STAR WARS EPISOD III : CRITIC

[NIIIC]

To day I went to the cinema to see SW E.III, well I don't have much to say but if you want no spoiler, don't read. But before, I worn you, don't expect too much...

 

Select the blanck to read:

 

On would say that E.III is the begging and the last episode of saga SW. For an excellent saga, probably one of the best for a long time, you would expect an "at least as excellent, fabulous and exiting" begging and last episode. Well all I shall say is that it wasn't at all and excellent, fabulous and exiting experience. Hardly anything is explained. A good quarter of the film is used for very very very badly done sentimental scenes. The ONE and only space battle is good, but far to short, so many things are happening, that it makes it look fabulous as a artistic demo, but as a battle , impossible to follow. The wookies battle is less that 5 min. and once Palpatin gives the order to kill all Jedi, they are all dead in less than 1 min. except for Yoda and Obi-Wan. Talking about Yoda, you still don’t find out why he decided to exile him self, leaving the battle with Palpatin unfinished... And I won't say more because I am quite pissed off for now and probably for a week. But I must say a last thing. One thing really pulls the film up. The battle of Yoda vs. Palpatin/Anakin vs. Obi-Wan, which is, I must say excellent and a beauty...

 

Hope you will enjoy the film more than I did and sorry if my phrasing isn't very correct, but bay the dark side of this film disturbed I am...

Edited May 18, 2005 by NIIIC

[Throngrik]

I'll post in here what I posted in my thread, then we can continue the debate wherever we want :

 

"I SAW IT TOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Now to serious things

 

I have mixed feelings about it...

 

Saw it today with Mad and NIIIC...afterwards we had a debate about it, basically me and NIIIC agreeing that it was absolutely no masterpiece and even going so far as saying that we were disappointed. I had extremely high hopes and expectations and they were not fulfilled. Mad was saying that we were too negative but he's a bigger fan than we are

 

The whole beginning of the film is pretty uninteresting really to tell the truth, loads of sentimental stuff which doesn't seem to have it's place because that's not what the film is about.

 

Then, for the duration of the picture, there are cuts ALL the time in the WORST places ! You'll get settled down for a nice bloodcurdling fight scene and then poof, there we go on something completely different, it's terribly annoying. Then you'll come back to the original scene and have to scramble things around in your mind to remember the context.

 

Apart from that, it was not bad at all, some very dark parts, some even moving I have to say. But not at all what I had expected....but then, my hopes were maybe slightly high.

 

See what you think!!!

 

Throngrik"

[Mad78]

Well basically i must say i found it good.

I will first say one thing: It is terribly dark. (In Switzerland it was rated 16 just to give you an idea). The Space scenes were not present enough but it managed to catch it self with its impressive (yet often too short) saber battles.

The scene were Anakin is severly injured is bloody impressive.

i liked it and think fans will too but frankly avoid having too higher expectations for you should understand that you can't condense the whole magic of SW into one film... I find the film lived up to the saga and ended (and began ) it well.

[Skynxnex]

I heard Lucas made most of those 'cuts' because he didnt want children who go to see the movie for instance to get scared or something when they see Anakin going on a rampage.

 

Personally I dont have/didnt have high hopes to begin with and I already know most of the plot though I havent seen it yet myself. I think the story is great in my opinion and cant wait to see it.

[Trejiuvanat]

The Circle is now complete.

 

I found it to be above average. As I don't have the time to write a complete critic on the film, I will sum it up:

 

The Good:

 

The Saber battles, the four duels were very good. I liked much the parallel telling of Yoda vs Palpy and Obi vs Anakin. The way that Mace ends is also pretty good (I had the urge to keep screaming infinite power all day at Uni).

 

Palpatine and Kenobi: These two guys steal the show, one for the pure evil he manifests the other because he is the hero of the prequels, and he ends up betrayed and hurt, it is true Ben that he perceive the movies atmosphere. His fight with GRiveous was very good, and a fitting one-liner to toss at the dead griveous.

 

Anakin and Kenobi: The duel was very good, both on a graphic cinematographic level as on the betrayal level.

 

The short scenes: The Jedi's deaths all over the galaxy were pretty impressive to watch, dark without being explicitly violent.

 

The planets: ever since I watch ANH,I had wanted to see Alderaan. Seeing Kashyyyk and all those other worlds really added a more galactic dimension to Star Wars.

 

The tendency tot he OT: Tantive IV, DS, young tarkin, Chewie, SDs. Seeing this little reminders help tie both trilogies.

 

The bad:

 

The beginning: The very first scene was amazing to watch. The two fighters through the space battle, but after that it started to get boring. The battle at times felt more like a video game.

