Star Wars Three

Where the first StarWars (a.k.a. 4th) was a frothy SpaceOpera, beautiful to watch, inspiring but insipid, StarWarsThree is monstrous. Children are murdered. Wisdom is lampooned. Love is caricatured and martyred. The camera lingers adoringly on each amputation, each mutilation. The inevitability of Vader's self-destruction is surpassed by the self-destruction of space fantasy itself. Even Natalie Portman is made to look ugly.

While ST3 is easily the most violent of the saga; the above description makes it sound like a QuentinTarantino? production. It's not; far from it.

It's an almost completely joyless film in the mode of pulp age space opera. The actors go through the motions, speaking their pieces without motivation, and the only justification for it all is the manifest destiny of force and power. The nods to principle and ethics are lost on an audience whose grasp of history, or even the geopolitics of the present day, is non existent.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes. So many so-called critics fail to recognize the allusion. Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton

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Definitely better than the first two. However, as I watched the thing, one thought kept creeping into my mind: What's going to happen in part IV?. Then I realize that I already know... which is kinda sad, in a way.

One interesting thing about the series. If you watch them in straight 1-6 order, then the two big surprises of the last two episodes (concerning Luke's various relations) are not surprising at all. The power of "Luke! I am ***********!" [spoiler censored - people do exist who haven't seen the movie], at least the first time, comes from the fact that the notion is frightening, terrible, and inconceiveable. One of the great cinematic cliffhangers of all time is neutered somewhat...

is *************?? Awe, thanks for spoiling it for me! -- PhlIp Hopefully prevented now - DeleteWhenCooked
Yep, in episode 5, Darth Vader ***** out of the ******. Why else would he wear all that black leather? ;)
- Or refer to that old guy in the robe as "master"? Ewwww...

Well, it was better than the other two, by far. I actually found myself liking Star Wars much more after watching this one. Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader seemed to make a lot more sense. I always wondered how it happened, how a nice and eager person could become an utter monster.

Every step of Anakin's fall was planned and seemed perfectly reasonable, if somewhat unfair and confusing, from his point of view. Anakin became Darth Vader because he wanted to. He felt he needed to. He felt there was no other way. And doing what he felt he had to do broke him.

For a long time I've disliked the "Dark Vs. Light" part of Star Wars. The idea of completely sealing off your emotions as the other movies have suggested seems just as crazy to me as letting yourself be utterly ruled by them. But this last movie shed a lot of light on what it really meant to be a Jedi, and what they really meant by the Dark side twisting people. The Dark side isn't in the Force, its in people who let their own power control them. Also, I found it interesting how Anakin described the Jedi compared to the Sith.

The Sith focus inward only on themselves, and shape the world around them to their desires.
The Jedi focus outward, shaping themselves to the needs of the world around them.

(See also YodasTeaching)

There was a lot of cornball lines and Natalie Portman is an ineffectual log throughout the movie (and gee, someone was going for "Best Costume Designer of the Year." Padme has a totally different costume and hair style in every scene even when almost no time has passed, or she's in a paniced rush!), but if you could swallow that as part of the 1970's feel, it was a good movie.

The last few scenes were amazing. For some reason the actors just really managed to amp it up and give their final performance a lot more feeling. I only wish the acting was that good for the whole series. -- DaveFayram

Is this the HighTech? movie that have no human actors? If it is close to the real story then in some way it sets a new milestone in itself.

While some of the performances were wooden (which is par for the course for StarWars, ever since Mark Hamill whined his role as Luke), the actors were definitely human...