OT: Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith (spoilers)

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Mon May 23, 2005 11:31 am

kicko wrote:many good points, but my biggest beef is the timeline, you mean to tell me the deathstar takes 16+ years to build(brings us up to ep4 with luke a teen), when in ep3 its clearly already begun. and then in ep5 after being destroyed it gets rebuilt like overnight! also in ep1 anakin is too young, and then he grows up real fast

I had the same thoughts. Then again, you have to figure that they had their efficiencies ratcheted up after making the first one, the engineering was already done, so all they had to do was move right to building. Now whether they used union labor is another story...

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Mon May 23, 2005 11:32 am

kicko wrote:many good points, but my biggest beef is the timeline, you mean to tell me the deathstar takes 16+ years to build(brings us up to ep4 with luke a teen), when in ep3 its clearly already begun. and then in ep5 after being destroyed it gets rebuilt like overnight! also in ep1 anakin is too young, and then he grows up real fast

It's suppose to be 20 years in between EP3 and EP4 but I see what you're saying. When you see the characters from Ep4, it seems like it should be a 30 year gap instead of 20. I guess the explanation about the Death Star in ep6 is that they may have found a faster way to build it.

brendanrfoley · Post by **brendanrfoley** » Mon May 23, 2005 11:49 am

Spooky wrote: Your 'smallest galaxy ever' comment brings me to an interesting problem I had with the film. At the end, all this going back and fourth betweeen planets seemed to take about 5 minutes (in context with the in-story time). There was a lot of, 'hey, blah, blah is happening over on this planet and we need to get there...' then litereally five minutes later in the story, they'd be there. Wer all these planets like right next to one an other? Kind of odd and noticable IMO. Weren't these planets on the ;outer rim'. I guess that sounds further than it is!?!?!

While it looked like they were traveling very quickly, they were not. If you noticed throughout the course of the film, Padme's pregnancy kept developing up iuntil the end of the film.

Episode III takes place over the span of nine months.

kicko · Post by **kicko** » Mon May 23, 2005 11:53 am

ob1 seems like he aged pretty bad then fom ep3 to ep4

but if its 20 years then luke is not a teen, just a geek! and in ep1 we don't need to see anakin as young as we do, padme don't age at all then? and if you see the 1st 3 it totally kills the story in 4,5,6 so i'm not a huge fan of this pre-trilogy, what fun is it if you already know darth is luke's father, i know we all do but i saying for a 1st timer, the new generation

devilsjaw · Post by **devilsjaw** » Mon May 23, 2005 12:03 pm

kicko wrote:many good points, but my biggest beef is the timeline, you mean to tell me the deathstar takes 16+ years to build(brings us up to ep4 with luke a teen), when in ep3 its clearly already begun. and then in ep5 after being destroyed it gets rebuilt like overnight! also in ep1 anakin is too young, and then he grows up real fast

Not only 16-20 years to get it built, but to get it to work!! That baffled me also.

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Mon May 23, 2005 12:26 pm

Spooky wrote:
Bill_Abner wrote: Some questions, though:

--Padme dying I thought was kinda silly. She died because of...depression? She gives birth to two healthy children and she dies, not of complications but because of a broken heart? Huh? Didn't Leia have a memory of her mother in Jedi?

--R2D2 is super droid? When did they lose the ability to leap out of the spacecraft...because they need a crane to lift him in and out of the Xwins in the old movies.

--Did Chewie really need to make an appearance? I mean come on..this is the smallest galaxy ever.

--How did Anakin survive being engulfed by lava? Jedi can die by taking a few blaster shots so I'd think that molten lava would do the trick, too. And why didn't OB1 finish the job? Maybe because he too felt that lava consumption was pretty much a death sentence?

--Speaking of blasters and Jedi, did the Masters forget how to block them during the killing scenes? I gotta admit I hated the fact that the Stromtroopers/clone guys killed off the Jedi and these same clones can't hit the broad side of Jabba's ass in the old movies.

--Why was Grievous hacking and wheezing? Anyone catch a reason for that?

Sounds like a lot of bitching and I guess it is, but I really did enjoy the movie more than I thought I would. I'd put it tied for third in the 6 part sequence in terms of "goodness".

I still wish they would have that the Vader scene a lot more ominous, though.
Great questions Bill!

Your 'smallest galaxy ever' comment brings me to an interesting problem I had with the film. At the end, all this going back and fourth betweeen planets seemed to take about 5 minutes (in context with the in-story time). There was a lot of, 'hey, blah, blah is happening over on this planet and we need to get there...' then litereally five minutes later in the story, they'd be there. Wer all these planets like right next to one an other? Kind of odd and noticable IMO. Weren't these planets on the ;outer rim'. I guess that sounds further than it is!?!?!

