Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Directed by George Lucas
When the sinister Sith unveil a thousand-year-old plot to rule the galaxy, the Republic crumbles and from its ashes rises the evil Galactic Empire. Jedi hero Anakin Skywalker must choose a side.
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What critics say influenced Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Lucas reminds us of his early inspirations— Flash Gordon , Commander Cody , Tarzan , King Kong , Frankenstein , and (again) the oeuvre of Ray Harryhausen—but also alludes to Biblical and Greek Tragic conundrums, Faust , and buddy Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather .
I was intrigued by the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin, I cared about the deaths of the Jedi in a long sequence that was very reminiscent of “The Godfather”, and I hoped Anakin would make the right decision despite the fact I already know which path he chooses.
Lucas takes a note from The Godfather in a montage of Jedi knights falling victim to traps (a sequence that would have carried much more weight if only viewers had come to know these Jedi, see them in their full glory, and comprehend the pain of their downfall).
Beginning with Anakin’s fateful decision to the cold, emotion-stirring Clone betrayal with Order 66 to The Godfather -influenced proclamation of The Empire intercut with Anakin’s slaughter of the Separtists, Sith takes a heavy, emotional turn.
This glimpse of intergalactic hell inspires moments of epic grandeur that haven't been felt since "The Empire Strikes Back."
Lucas has declared that this is the darkest film in the series (certainly, The Empire Strikes Back is the only chapter that compares), and the MPAA obviously agreed by pasting the movie with a PG-13 rating instead of the usual PG.
But before we all hail George Lucas for raising the level of political discourse in American cinema (and on that score, the accolades have already begun to roll in), let’s remember that all of the “Star Wars” movies — even the genuinely superb “The Empire Strikes Back” — have a relatively simple piece of rhetoric as their backbone: Good must triumph over evil.
The obvious point of comparison for "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith" is 1980's "The Empire Strikes Back."
I guess it’s as believable as whey-faced Mark Hamill playing Anakin’s son and counterpart, and you might recall the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke, in Jedi training with Yoda, enters a cave to confront the phantasm of his nemesis and father.
Ideas and images from sources ranging from Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen to John Ford’s The Searchers find their way into the mix, and pop versions of psychology from Freud to Joseph Campbell (the latter might be the downfall of the imagination in Hollywood) further addle it.
This movie chronicles Anakin's earlier transformation, by which the righteous pilgrim, so handsome, so brave, so noble, so committed, lost his way and became Ahab or Macbeth or Raskolnikov or Faust, or John Wayne in "The Searchers," a figure of power and strength and charisma and intellect, all of it invested in madness and destruction.
Depicting the future stumped Fritz Lang with Metropolis and H.G. Wells with Things to Come.
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It would also help if Christensen and Portman were more expressive actors and if the dialogue they were forced to utter didn't sound like it was stolen from "The Black Shield of Falworth," starring Tony Curtis, in 1954, but he's not that kind of director either.
And Sith’s set designs diminish in complexity from the Blade Runner–like sprawl of Coruscant, the galactic capital and a city whose entire surface is one vast city, to Mustafar’s infernal landscape, which evokes in its stark, glowing immensities Gustav Doré’s engravings for Dante’s Comedia and Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Did Lucas learn nothing from “Alien” and “Blade Runner”—from the suggestion that other times and places might be no less rusted and septic than ours, and that the creation of a disinfected galaxy, where even the storm troopers wear bright-white outfits, looks not so much fantastical as dated?
If "Episode III" were a person, it would be like Roy Hobbs in "The Natural," not as perfect as it had the potential to be, but exceeding low expectations for a hell of a whack out of the park.
But maybe this is largely because there are no Ewoks involved, no singing Teddy bears.Anyway, as everyone knows by now, "Sith" is the turning point in the series: the chapter wherein the once sweet and innocent Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) succumbs to the Dark Side of the Force and becomes the most-wicked man in the universe, newly named "Darth Vader" by the corrupt Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) in a passage that reminded me of the pledge scene from "Animal House"; and the chapter where the eons-old democracy known as the Republic is overthrown and the evil, totalitarian Empire assumes control of the galaxy.
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Director
George Lucas
Critics compare Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith to 4 of Lucas’s own films.
It has made "Episode III Revenge of the Sith" into easily the best of the trio of "Star Wars" prequels and has even attempted the tougher assignment of saving writer-director George Lucas from himself.
And he does try to imbue the story with feeling — something he hasn't done with this much heart since the 1973 "American Graffiti."
And it's now clear that, as a director, Lucas will never top "American Graffiti."
He’s more of a savvy businessman: he knows how to pick good collaborators (in Tell Them Who You Are , he all but credits Haskell Wexler for the success of his one good film, American Graffiti ) and he uses the release of each new Star Wars film not so much to expand our minds but to roll out a new line of merchandising, like the cute lil’ buzz droids that latch on to Obi-Wan’s ship in the first few minutes of Revenge of the Sith .
Hayden Christensen is especially convincing, mostly avoiding the odd combination of over-emoting and stilted deliveries characteristic of his performance in Attack of the Clones.
Dismembered by Dooku in "Attack of the Clones" (2002), Anakin returns the favor here, beginning a movielong trend: "Revenge of the Sith" (the first PG-13 Lucasdirected movie) contains more limb-severings than all of the previous "Star Wars" films combined.
Could what seemed out of tune or just plain lousy in the other episodes (primarily the two most recent, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones) be resolved by this middle movement into what Lucas has referred to as a "symphonic" completion?
No surprise, then, when six years later during interviews for Revenge of the Sith, Lucas confessed to padding out the scripts for episodes one and two, originally having less than sufficient material to make them feature length.
Each is thrilling and well-choreographed, and while they don't quite match the high point set by Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, they're more than enough to set longtime fans cheering.
Could what seemed out of tune or just plain lousy in the other episodes (primarily the two most recent, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones) be resolved by this middle movement into what Lucas has referred to as a "symphonic" completion?
The Faithful (and quite a few of the Unfaithful) have been waiting a long time, enduring the bitter disappointment of "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones," to get to this pivotal moment: to see how and why Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), the Chosen One, abandons his Jedi legacy, embraces the Dark Side and turns into Darth Vader.
Director
Stanley Kubrick
Critics compare Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith to 3 of Kubrick’s films.
As Anakin is seized by jealousy, bitterness, and the sense that the galaxy really owes him something, Christensen tilts his forehead into the camera, rolls his dark eyeballs up, and tries to look like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.
But it also infantilized the genre whose landmarks at the time were smart stuff like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "The Andromeda Strain."
The title scrolls that open each and every Star Wars film have always brought to mind the visual outline of the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey , which, in the way they point toward the sun and the moon and the mysteries that lie therein, have come to represent avatars of human progress.
It’s not a great film, but it’s better than its prequels and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t without its pleasures: the film’s emotional center is both childish and childishly developed but the presentation is more elegant (a creepy, synchronized light show in the Senate hall may be Lucas’s version of Eyes Wide Shut ’s masquerade ball), the music and villains (namely the spidery General Grievous) are compellingly insidious, and the light saber fights are awesome (four penises are better than one, right?).