 

Battles: Corsuscant battle, and Utapau ground battle were much in prequel style too ecclectic, too chaotic. Too much action going on without little importace. Opposed to the OT where one could slightly identify single pilots .

 

Quiet scenes: The more sentimental scenes never seemed at place, because there was always action going on somewhere else.

 

The ugly:

 

Dooku: It was a waste of a good actor, in a character that if developed differently could have done a lot for the movies. He dies because he is required to advance Anakin's plot, otherwise his absence wouldn't be noted.

 

Animals: That ugly lizard, and ugly camel obi-wan rides are to say the least: UGLY. Kenobi could as well have used a speederbike for chasing GRiveous or a least ridiculous animal. For the ending I would have preferred him disappear into the desert, walking, to bind it to the way he appears in ep iv. out of nowhere.

 

Speed: The movie was too fast-paced, at times too forced. Too many short scenes that could have been given an extraminute or two. Some scenes that were filmed are definitely missing in this episode. namely the Alliance foundation and qui-gon scenes. Too bad.

 

Conclusion:

 

An overall good movie, my expectations weren't too high, but I definitely expected more of this that of the other two.

 

Lucas really should fatten up this movie up to six hours and slice it in three, (whilst compressing eps I and II to a fifteen minute prelude) and release that as the prequel trilogy. SEriously, this movies could have perfectly been fattened up to elaborate the dark atmosphere, so it does not go out as fast.

[Trejiuvanat]

Aye for the bad category: Midiclorians strike back. Out of place, unnecesary attempt to justify that crap of Ep I.

[BadSamaritan]

I am going to the movie with the lowest opf possible expectations, hoping to be pleasently surprised.

 

But I fear the odds of that are about the as good as the odds of Jar Jar ever being intelligent.

[Trejiuvanat]

But I fear the odds of that are about the as good as the odds of Jar Jar ever being intelligent.

 

Jar Jar aka Lucas was smart enough not to let the Gungan say a word in the film. Perhaps it does not make him more itnelligent, but a silent JAr Jar is more intelligent than other stuff.

[BadSamaritan]

Well, I was overly immpressed with this final installment. Lucas, I think, redeemed himself greatly with this movie.

 

Granted, some scenes were very out of place, and the whole midichlorians schtick should have been fired right out the window, but you cant expect perfection from the man who created Jar Jar.

 

On that note, I was happy to only have seen Jar Jar in one scene, and he never spoke. That was wonderful!!

[dinochick]

Talking about Yoda, you still don’t find out why he decided to exile him self, leaving the battle with Palpatin unfinished...

...

 

Well, I am to tired to read what everyone had to say (I will tomorrow) but I disagree with you NIIIC. Yoda exiled himself because he failed to bead Sidious. Thats why.

 

I, personally, loved it! I really thought he did a good job and I cried 3 times. I really liked it. Sorry, I did. I will elaborate in the morning. It is 3:30AM and I am beat!

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

I have to side with DC on this one. When you look at TPM and AotC you find that Lucas relied heavily on his special effects, basically making them the focus of the movie in a "look what I can do" way. In RotS we see the same fantastic special effects, but they aren't our focus any more. We pay more attention to the actors and what they are doing and saying rather than watch a bunch of CG guys get blown away.

 

Now, almost every one has complained about the constant switching of scenes. This was not only necessary but effective. I don't want to give too much away, but I will sum it up thusly:

 

In the beginning of the movie Padme isn't "showing" her pregnancy. So, by the end of the movie we know that somewhere around nine months has passed, give or take a month or two. How else can you cover nine months of content but to rappidly fire through all of the most important events surrounding the main characters?

 

This is also an effective meathod of placing the audience into the same mindset as the characters. The Jedi are confused as to what exactly is going on, the whole of the Republic is in turmoil and no one knows who they can trust. By the end of the movie you've been thrown around from scene to scene enough to make you pretty damn dissoriented. That's the point!

 

Now, short scenes and "flipflopping" betweens scenes also had a purpose. Lucas was trying to show you that events are unfolding at the same time. If he had Character Y do something, show the whole secene, then go to Character L doing their thing you would think that that is the order of things. With the way it was arranged you know that Y and L are doing their thing at the same time. This isn't the first movie to do it. The rappid switching is simply to add suspense.

 

Now, I know the death of the Jedi was pretty quick, but the order was givin to all troops at the same time. The Jedi were simply caught by surprise and overwhelmed. It should have been quick.

