Star Wars III review

[tagryn]

THE GOOD

- Overall, this was a better movie than "Phantom Menace" and a *much* better movie than "Clones." The special effects were, as usual, in a class of their own.

- I thought Hayden Christensen looked more able to carry off the role of Anakin this time than in "Clones." The few years of aging helped a lot.

- I enjoyed the 4-lightsaber work by the droid general vs. Kenobi, short as it was.

- The killing of Count Dooku - somewhat unexpected, which was good for a film where the ending was pretty easy to figure out. I liked Chris Lee's portrayal of Dooku's sudden realization that his master, Sidious, was about to have him killed.

- The killing of jedi Mace Wendu - nicely done, and Samuel L. Jackson didn't really fit the SW genre in the first place.

- Good score by John Williams, as usual.

- Good acting work by Ewan McGregor, as usual.

- Great to see the Vader armor in use again.

- Enjoyed seeing the early models of what becomes the X-Wings, Tie fighters, Star Destroyers, etc. in IV-VI. Nice little nod to the fans there.


THE BAD & THE UGLY

- The dialog! Ugh! Lucas just can't direct or write character-talk that doesn't come off as being unbearably clunky at times. "I feel like I'm losing you!", etc.

- There was an overreliance on cutaways to move between scenes. At certain points, it seemed like there was one every few minutes, which speaks to certain scenes being too short. Either lengthen them, or drop them altogether. That's a script problem.

- Anakin's movement from "I'm confused, I don't know what's right" to "I will be your apprentice, teach me about the Dark Side." seemed terribly rushed. It would have been better to see him cajoled by Sidious & convinced that he had no choice but to join the Dark Side after he'd turned on Wendu, rather than the "flip-of-a-light-switch" thing.

- I don't think the visual of seeing Anakin being devoured by the lava, followed by the surgical scenes where the cybernetics are grafted onto him, was quite appropriate even for PG-13. That's going to give some kids nightmares, I'm sure.

- Hearing Vader give out a distinctly Shatner-style "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" near the end was, um... uncomfortable.

- I didn't think Lucas made the Emperor quite as powerful in his duel with Yoda as we'd been led to expect from ROTJ, or from earlier in the film when he tore through the Jedis accompanying Wendu. Maybe Lucas was trying to show that the dark side can't win unless it cheats (by throwing the Senate chamber seating at Yoda), but still...this guy obviously knows how to work all the angles - he's still in power decades later when "A New Hope" begins, after all. Would like to have seen more of that.

Comments

[erikred.livejournal.com]

Insightful as always. Something to tickle your brain, however: as a much geekier friend of mine points out, Mace Windu is supposed to be hunted down later by some dark Jedi-hunting character. This is not impossible, however, since all we saw was Mace Windu lose his hands to a lightsabre and get blown out a window by lightning. While this would count as a mortal blow to most mortal characters, a Jedi might be able to shrug it off, particularly if called for by the plot.

Of course, as far as Lucas-generated SW is concerned, yeah, Windu's gone.