Revenge of the Sith: The Saga ends
Well, the saga is finally over.
While Lucas had promised an hour of fighting at the start, and an hour of fighting at the end, the movie was more complex than that, with quite a bit of (belaboured) scene setting in the middle. Love scenes were mercifully short, with only a few moments to make us wince: nothing compared to Episode 2's meadow scene, or Anakin's eloquent thesis on why sand gets everywhere. Any Star Wars fan who survived that can survive the much more concise love scenes here. Brevity is the soul of wit, and Lucas has wisely decided to leave the romance scenes between Padme and Anakin with more menacing silences.
Fight scenes were OK - just OK, because I still maintain that the Duel of the Fates set the bar so high that no fight scene in Star Wars has yet to surpass it. I suppose the final duel between Anakin and Obi-wan is more emotionally fraught: in many ways, it's the fight scene we've all been waiting for, those of us who read the novels and wondered about the pit of molten lava that Anakin fell into.
The political commentary that Lucas built into this prequel trilogy also comes to fruition, with Palpatine's ascension as Emperor - I almost expected him to announce a Thousand Year Reich. The number of times the word "democracy" was uttered hints at the message here: one of my two favourite moments are when Padme says "So this is how liberty ends: to thunderous applause".
The other is when Anakin tells Obi-wan "If you're not with me, you're my enemy", and the reply is that only Sith think in such absolutes: it all clicked at that moment. Right: so Lucas is telling us Bush might be a Sith Lord. I wonder what he's called though - Darth Sipid, perhaps?
All in all, a movie I'd love to watch again. After watching Revenge of the Sith, I came home so inspired that the first thing I did was restore balance to the kitty litter tray. It was then that I realised, while clearing out cat poo, that "sith" is, after all, an anagram of "shit", and I was truly the Chosen One. Really.
While Lucas had promised an hour of fighting at the start, and an hour of fighting at the end, the movie was more complex than that, with quite a bit of (belaboured) scene setting in the middle. Love scenes were mercifully short, with only a few moments to make us wince: nothing compared to Episode 2's meadow scene, or Anakin's eloquent thesis on why sand gets everywhere. Any Star Wars fan who survived that can survive the much more concise love scenes here. Brevity is the soul of wit, and Lucas has wisely decided to leave the romance scenes between Padme and Anakin with more menacing silences.
Fight scenes were OK - just OK, because I still maintain that the Duel of the Fates set the bar so high that no fight scene in Star Wars has yet to surpass it. I suppose the final duel between Anakin and Obi-wan is more emotionally fraught: in many ways, it's the fight scene we've all been waiting for, those of us who read the novels and wondered about the pit of molten lava that Anakin fell into.
The political commentary that Lucas built into this prequel trilogy also comes to fruition, with Palpatine's ascension as Emperor - I almost expected him to announce a Thousand Year Reich. The number of times the word "democracy" was uttered hints at the message here: one of my two favourite moments are when Padme says "So this is how liberty ends: to thunderous applause".
The other is when Anakin tells Obi-wan "If you're not with me, you're my enemy", and the reply is that only Sith think in such absolutes: it all clicked at that moment. Right: so Lucas is telling us Bush might be a Sith Lord. I wonder what he's called though - Darth Sipid, perhaps?
All in all, a movie I'd love to watch again. After watching Revenge of the Sith, I came home so inspired that the first thing I did was restore balance to the kitty litter tray. It was then that I realised, while clearing out cat poo, that "sith" is, after all, an anagram of "shit", and I was truly the Chosen One. Really.
Comments
Though I'm not sure if everyone else will get what we spent some nights talking about: naming conventions of the Darths.
Darth Continence, out.