sentiments that also helped push Anakin into becoming Darth Vader.

Overall a good movie, and one I'll be picking up on DVD in order to watch the action sequences over again. And if there's any justice in the world, it'll sink that piece of shit Titanic for the box office gross record. But with movie piracy so widespread and movies getting yanked out of the theater in order to cash in on DVD sales (you know it'll be out sometime in November), that probably won't happen. Like they say, sith happens.