I am jumping into it with both feet, by which I mean that Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith does have its moments. Like Leia says, “Not many of them, but you do have them.” But, sadly, I also mean that Revenge of the Sith is bad, and not just bad, but atrocious. I begin, as always, with the opening crawl.
Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith (00.00.00-00.01.50)
The crawl of Revenge runs until one minute and fifty seconds into the movie. Rather than reference time codes as I normally do, I refer you to the StarWars.com page that includes the entire text and will reference line numbers, as if this were poetry (but horribly bad poetry).
“War!” it begins (1). I suppose that Lucas felt, perhaps rightly so, that Star Wars had become As the Star Turns, or All My Squabbling Delegates, or Jedi Of Our Lives, or whatever clever soap opera title one wants to adapt to accurately describe the degeneration of the saga. Star Wars had gone from a stirring space opera to a lethargic soap opera in space. There was no real war in the Phantom Menace, just a few battles. There was no real war in Attack of the Clones, just a pointless, unjustified attack on a backwater planet that was not part of the Republic. Lucas, rather deftly, actually, manages to skip almost the entire war that should have been what Star Wars: the Prequels was all about: The Clone Wars. The Clone wars were alluded to in A New Hope with mystery and weight and feeling, as if it were World War II and women married the men that came home because they came home and there wasn’t anyone else. Lucas, for whatever incomprehensible reason, allotted the Clone Wars to the dark gap between movies and is now giving it the kiddy treatment over on Cartoon Network (and doing a bad job of it). So I suppose that Lucas wanted to remind people that his saga was about a galaxy spanning war, after all.
The entirety of the first paragraph of the crawl reads like it was written by a five year old. Descriptions are cliche and the sentences are as simple as those one reads in kindergarten: “See Vader run. Vader runs fast. Evil is everywhere. The Republic is crumbling. There are heroes. Padme is sad.” It is dreadful. Each of the next paragraphs is a single sentence, so why is this one four sentences long? And, my beef is not just with the structure of paragraph one, it is with the content as well. Apparently the war is being run by the “ruthless Count Dooku” (2-3). All well and good, except that we haven’t seen him be particularly ruthless, more gentlemanly and only slightly evil. And, as far as that goes, he captured a whole 20 minutes of screen time in Attack of the Clones and will have even less in Revenge of the Sith. The next two sentences are contradictory: “There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.” (4-5). To whom is the “ruthless” Count Dooku a hero? The thousands of star systems that think the Republic is corrupt and just want to secede? I doubt they would condone his “ruthless” actions. The council of toadies that are his financial backers? In my experience those who are out only for profit and career advancement only make heroes of themselves or their bank accounts, not some “ruthless” political figurehead. And, evil, by definition, is not heroic. It is craven. It isn’t courageous, it isn’t bold, it slinks and it snarls, and nothing about that is heroic. This is non-sequitarian.
Finally, however, we move beyond the sort of general plot that Lucas has been stringing loosely together over the past half a movie, and into the direct set up for this movie, and we learn that a “fiendish droid leader, General Grievous” has kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine (7-8). Again, this does not fit at all with “heroes on both sides” as someone who is “fiendish” is not heroic.
Furthermore, who is this guy? Up until now, it has seemed that Count Dooku is running the war. He seemed to be the ringleader or kingpin in Clones, and this first paragraph has told us that the attacks which are crumbling the Republic are “by….Count Dooku”. I understand that Grievous could be the commander and Dooku could be the chief, but that has to be established and documented otherwise the audience becomes confused. In the Original Trilogy, we knew there was an Emperor who ruled the galaxy, and that Vader was his right hand man running the war. We didn’t get the Emperor for part of two movies and then suddenly get Vader for half a movie and be expected to make the jump. But, not to worry, because I actually do know why Grievous is suddenly introduced here when he, perhaps, should have been around since Episode One. The reason for Grievous is this: Lucas had a brilliant idea two movies too late. General Grievous is a direct analogue to Darth Vader (Lucas has said this several times in interviews, forgive me, as I don’t have references handy). Both are “more machine than man” and both are “twisted and evil” and both are “trained in…Jedi arts” and the list goes on. Lucas had a brilliant idea to foreshadow Vader with Grievous, but if that were the case, the main villain from the beginning should have been Grievous and he should have been a blend of Dooku and the General. A force wielding mostly machine Sith hunting down the Chosen One would have been fantastic, especially since we know the formula works, and when Darth Grievous dies unredeemed, it would give much more credence to Kenobi’s belief that Vader is unredeemable.
But, because Lucas did not bother to stop and think anything through or work with more than one draft, he thought of Grievous two movies too late, quickly inserted him into the thick of things and killed him too quickly for anyone to really get it. This is an argument I have been making since Phantom Menace and Darth Maul: too many guys who are not really that bad. The Original Trilogy had exactly one: Vader. It was always and only Darth Vader. He fired first, he strangled second, he dismembered third, he trapped fourth, he taunted fifth, and he never ever showed any hint of goodness until the very end. Darth Maul said nothing, but was a bad ass animal. Darth Tyrannus/ Count Dooku seemed like a good, misguided gentleman and wasn’t particularly scary or bad ass. Greivous is so over the top and cliche that he is boring. There is no one to care enough about to hate as a villain, and a space opera, heck, even a soap opera, needs an obviously evil villain. You know, the guy who is trying to kill the kids who don’t actually belong to their parents but are actually twins, and are actually the heroes’ twins who everyone thought was dead but who has been alive all this time and is really the bad guy himself! *gasp* Or something. Point is: clear villain.
Lastly, the film begins with a “desperate mission to rescue the captive chancellor” (16-17) and, in addition to the massive star fleet, the Republic sends exactly “two Jedi Knights” on this desperate mission (15). And, we learn later, they apparently had to recall Kenobi and Skywalker from the Outer Rim. What?? What about Mace Windu and Yoda and the (it looks like hundreds of) Jedi right there on the planet from which Palpatine is being kidnapped?
Sure, the mission is desperate, but only because the Jedi are total morons.
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a simple man 