Pretend you're reading this seven months ago
Just watched Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. I made a deliberate decision not to see it in the theater because it bugged me so much every time I read an interview in which George Lucas cited the huge box office success of Episodes I and II as conclusive proof of their non-awfulness. So I waited it out, got the Netflix dvd, and spent a sunny Saturday morning flopped out in front of my 15" laptop screen watching it.
And I have to say, it wasn't terrible. Extremely mediocre, of course, with horrendous dialogue and more than a few unintentionally laugh-out-loud hilarious bits, but it also contained several moments of great resonance for someone who nurtured a full-blown Star Wars obsession until embarassingly deep into his teen years. I still think Lucas has forgotten how to tell a story, either with words or with images, but if you spot him the ending, as this film in effect did, he can at least get the job done. I give it two stars, with an asterisk for "surprisingly undisappointing."
And I have to say, it wasn't terrible. Extremely mediocre, of course, with horrendous dialogue and more than a few unintentionally laugh-out-loud hilarious bits, but it also contained several moments of great resonance for someone who nurtured a full-blown Star Wars obsession until embarassingly deep into his teen years. I still think Lucas has forgotten how to tell a story, either with words or with images, but if you spot him the ending, as this film in effect did, he can at least get the job done. I give it two stars, with an asterisk for "surprisingly undisappointing."
posted by Jeff at 10:17 AM
4 Comments:
I will agree that this movie was not disappointing, but I would go further and say that it was better than the first two. I am very sorry to hear that you did not have the opportunity to see it on a huge screen with loud surround sound, which only improves the overall experience. However, I am aware of your Star Wars history, so that is probably not lost on you.
Goober, I love you to death, but no way in hell was I going to drop 10 bucks on it after seeing Attack of the Clones. If there were a decent second-run theater around here, I suppose I would have gone in for that, but I'm not convinced it would have made a difference. In fact, I think the excellence of the special effects were partly responsible for the crappiness of the new trilogy -- a point I may address in an upcoming post.
I think the bottom lines is your expectations were way too high. If there was anything to be learned about the new Trilogy from Episodes 1 & 2, it was that they simply were never going to be as ground-breaking nor as good as the original. That being said, Episode III was still worth the price of admission.
Maybe not including popcorn and sodas, but at least the basic admission (we still have matinee pricing here in Asheville).
I'm so, so with you on the "Noooooooo!" But I must confess to getting a tiny bit choked up when Lars and Beru watched the double sunset with baby Luke and the Ben Kenobi music came on.
The main lesson of the second trilogy is that Lucas never really knew what was good about the first trilogy. Take R2D2. He's great as kind of a clunky, slow-moving piece of junk. He's really lame as a flying, combat-droit-fighting wonderbot.
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