Another thing was the whole Wookie planet. That was really contrived and forced. There was no need for that and it was severly underdevloped. Oh well.

Overall though, I thought it was highly entertaining!

Oh I was definitely entertained, which is the most important part of going to the movies. That said, Lucas' scripts for all of the new movies really could have used some extra polish and a good once over by a script dialogue writer.

I recently watched the old movies with my daughter, who just loves everything Star Wars and LotR, and it hit me that the new movies really lack some of the charm of the old films in terms of great characters and, most of all, epic space battles, which I think was a huge part of the old flicks.

Slumberland · Post by **Slumberland** » Mon May 23, 2005 12:32 pm

I've got absolutely no beef with the death star construction timeline... they're making something unprecedented in the universe with the first death star, so give' em twenty years. The second one is done in about five, they have the luxury of already having been through the process, and that whole opening scene in Jedi with the conversation between Vader and Jerjerrod (I can't believe I know his name) specifically addresses the near-impossibility of the time scale in which they have to complete its construction, and implies a much greater allocation of manpower as opposed to the first one.

I do have a slight problem with the amount of aging that takes place between the two trilogies. It's absolutely correct to say that character appearances imply a 30 year gap instead of a 20 year one. I suppose in an ideal world, the prequels would have started with Anakin and even Obi-Wan being a bit older, but now that I've seen three and understand the connection between the loss of his mother and the potential loss of Padme, I see what Lucas was referring to when he said in interviews that Anakin had to be rather young for the impact of leaving and losing his mother to be believable. I mean, Lucas seems perfectly aware that no one wanted to see a ten year old Anakin... he says as much in interviews, how people close to him were telling him it was a bad idea at the time. So I sort of repect him for sticking to his guns, even though down the road, his story choices have given us a 60 year old Obi-Wan in Episode 4 that looks like he's at least 70, and an unmasked vader that looks at least 60 but is actually about 49, according to the story. But hey, the guy's been through a lot, and he actually doesn't look as old in the recent DVD releases, where they digitally removed Sebastian Shaw's eyebrows to account for the roasting he takes in Episode 3.

My main problem with the saga now is sequences that just clearly don't work to the human eye, yet Lucas keeps them in out of some weird philosophical determination or fascination with scenes better left on the cutting room floor. I don't even mean the prequels... I'm talking about the revised Greedo scene, the Jabba scene plopped into ANH, and that frakking CG musical number in Jedi. The Greedo scene doesn't work dramatically AND it looks like crap, the Jabba scene is redundant information, the scale is wrong, and the moment where he steps on the tail isn't fooling anybody, and that dance number in Jedi is just way too showy, performed directly for the camera in a way that's totally out of character with the way everything else is presented in these movies. Luckily there's a strong community of people making digitally archived versions of the unmolested original movies available on the web, not for profit.

It's true that the prequels make the primary revelation of the Empire moot, and it that sense I feel like they're more for those who grew up with the originals than for today's kids, but you always have the option of watching them in 4,5,6,1,2,3 order. Now that it's all said and done, I think the prequels have a lot of dramatic failings, but they've made the whole story MUCH more interesting to think about. Back in the day when we only had 4 through 6, there really wasn't much in that regard beyond man-vs.-technology and some sort of Buddhism-lite, but now there's a whole new level of socio-political underpinning that's pretty wild.

For the record, I know I've mentioned the Magnoliafan edits of the prequels before, with the improved pacing, incorporation of deleted scenes, and new alien dialogue... it seems he has a version of episode 3 in the works that maintains the mystery of Vader's origins, and therefore the revelation in ESB. I'm not sure how he's going to pull that off, but he seems confident.

kicko · Post by **kicko** » Mon May 23, 2005 5:17 pm

yes i do think lucus would have been better off keeping it simple as far as production like the 1st 3. all that CGI stuff bugs me, the motion is not always life like. more holes in the story would have also add to it, like if we are not told the twins names, and the fact they are seperated, the whole dying in child birth would have been a great surprise, but needed to help making anakin crossover.

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Mon May 23, 2005 5:28 pm

kicko wrote:yes i do think lucus would have been better off keeping it simple as far as production like the 1st 3. all that CGI stuff bugs me, the motion is not always life like. more holes in the story would have also add to it, like if we are not told the twins names, and the fact they are seperated, the whole dying in child birth would have been a great surprise, but needed to help making anakin crossover.

