***SPOILER-TASTIC Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith Thread***

[Funt Solo]

But he never actually says he created him, does he?

I just didn't pick up that at all when I watched it.  I just pretend the whole "Immaculate Comception/Midichlorians" palava never happened (like Return to Verdus).

Makes me feel better.

[Dunk!]

But, after offing Mace, Palpatine states to Anakin that he doesn't know how to create/sustain life, only one person ever did (Plagueis), but together they will uncover the secret.

[Tordelbach]

Yes indeedy, as someone else said, the ol' bait'n'switch in action!

 Whereas I like the idea of Palpatine being behind *everything*, there is also a certain machiavellian glee to be derived from Palpatine usurping a scheme which is actually his murdered Master's. Someone elsewhere suggested that this was *why* Palps murders Plagueis when he does - he knows that Plagueis will take the Chosen One as his new apprentice, thus spelling doom for Palps.  Equally, it may explain why Palps apparently doesn't know where Ani is until the Jedi find him - that info dies with Plagueis.  

Damn satisfying metaplot either way!

[Bico]

Or fans reading more plot into a straightforward (and not very original) story than there actually is.  I'm terrible for doing this myself, and I don't believe Lucas is bright enough to come up with the suggested plot arc.
Although it does make the prequel trilogy sound much better than it actually is.

[longmanshort]

Hayden Christianson seems to believe that frowning really, really hard makes him look angry.

It doesn't ...

It just pushes his eyes out of alignment so rather than looking mad, he looks demented.

[Richmond Clements]

Also, I spotted Jeremy Bulloch driving Bail Organa's spaceship.

[Tordelbach]

Oh Prof, leave us with our delusions!  I am inclined to agree with you about Lucas, but the Prequels are a quite deliberate multi-media (money-spinning on many fronts) project - and reading more into them than is on the screen or in George's head is a large part of the fun.  I hesitated briefly back in '99, but then gave in completely and read everything I could get my hands on.  

I have on occasion felt that while the movies fail miserably as quality films, the army of hack creators struggling to provide bios for each background alien, rationalise the contradictory tech behind each vehicle and franctically spin the irreconcilable contradictions between previous novels/comics and each successsive film can create a quite interesting story that serves to flesh out the new trilogy into something palatable.  

I also have the sneaking susspicion that in Episode III we see th result of George consuting with his Expanded Universe staffers and lurking on Message Boards, so completeeky does it address fanboy concerns.  There's actually a scene in one of the Web documentaries where he asks his prop-master to explain which lightsaber has to be passed from Anakin to Obi-Wan to Luke, and then observes that he now has to work out a way of making that move - something that any fan worth his salt had already whiled away many happy hours speculating about.

[sixmo]

Normally I can sit in a cinema and enjoy just about anything. I don't really apply any critical opinion until well after seeing the movie. I went to this movie (EpIII) knowing that the advance word on it was not so great, so given the normal run of events all I have to do to really enjoy the movie is set my expectations a wee bit lower. I was horrified to watch the film and actually be bored by it. I wasn't expecting much, and I'd switched off any part of my brain that might give a considered honest view of the quality of the movie, and still I was bored by it. God only knows what I'd have thought of it if I'd turned the knoggin' on.

Any big set-piece exciting battle bit just has too much going on on the screen for you to take it all in, and it just becomes frustrating. There are way too many lightsaber duels, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't all look the same. Whirling blades, jump around a bit, can't work out what's going on or who is winning, whoops there goes a hand, lather, rinse, repeat. The original episodes spend a whole movie building up to a single ligthsaber duel, and are the better for it. Maybe a couple at the beginning and a couple at the end would have been enough, but every five minutes was too much. They lost their special-ness.

Naturally, the dialog was all over the shop, that just made me feel sorry for the actors, so it didn't bother me too much.

Also, did anyone see anything in this movie that they weren't expecting? Was there any element of the story or sequence of events that you couldn't have predicted before going into the cinema? I mean we all know what had to happen, but surely there could have been a slightly twistier route taken to this outcome.

Actually, thinking about it, it was a bit like Slaine's worst excesses recently, fancy imagery that's difficult to fathom, the same fight over and over again, and some shaky dialog (I do like Slaine really though!).

In conclusion, I think I would have enjoyed EpIII if I hadn't acted the eejit and watched Empire Strikes Back that very morning. Dumb, dumb, dumb!


 

[Noisybast]

Saw it last night. I thought it was great. No major gripes at all, really.

Alright, If I was to get really picky, I'd say that they should have CG'd Peter Cushing into the scene on the Star Destroyer, rather than going for a skinny bloke in a latex mask...

[Roger Godpleton]

I almost choked on a bit of popcorn whilst watching the film, and that was the best bit.

The choreography in the Lightsaber fights is terrible, & consists of little more than the participants spinning around and doing that horribly fake looking jump for 10 minutes. Plus what was the point of that heat effect on all the dismembered limbs, just looked fake.

Hayden's acting was TRANSCENDENTALLY BAD. I realise that Ford, Hamill et al. weren't so hot themselves, but come on "You look so ... beautiful". I was laughing out loud at that bit.

The only decent bit was Yoda vs. the emperor, but even that was sullied by the omnipresent "It's just CGI" feeling that was generally present throughout.

General Grievous looked like a boss from a videogame.

The scene where the Jedi bird with the two head-tentacles got offed by clones was hilarious. Did you see her just flop to the floor?

Those Jedi brats were rubbish. I was half expecting the Artful Dodger to comfort his friend Oliver Twist. And I'm the only person who found Anakin brandishing a long shaft-like object in the presence of kids a tad suggestive and a bit "Jackson"?

I hate CGI.

[Buddy]

I told my mates after The Phantom Manace that the Emperor was Anakins da. Oh how they mocked, oh how they laughed.

Lots of eating hats around the office these days.

[Funt Solo]

Still open to debate, that one.  Put the hats back on the rack.

[IndigoPrime]

:: Darth Plagueis (oh George, the names, the names..

Just one of several moments where slightly pained "laughs" rippled through the largely stunned audience I watched the movie with (and not stunned in a good way either).

[IndigoPrime]

:: I realise that Ford, Hamill et al. weren't so hot themselves,

Not great actors, but they had charisma?something sorely lacking in the newer movies.

[Funt Solo]

"Darth Vader" evoked alien menace, as (a kid) I didn't know what the hell a darth or a vader was.  (As it turns out, Vader is a small town with a population of 414.)  Why then, this maul-ing, in-sidious, plague-is ridden use of moniker simile?

Again, as a kid, watching The Empire Strikes Back, there was no laughter from the audience except at the points where the film-makers intended there to be laughter.  C-3PO exclaiming "look what happened to me" is one example.  But there was no laughter at Yoda, who (in fact) became quite menacing.

Watching the latest movie last week, one thing that struck me was that half the audience (the younger half of the audience) spent most of the movie laughing - at the Emperor's bottom-like forehead and everytime Yoda appeared on screen.  So there, they found it laughable.

Also, as a kid watching Star Wars in '78, I didn't once think "Gawrsh, those people playing Luke and Han can't act very well".  In fact, the first time I heard that Mark Hammil and Harrison Ford weren't considered very good actors in those roles was when I was in my 20s, several years after Return of the Jedi first hit the screens.  As far as I was concerned, they simply were Luke and Han.

If we just wait around for 20 years, we'll see if any people who are in their teens now will hold any great regard for this new trilogy.  I doubt it.