 

Ok, so then there are these love scenes. I knew that most people would complain about them, but that's because you're not looking at them as character development only as "eew, mushey stuff!". So what is the point of them? They show us that there was good in Anakin (if you caught the mumble near the end of the movie you know that). Padme was the good. She saw it, and we saw it. We see his transition to the Dark Side and yet every time he is with Padme his is the nice, friendly Jedi we knew. When she dies it represents the death of all that was good in Vader. Until he discovers that Luke is alive there was nothing for him. If you watch the OT you see that Luke assume the role his mother did, eventually redeeming his father.

 

I thought this was the best of the Star Wars movies. Everything is wrapped up if you look closely enough. Yoda goes into exile because A) he can't defeat the Emperor and B) because he knows that at some point he will need to take on the burden of training one of the Skywalker twins in the ways of the Force. We see the Emperor take power. We see Alderaan and Kashyyk. We see some other things near the very end that I won't elaborate on, but those who have seen it know what I'm talking about. You need to look at this objectively. This is not your typical explosion-esplosion-death-death-more-death-plot-advances-death-explosion-end type of movie. I think those of you who didn't like it went in thinking that and came out proving yourself right.

[dinochick]

The Good:

 

The Saber battles, .....Palpatine and Kenobi:.....Anakin and Kenobi: ....The short scenes.....The planets...The tendency to the OT....

 

Agree with you I do

 

The bad:

 

The beginning: The very first scene was amazing to watch. The two fighters through the space battle, but after that it started to get boring. The battle at times felt more like a video game. ....

Agree again I do. I also felt like "ahh sot his is one of the levels on the video game (if video games still have levels and I am not dating myself to bad)." Neat, but to much CG going on. But not bad.

 

Battles....Quiet scenes: The more sentimental scenes never seemed at place, because there was always action going on somewhere else. ....

 

I liked the quiet scenes...when Pademe is looking towards the Jedi Temple and Anakin is looking towards Pademes apartment, you can see in his face when he decided that he must go and try to save Palpy.

 

The ugly:

 

Dooku....Animals: That ugly lizard, and ugly camel obi-wan rides are to say the least: UGLY. Kenobi could as well have used a speederbike for chasing GRiveous or a least ridiculous animal. For the ending I would have preferred him disappear into the desert, walking, to bind it to the way he appears in ep iv. out of nowhere.....Speed........

 

Dooku - we knew it would happen, and this was when it had to take place, so I find no fault with it. I loved the look on Dooku's face when Palpy said to kill him. But During this scene I was curious as to how Anakin could get so distracted to forget that his friend was passed out over in the corner. One would have thought that he woud have been more worried (IMO).

Animals - I LOVED them! I thought the parrot/iguana thing that Obi rode! Very cool, reminded me of a Phonex. The Camel thing we saw in TPM, neat looking to me. Very Miocene

 

Conclusion:

 

An overall good movie, my expectations weren't too high, but I definitely expected more of this that of the other two. ....

 

I liked it, my expectations we average to high I would say. I definitely think that it was WAY better than the other two, thats for sure. GL made me happy.

 

Well, I was overly immpressed with this final installment. Lucas, I think, redeemed himself greatly with this movie.

 

Granted, some scenes were very out of place, and the whole midichlorians schtick should have been fired right out the window, but you cant expect perfection from the man who created Jar Jar.

 

On that note, I was happy to only have seen Jar Jar in one scene, and he never spoke. That was wonderful!!

 

Aye for the bad category: Midiclorians strike back. Out of place, unnecesary attempt to justify that crap of Ep I.

 

I too was impressed and agree with BS. I thought that the midichlorian scene was ok, a little out there, but good to explain it. I think I may have liked to hear more about Sifo Dias and what happened to him/who ordered the troops worked in, but I am happy with the outcome overall. And the lack of a verbal JarJar just totaly made it for me, the icing on the cake

[Ragnar]

I saw the movie this afternoon...

 

Let me first praise a few things:

-The Jedi getting "offed" en masse.

-The final battle between Anakin and OB1, especially the end.

-The special effects (duh).

 

Now, to keep this short I will limit my grievances to one item:

 

Anakin skywalker/Darth Vader

In my opinion, GL made a huge mistake by portrayng the Jedi as a force of pure good. First off all because they aren't, they follow the force, which is closely allied to nature, which is neutral. Secondly, because it makes the whole "conversion" of Anakin so completely unbelievable. Granted, the emperor dangles some pretty large juicy fruits in front of him, but I cannot imagine someone being trained as a jedi being so easily bribed, seduced and lied to. It just doesn't fly.

The phrase that "not everything is black and white" is thrown around a few times, but at no time is the viewer even the slightest bit confused about who the bad guys are in all of this (in addition to the choice of wardrobe). It would have been much better if the Jedi Order had been a less of a gathering of boyscouts. If -for instance- Yoda and OB1 had been voices of reason and the rest mostly conservative bureaucrats, rusted down in tradition and pride and somewhat more deserving of the whacking that they get.