They played ep2 last night on fox. I saw the last 30 minutes and still didn't like any of the performances (especially young Anakin) or the story. I hate all the CGI stuff also in ep1 and 2, it just doesn't look real, it looks more like a cartoon. But in EP3, whatever they did, maybe the technology got better, the CGI was much better done where more things looked acceptable and not cartoon like as in the first 2 movies.

kicko · Post by **kicko** » Mon May 23, 2005 5:44 pm

most of the issues with CGI is it look like it has no weight making the motions unnatural

scottdracula · Post by **scottdracula** » Mon May 23, 2005 7:55 pm

weaver, your post makes me realize that despite my initial thoughts, there actually WAS something I liked about ROTS and that's that the CGI looked better than in part 2. Now and then while watching ROTS, I did say "jeez, how did they do THAT??" as opposed to the many times I thought "god that looks fake" when watching ep 2, etc.

However the story still stinks and the movie on the whole really blows.

Also on this death business: I find it really hard to believe it took 20 years to build the death star. Main reason being, when Luke, Ben and Han stumble across it in Star Wars, none of them have ever heard of it. Maybe Luke might be in the dark, and maybe even Ben- but Han? A guy who makes his living in space and flies all over the place, etc? He's NEVER heard of this huge space fortress that's been being constructed for 20 years? That to me seems impossible. In Star Wars it's like no one's ever heard of the Death Star and they're unaware of what it's capable of, etc. Now Lucas is telling us that this thing has been floating there undetected for 20 years, albeit getting built all that time? That to me makes no sense. Rest assured I thought the whole movie stunk, but seeing the Death Star really annoyed me because it's just too unlikely that it could take 20 years to build, given the events of the original Star Wars movie.

dougb · Post by **dougb** » Wed May 25, 2005 10:58 am

Finally saw the movie last night - I know, old news! old news!

Anyways, great thread on the movie! I've been holding myself back from this thread with great difficulty. For myself, I found the movie enjoyable and a definite improvement on the last two movies - not hard imo.

I thought that the turn to the dark side in the Palpatine-Mace fight seen was a bit sudden, but attributed it to Palpatine fully exerting his influence on Anakin. I thought Anakin seemed almost drug induced in his slavish response to Palpatine and figured that Palpatine was really holding him under control.

That opening space battle sequence - holy SH*T! I had to check myself to make sure I wasn't going to upchuck as the fighters bobbed and weaved through the capital ships. Terrific stuff! - and it really got the movie off with a bang.

Bill's comment on the scene where Vader's looking up at the Mask is bang on. That was terrific cinema right there, along with his agonized struggle as the droids try to put what's left of him back together. Don't cross Obi Wan in his prime!

As others have commented the wooden dialogue was fortunately held to a minimum. Portman's delivery was still pretty monotonous and there didn't seem to be a good handle on the character by either the actor or director. Making anything out of that dialogue would have been a challenge. I thought Ewan McGregor and Ian McDermid were the stars of the show in terms of acting, really bestowing some badly needed gravitas on the film. McDermid started chewing up the scenery after his transformation but it was in character and didn't detract from flow of the story.

Best wishes,

Doug

TheMightyPuck · Post by **TheMightyPuck** » Thu May 26, 2005 6:17 pm

I liked the movie. Actually I really liked the movie. Still, name one character you gave a lick about in any of ep 1, 2 or 3. The Jedi are a lame bunch of morons except for Yoda. It isn't hard to see why Anakin went over to the dark side. The light side guys are all a bunch of useless politicians. For me, Star Wars was about 2 things: how cool the Jedi were and how cool Han Solo was. This movie was saved by the last hour and by it's connection to our fond memories of the original trilogy.

btmmayor · Post by **btmmayor** » Thu May 26, 2005 10:06 pm

TheMightyPuck wrote: Still, name one character you gave a lick about in any of ep 1, 2 or 3.

Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan in 2 and 3. I never liked the Obi-Wan character in the OT, but I thought that McGregor really brought him to life, especially in the last 2 movies. I could very much feel for him at the end of 3 as he was screaming at what was left of Anakin. The scene where he is leaving Mustafar and sitting in the ship after he thought he killed Anakin I also thought was fantastic.

I also felt sad for him during the speech he gives Anakin as they see each other for the last time as friends, as you know whats coming the next time they meet.

I'm just answering the question though and am certainly not defending the overall character development in the prequels. That said though, I thought that McGregor's Obi-Wan character could not have been handled any better than it was.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Fri May 27, 2005 9:56 am

TheMightyPuck wrote:The Jedi are a lame bunch of morons except for Yoda. It isn't hard to see why Anakin went over to the dark side.

It's all about the Force Lightning

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Fri May 27, 2005 10:26 am

btmmayor wrote:
I'm just answering the question though and am certainly not defending the overall character development in the prequels. That said though, I thought that McGregor's Obi-Wan character could not have been handled any better than it was.

I agree 100% with this. For me, McGregor was the highlight of the series. Some of the best moments in the new films revolve around him. From the Maul death scene to the Anakin scene at the end. The Maul fight is still one of my very favorite Star Wars scenes ever, even though the first movie reeked as a whole.

