After five largely odious episodes, "Revenge of the Sith" was rewarding enough to redeem the franchise for me. There was no theatricals, no overacting, no brinkmanship, no obnoxious teasing and taunting between the male and female protagonists and, above all, no more garish protracted scenes of ugly sentient alien beings that had driven me berserk in the previous episodes. (CGI really did the trick, I guess.) The lightsaber duel scenes were also much livelier and more fun to watch.
Not to mention that the cast are actually a lot more likable! Call me a blasphemer, but there was just something terribly wrong with Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill in the first trilogy. Here you could actually feel the chemistry and love between Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, and the two of them, along with Ewan McGregor, gave a truly natural, entertaining and coherent performance together.
And then the epic story of how the Jedi warrior Anakin Skywalker, believed to be the Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force and defeat the Sith once and for all, became the Dark Lord Darth Vader, that was a whole different level of drama. The idea of good versus evil, that good always wins the war no matter how many battles it's lost, takes the backseat as Anakin becomes conflicted between his Jedi mentors' rules and expectations and his love for his secret wife Senator Padmé. The movie is a masterpiece at playing out the agonizing moral ambiguity that descends upon a human when they're faced with threats to their loved ones, when they stand to lose what makes their life worth living. Here the concept of good and evil is blurred in Anakin's eyes and, quite simply, the ends begin to justify the means.
Fear of loss is what leads to anger, the Jedi masters insist, and anger leads to hatred, hatred to the Dark Side. Loyalty to the Jedi Order is another tenet that the young Jedi struggles with as he realizes what his masters seem to have holding back from him about the nature of the Force.
I'm thankful they made this movie the way they did. I loved it. And it's woefully underrated compared to the original 1980s trilogy.
Not to mention that the cast are actually a lot more likable! Call me a blasphemer, but there was just something terribly wrong with Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill in the first trilogy. Here you could actually feel the chemistry and love between Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, and the two of them, along with Ewan McGregor, gave a truly natural, entertaining and coherent performance together.
And then the epic story of how the Jedi warrior Anakin Skywalker, believed to be the Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force and defeat the Sith once and for all, became the Dark Lord Darth Vader, that was a whole different level of drama. The idea of good versus evil, that good always wins the war no matter how many battles it's lost, takes the backseat as Anakin becomes conflicted between his Jedi mentors' rules and expectations and his love for his secret wife Senator Padmé. The movie is a masterpiece at playing out the agonizing moral ambiguity that descends upon a human when they're faced with threats to their loved ones, when they stand to lose what makes their life worth living. Here the concept of good and evil is blurred in Anakin's eyes and, quite simply, the ends begin to justify the means.
Fear of loss is what leads to anger, the Jedi masters insist, and anger leads to hatred, hatred to the Dark Side. Loyalty to the Jedi Order is another tenet that the young Jedi struggles with as he realizes what his masters seem to have holding back from him about the nature of the Force.
I'm thankful they made this movie the way they did. I loved it. And it's woefully underrated compared to the original 1980s trilogy.