Episode III furthers my dislike of the 2 other prequels. But hey, in baseball, .333's a damn good average. And I couldn't be happier this movie was made.
But I didn't feel that way until after at least the first 30 minutes. The opening scrawl sucked. The space battle sucked. I thought the red Star Destroyer was a big lego when the 2 Jedi fighters flew over it. Some of the effects were brilliant, but for the most part it was just plain old boring, even more boring, I would say, than some of the scenes in Episode I and II. The only saving grace was how at ease Anakin and Obi-Wan were, and it showed them as they should have been: calm, collected, and friendly.
R2's antics were ok, but certainly not hilarious, and I was almost embarassed by the battle droids.
So then we get to Dooku, in a very short, not-at-all emotional lightsaber duel. The ending draws some good parallels to ROTJ, but still has no true emotional resonance. The battle ends, and we go to Coruscant.
And all of a sudden, ROTS becomes a great movie. From the crap that was the beginning, we get a wonderful film.
Anakin's and Padme's scenes in AOTC are horrible. Their scenes in ROTS, however, are horrible only if you want them to be horrible. Not only did I not dislike their scenes, I liked them. Yes that's right. I liked the romance. Well, most of it. There was still the occasional horrible line, or overacting, or underacting, but for the most part, they were actually good scenes, helped immensely by a great atmosphere and wonderful music by John Williams (which, by the way, the album does not justice to whatsoever).
The movie packs a punch. Like JAWF said, no one spoke at the end. No one clapped. People just either sat in their seats quietly while the credits rolled, or walked out silently and slowly. And though this will sound ludicrous, that's exactly the reaction Million Dollar Baby and Crash got when I saw them. This is a tragedy. You're not supposed to clap. Oh, I smiled. As a Star Wars fan, you get plenty of excuses to smile. But you don't clap.
I had 2 problems with the movie. One was the beginning, as I said. The other was Anakin's very abrupt turn to the Dark Side, which only makes me dislike Episodes I and II more, because it was THEIR job to show his gradual transformation. Lucas painted himself into a corner, and amazingly does get out of it, but by cutting corners here and there, and doing some things with the character that you must suspend disbelief for.
Vader's birth, when you see him in the suit, is a fabulous scene. It's played over the music from Qui-Gon's funeral, and is cut simultaneously with Padme's Death. Vader is supposed to be awkward, and to ask for him to be the imposing figure we know in the trilogy is ridiculous and blatant, ignorant prequel bashing. His movements, even his voice, despite being James Earl Jones, are those of a scarred young man unsure of himself, his new body, and new life. His NOOOOOOOOOOOO! scream was a bit cheesy, but it instantly fades away into beautiful music, and is made all the better for it. And I got goosebumps when they put on the mask, and we hear his breathing and his voice for the first time. It was extremely powerful.
The end, amazingly, leads almost perfectly into Episode IV, despite being 18 years behind it, ending with a powerful version of my favorite theme of the saga (I'll leave you to guess what that is). And despite my complaints about the beginning, and despite the action being less exciting than it should have been, this was a great movie, driven, amazingly, by the dialogue, performances, and atmosphere. I hate making generalizations, but I would almost think that any open-minded Star Wars fan would have to come away at least liking this movie. Even Chef, whose 2 main reasons to hate Episode III will almost certainly be
1. Episode I
2. Episode II
It doesn't redeem those 2 movies. It makes them worse by comparison. There is only one prequel, and it is this movie. It is Episode III.
EDIT: Yeah sorry, I have no idea how to do white text. So I'm settilng for the yellow. Don't look at the yellow if you don't want to see what happens. Again, sorry .
This post has been edited by Vwing: 19 May 2005 - 04:59 PM