Oh, going back to the weird plot holes. Sitting though Ep4 with my daughter a few days ago, Obi-Wan says, "When I met your father he was one of the best pilots in the galaxy." When he met Anankin he was what...8? I know he did the whole auto-pilot, blow up the trade federation ship thing, but I guess I'm just really surprised thst Lucas took so many important quotes from the earlier movies and just flat out ignored them when making the new films. I'd think that when sitting down to do the screenplays for Eps 1, 2, and 3 that you'd need to go back to make sure that the stuff you said in Eps 4, 5, and 6 stay consistant, right?

Why couldn't Obi-Wan had met Anakin when he was a fighter pilot? Why was that not doable? Did we really need the 8 year old POD racing expert stuff? The first movie, to me, was a complete and total waste even from a storyline point of view.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Fri May 27, 2005 10:43 am

Saw it again...quick thoughts from 2nd viewing:

-Appreciated the effects/CGI even more.

-Dialogue was far worse than I realized the first viewing. Just horrible writing and acting on ALL scenes between Christianson and Portman. Yuck! Even the audience was laughing uncomfortably.

-Yoda’s puss-out is an absolutely unacceptable editing job (if in fact the rumors are true that his leaving the fight with the emperor is due to something that got edited out for time constraints).

Ya know, this happened with all of the new SW flicks for me. The first viewing was energizing and very entertaining, then any subsequent viewings reveal all sorts of flaws and uncomfortable acting/writing.

dougb · Post by **dougb** » Fri May 27, 2005 11:32 am

Bill_Abner wrote:
btmmayor wrote:

Why couldn't Obi-Wan had met Anakin when he was a fighter pilot? Why was that not doable? Did we really need the 8 year old POD racing expert stuff? The first movie, to me, was a complete and total waste even from a storyline point of view.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent.

Very, very good point! The first film really didn't require Anakin at all, but could have served to introduce us to Obi-Wan and the political crisis developing in the Republic - Or they could have just gone with two films and eliminated the first film altogether. Maybe the first film should just be expunged from the canon a la Galactica 80

Best wishes,

Doug

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Fri May 27, 2005 11:46 am

ep1 : Anakin should have been in his teens like like in ep2.

ep2: Anakin should have been in his early twenties.

ep3 : Anakin should have been in his mid to late 20's.

As for Obi Wan, I liked McGregor's protrayal only in ep3. I dont know why but he didn't sell the part to me in ep1 and ep2.

btmmayor · Post by **btmmayor** » Fri May 27, 2005 5:42 pm

Bill_Abner wrote:
Why couldn't Obi-Wan had met Anakin when he was a fighter pilot? Why was that not doable? Did we really need the 8 year old POD racing expert stuff? The first movie, to me, was a complete and total waste even from a storyline point of view.

Lucas has said that he felt it was important to show the connection between Anakin and his mother, and that it wouldn't be as believable (his hesitation to leave his mother behind) if Anakin was older. It goes back to the whole Anakin is afraid to let go of things deal, namely his mother and Padme, even though Yoda tries to advise him otherwise in Episode III.

I agree with you guys though. No reason in Episode I not to have Anakin about the same age as Luke. The issue with his mother certainly could have been dealt with. Thats Lucas's explanation of things though.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Fri May 27, 2005 5:44 pm

It makes more of an impact to see a young and innocent boy turn into Darth Vader than a teenager.

I finally saw it today and I really enjoyed it.

Now I have a better understanding of why Obi Wan lets Vader kill him in A New Hope. He understands that Vader is still the prophecy.

vader29 · Post by **vader29** » Fri May 27, 2005 5:57 pm

One thing that kind of bothered me in the film was that at the start of the movie Padme tells Anakin she is pregnant and at the end of the movie she gives birth to twins, just didn't seem like the movies time frame was 9 months from start to finish.

Overall I still like episode three the best out of the prequels and as far as characters I thought Ewan's portrayal of Obi-Wan was perfect. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon was also a great character who I wish didn't get killed off in episode one.

TheMightyPuck · Post by **TheMightyPuck** » Fri May 27, 2005 7:32 pm

Weaver2005 wrote:ep1 : Anakin should have been in his teens like like in ep2.

ep2: Anakin should have been in his early twenties.

ep3 : Anakin should have been in his mid to late 20's.

As for Obi Wan, I liked McGregor's protrayal only in ep3. I dont know why but he didn't sell the part to me in ep1 and ep2.

I agree. I thought McGregor was pretty good in ep3. He tried to play it with a bit of humor. Still he's too "by the book" for me. I know it is the story, but the way the Jedi are portrayed, a character like Obi Wan needs to be a bit more individualistic to be cool and interesting. Subsuming your individuality for the needs of the whole may be great and idealistic and the only way to truly understand the force, but it makes for bad narrative.