Revenge of the Sith Review (with spoilers!)

One of the advantages to working at a game company is the occasional opportunity to see company screenings of certain movies. Sunday, for example, I got to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith a few days before its actual release. For free. And unlike the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban screening, it wasn't at 6:00 am on a work day.

So, Revenge of the Sith. I'm going to tell you what I thought of it, and I'm going to employ spoilers. If that bothers you, I encourage you to go to a different website. Whatever you do, do not continue reading and then send me an angry email about how I've ruined the movie for you by revealing vital plot points.

Seriously.

Okay: I liked it. I liked it a lot. I didn't really think I was going to, as Episodes I and II were not very good (although I will admit to having seen Episode I so much that I've been able to invent elaborate offstage plots. For example, I am convinced that Qui-Gon and Shmi Skywalker have a torrid love affair between scenes. you have to watch their eyes when their together).

But I wanted to keep an open mind. Lucas keeps claiming that you have to watch the movies as one big saga. So on Friday, I watched Episode I: The Phantom Menace. And on Saturday, Episode II: Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars Volumes 1 and 2. That way, I'd be able to watch the new movie in context.

It was a good thing I included the Clone Wars cartoon in the viewing schedule, because it was a lot more fun than the movies. Frankly, most of the fun in watching them comes from making jokes (like, you know the Sand People that shoot at the podrace? They're clearly just Tatooine Rednecks having a good time. You can't see the six-pack of beer, but it's there). But the cartoons have entertaining action sequences, interesting character bits, and are just, well, better.

For example, if you watch just the movies, then General Grievous (the robotty four-armed thing with all the lightsabers) is going to be a huge disappointment. He's talked up big, but Obi-Wan and Anakin handle him pretty efficiently. Tangentially, Obi-Wan uses the lightsaber trick I've been waiting for for a long time: when his saber is bound with Grievous's, he just slides it down to cut off Grievous's hand. Those lightsabers really ought to have some kind of guard on the hilt.

Anyway, the cartoons provide some essential scenes of General Grievous slicing up Jedi after Jedi; he's built up as a proper threat. That makes it impressive that Obi-Wan was able to take him down.

Okay, let's get to my comments on Revenge of the Sith, aside from the top line: I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to.

• The line in Episode IV about "[Vader's] sad devotion to that ancient religion" is just silly when you consider the Jedi Council was kicking ass and taking names just twenty years earlier.

• Battle droids have been programmed to moan as they die. I assume that's to make it more fun to kill them.

• On the packaging for the twelve-inch figure of Ki-Adi Mundi (the bumpy-headed Jedi, which I got for free so don't judge me for having owned it) it claimed he was the only member of the Jedi Council who wasn't a Master. They appear to have changed their minds about that, since now Anakin is the first one.

• The Milennium Falcon is in one scene, but I missed it.

• I don't fully understand the exchange Anakin and Obi-Wan have where Obi-Wan answers Anakin's "But that's treason!" with "This is a time of war." Doesn't that make treason worse?

• You know, I'm still not a hundred percent convinced that Palpatine and Sidious are the same person. I could just be fooled by how innocent he acted in Clone Wars, but it could easily be that Palpatine was putting together his own power base while Sidious planned behind the scenes. Then, when Palpatine was kidnapped (at the end of Clone Wars) they made the switch, killing Palpatine and having Sidious take his place. You'll notice it's only after the kidnapping that Palpatine starts talking explicitly Dark-side. So under this theory, Sidious always looked old and decrepit and just emulated Palpatine's face until he found a plausible excuse to "age".

• Not only is Chewbacca in the movie (and I recognized him right away, which surprised me), he gets to stand next to Yoda while he talks to the Jedi Council. A council that includes Obi-Wan and Anakin. I am forced to assume that when Obi-Wan meets Chewbacca in the Mos Eisley cantina, what they're discussing quietly is "Look, Chewbacca, don't tell anyone who I am or who the kid is, okay? Yes, including Han." So the characters that know everything, R2-D2 and Chewbacca, are the ones we don't understand.

• I enjoyed seeing a bunch of stormtroopers without helmets, all with Jango Fett's face.

• I did not find Anakin's turn to EVILLLL 100% convincing. He does it because he wants more power, or to save Padme, or something, but he jumps straight into "I will kill hundreds of children for you, my master" mode without a hitch. He never obeyed Obi-Wan that unquestioningly, that's for sure.

• There's a fight scene (Obi-Wan outside the Jedi chamber) where I'm positive they cut in a shot of Alec Guinness's face over Ewan McGregor's. It was very short.

• The movie comes to a complete halt whenever Padme's on screen. The romantic dialogue is bad. And dull.

• Also, I'm surprised Han thinks the Force is a "hokey religion" and lightsabers are "ancient weapons". It was twenty years ago! I guess there's no VH-1 to do "I Love The Jedi Era" all the time.

• "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." What? What? Forget about the inherent paradox with saying only -- aren't the Jedi always going on about the "Light" and "Dark" side? Isn't that the definition of seeing things in black and white?

• When Anakin and Obi-Wan are fighting, there's a moment where the bridge gets covered in lava and they both have to hide on opposite sides of a . . . thing. I don't know what it was. In a John Woo movie, they would have talked at that point. And possibly traded lightsabers or something. That would have been cool.

• Luke starts whining as soon as he's born.

• Between General Grievous and Darth Vader, the Star Wars movies show that even asthmatics can be bad-asses if they try.

• I still don't think Luke is hidden very well. They could at least have given him a different last name. As it is, shouldn't most people in the galaxy know that Darth Vader used to be the Jedi Anakin Skywalker? Doesn't that mean almost everyone knows Luke's at least related to him?

Okay, that's all. The important thing, though, is this: even though I watched Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Clone Wars before watching it, Revenge of the Sith did not drain me of all enthusiasm for Star Wars. Indeed, as soon as I got home, I started watching more.

As I type this, I'm watching Episode IV (which some people call "A New Hope", even though all right-thinking people just know it as "Star Wars") and there are a few plot holes. For example, I'm still not convinced Owen Lars wouldn't recognize C-3P0. Sure, he wasn't gold-plated last time he was there, but Threepio is a pretty memorable (by which I mean "annoying") personality, and he was on the Moisture Farm for like ten years between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

However, since C-3P0's memory banks have been wiped, it makes sense that he never says "Hey! This is the planet where i was built!" R2-D2 knows pretty much everything, though, and it's not that hard to invent new translations for his beeping. Like, when Luke buys C-3P0 from the jawas, it always looked like Artoo was sad to see Threepio leave. Now, though, it looks like Artoo is giving a doubletake at the sight of Anakin's grown-up son.

In fact, it's increasingly clear that Artoo doesn't like Threepio at all. He's always shoving Threepio into assembly lines (in Attack of the Clones) or trying to escape from him through escape pods (in A New -- I mean, Famous Original Star Wars). You know that sad beep he gives when Threepio says "No. I don't like you either."? Artoo is just being sarcastic there. We've all just assumed that because the droids are together when we first saw them, they're pals. But I'm pretty sure they're not.