It didn’t suck.
You know (or you ought to if your name isn’t George Lucas) that your franchise has started to suffer when the true fans are not asking “How awesome is this going to be?” but “Will I at least not hate it?” I didn’t hate it. I’m still wrestling with the questions of “Did I hate The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones?” I think I did, and it’s not all Jar Jar or baby Anakin’s fault. Even with all that was wrong with Episodes I and II they still managed to hit me with a few certain scenes and moments that made me say “Yeah, okay, this is a Star Wars movie after all.”
Episode III hits those moments much more often and much harder. Where the previous two installments nailed the obligatory action scenes with a precision that was almost too perfect to take the bad taste of the god-awful exposition and “character-building” scenes, Episode III manages to, for the most part, capture the same gleeful sense of adventure that Episodes IV, V, and VI had in spades. Anakin and Obi-Wan do come across as boon companions and trade quips without feeling like someone were checking off the requisite catch phrases. Oh, but the love scenes are still painful to watch (but mercifully shorter than Attack of the Clones).
Goddamn though, does ILM even build sets or models anymore? Is there any location shooting? While the computer effects are impressive, I really can’t think of a single location that looked as if you could actually touch it. Compare Coruscant to the sprawling city of Minas Tirith from Return of the King and tell me the latter isn’t that much more convincing because it actually exists. Oh, and while I’m on the subject, the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyk was a huge let down, and even breaks the backstory already in place. Wookies supposed to live in trees hundreds of feet above the deadly forest floor, not in tree houses built a few meters above the earth. Everybody knows that.
Nitpicking aside though, none of this matters once Anakin starts doing exactly what you know he needs to do. We all know the story, right down to exactly who needs to die in this one. It’s all got to lead up to the movie that shaped our entire childhood, and we know who makes it and who doesn’t. The only surprise is just how gruesome it has to be. And gruesome it is, not so much for gore (I guess Obi-Wan’s lightsaber in A New Hope has started to run low on batteries because unlike the cantina scene not one drop of blood is spilled when someone gets their arm, leg, or head removed. These lightsabers cauterize wounds intantly.) but for emotional gruesomeness. The birth of Darth Vader is a trying one, and Revenge probably would have got a PG-13 rating without the bits you’ve probably read about already.
So, yeah. It didn’t suck. I’m actually looking forward to watching Revenge again on its own merits rather than a sense of obedience to the series. Yes, I’ve watched The Phantom Menace at least 5 times now, each subsequent time thinking “Okay, let me give this one more chance. I’m sure I must have missed the bit that makes it awesome.” Jesus Christ though, that fucking little kid. Blowing up the Trade Federation ship on accident? Yelling “Yippeee!” Fucking hell.
