My Thoughts on The Revenge of the Sith

This movie is not perfect. But it exceeded my expectations, and I would qualify my expectations by saying that they had been buoyed by the positive feedback that I'd been hearing before I went. So it exceeded my a little more than modest expectations for its success, whatever that's worth. Thanks to Libby for coming with me to see it despite the late hour!

In my opinion, the movie's greatest strength was making Anakin Skywalker's character realistic. I felt that his change was, in the moral universe of the movie, natural considering his character and the decisions that he made. All this despite the bad acting on the part of Hayden Christensen. I really felt for Darth Vader's change, but at the same time, the depths to which he plummeted helped me to understand just how Obi Wan could tell Luke that Skywalker was dead. He really is so evil that it seems like the man he used to be is just totally gone.

Now I want to watch the Return of the Jedi again and see why Luke didn't change. And see how well the vision of Anakin's character returns in the last decisions of Vader's reform.

Other positives:

The movie connected with me pretty powerful on an emotional level several times. Unlike Steven Spielberg, I didn't cry, but I could see why he would. At points, and at the end, I felt sick. It's very sad.

The light-saber scenes were all enjoyable. There are things that you could complain about (Hard to see what's going on occasionally) but they were still thrilling. The Obi Wan/Anakin battle doesn't disappoint, and neither does the Yoda/ Palpatine battle.

Yoda is awesome again. His character manages to inject humor into the movie despite the totally serious themes.

Mace Windu's one light saber battle is really cool.

I thought some of the ways it weaved its ethical points around the narrative were creative and interesting. At one critical point, enemies are calling each other traitors. While it's clear at the time who is the real traitor, there's plausible amiguity within the story (Palpatine weilds power like Richard III). But by the next scene, the awful implications of that belief are brought home with the most disgusting and treacherous sequence of the whole movie. Simple and effective.

An important consideration:

It's not a children's movie. If you're under 13, don't go. It has one moment that is very graphic.

Negatives:

We see Jar Jar's face. He doesn't lose it.

Bad dialogue. At times, it's really bad.

Bad acting. How can Natalie Portman be the same actress from Garden State? This is why I think the script might be the cause of a lot of the bad acting. There are good actors in this movie. I'd say Samuel L. Jackson does the best job, overall.

Lots of computer graphics. At times it was distracting, and on the whole Lucas obviously went overboard. (on the whole though, by the end, the story had mostly removed my complaints about this)

There are some saggy moments in the plot. Generally that's because of the bad dialogue and acting that we're conscious of during the still moments.

I thought the ending was a little cheesy. It was very self-consciously making connections that would set up Episode IV. I don't think that they were justified by this movie of itself, which seems a weakness to me.

Alright. My recommendation: if you like Star Wars, you have to see it. If you don't like Star Wars at all, you might not like it. If you like fun action movies, you'll probably appreciate it.