I guess that, at some point during the inital stages of the production, the choice was made to not make a movie that would be morally confusing. This is a shame because now, Darth Vader, bad guy extrordinaire, has been reduced to a traumatised youngling, easily dominated into doing the Emperor's bidding. What was supposed to be the beginning of a dark legend, has -in my mind- forever damaged it.

[Darth_Rob]

I just came back from the film. I was disappointed by several things:

 

1. The battle between Dooku and Anakin. Dooku can kick serious butt, as

is shown in AOTC. However, his appearance was so short in Sith.

Anakin defeated him too quickly, hardly giving Christoper Lee a chance to perform the role I believe he played so well in AOTC. I know that Anakin claims "my powers have doubled since we last met", but I still think that Lucas should have given Dooku a longer, more extravagant duel. I mean, I realise that Dooku had to die. I know that Anakin had to kill him to "take his place", so to speak. But I just wish that Lucas had given Dooku the final duel and death he deserved.

 

2. I am also upset with Palpatine. Now the Emperor is my personal favorite character of the Star Wars saga, but I was very disappointed with him. For starters, when Windu has him backed up against the wall, he pleads and balls like a little bitch. I cant see the Galactic Emperor acting like that when his life is threatened. Maybe it was a show to help in the seduction of Anakin, but I really don't know. Theres just such a huge difference between the Emperor in ROTJ and Palpatine in Sith.

 

3. Another thing I don't like about any of the prequels is the technology. Now the prequels, in definition, occur before the original trilogy. Now, in my opinion, I feel that the technology present during the prequels is superior to that of the original saga. Look at the land assult vehicles used in the seige of Geonosis in AOTC. Those things could easily outgun an ATAT any day of the week. And also look at R2D2. Hes got friggen rocket launchers in the prequels! He never had that during the original trilogy. I guess that R2 got a lost some of his skills during his memory wipe.

 

4. Lucas definetly should have more of Anakin eliminating the Jedi in the temple. That scene would have been a visual masterpiece, with all these Jedi running at Anakin while he struck down every one. There was great potential for fantastic lightsaber duels, but Lucas decided to not concentrate on that. Instead, he wasted time with the invasion of Kashyyyk. I mean, it was alright, but when I see that he decided to show the wookies over the Jedi purge, that just got me a little agitated.

 

5. General Grevious. I'm looking at him when he first walks onto screen, stumbling and coughing like an old man. My gf turns to me and says "is he sick?". I say, "he cant be. Hes a droid". Not until much later do I realise that he is a cyborg type creation. But I just felt that the introduction of Grevious was a dumb move. Instead, Lucas should have just kept Dooku around longer.

 

I did like several things as well.

 

1. The seduction of Anakin. I think that Palpatine telling Anakin the story of the Darth Plauge (or something to that effect) was brilliant. I was sitting up last night, pondering, "well, Anakin loves Padme. So what, in the end, makes him finally embrace the dark side if he has such positive emotions from Padme". The fact that Anakin wanted the power to control life itself was ambitious, and just the thing that would turn him. I thought it was a clever plot.

 

2. The duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin was great. It was everything I expected from their duel. It wasn't rushed (like Dooku's) and was visually stunning. The fact that it occured in a volcanicly active area was cool too. In short, a great fight.

 

3. The extermination of the Jedi. I always assumed it took Darth Vader (after he gets the suit, after facing Obi-Wan) and the Emperor together to hunt down and destroy the Jedi. I never would have guessed that Anakin did a large part of it within a single day, single-handidly. It just shows the skill and power he possessed that he was able to personally defeat the Jedi so shortly. Im assuming that there must have been hundreds of Jedi in the temple (that place is huge). I played and beat the PS2 version of the movie, and there is a level where you play as Anakin, running through the temple and killing Jedi after Jedi. Its a fun level, and I only wish that Lucas had included it in the movie (I know I got off track, sorry).

 

4. The fact that Jar Jar Binks only had one line, and nothing more.

 

I guess to sum it all up, Sith was not perfect. Lucas decided to create it in his own way, which he has every right to. He created the saga, and he thus has the power to do whatever he wants. But I definetly do not agree with all his views. I think he should have stepped back and listened to the fan base. Also, he should have read some of the novels that continue the series (Zahn's trilogy, Dark Apprentice, Dark Empire, etc.). In short, I did enjoy Sith the most of the prequels.

[Mad78]

I am quite happy to see that (nearly) everybody here liked it. i am just curious now on to how the critics rate it.