Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
 

Okay, so more than half the world has seen the midnight showings already. If *you've* had a midnight showing, raise your hands!

::raises::

In just 3 hours, i'll be going with my friend, who's currently READING ME THE SCRIPT *kathwap* I'm excited. And wondered if anyone else was going to the experiance dressed up with mock light saber battles. My Aussie friend said that two guys jumped up before it started and performed a mock battle.

Okay, so i'm excited, and i'm bored counting down the minutes before we leave. :P More when I wake up tomorow. :D

Saw the premier here. Counted three Jedi and on Darth Vader, which is a very impressive turnout for this city (I think it's the first time I've seen people go to the cinema in costume, period).

The dialogue blows.

But the rest kicks ass.

That's it, basically. Watch it.

Gatac

We had a 4 foot tall Darth, an Obi-wan, and Anakin. That I saw, anyway. Few lightsabers, and lots of Star Wars t-shirts and stuff. Despite the theater forgetting to turn the lights off during the opening scrawl, and the sound going out for 30 seconds during the Battle of Coursecant. I thought it was a lot of fun going.

Overall opinion, the begining was choppy. Scenes were too short and didn't let me get emotionaly involved in them. Yoda animation was completly awesome. R2D2, Palpatine, Obi-wan, Yoda all made me laugh. Really the first time some of those characters got to have humor.

I got shivers down my spine in some of the tense spots. And I don't know wether it was because the theater was so hot, or the movie just so intense, but I walked out of there all flushed.

Overall I liked this one. Better than the other two at first glance. But the scenes were so complex in a short amount of time that I'm sure I missed stuff. I can watch the other movies and still see things i've missed before too. So, I'll have to go again soon. :)

Tiffany and I left the theater speechless, but we both knew what the other was thinking. I belive the movie was great, but it did have its weak moments.

The opening section was ludicrous, but overall it was a suprisingly good film. I enjoyed it.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS IF YOU"VE NEVER WATCHED THE ORIGINAL SERIES AND DON"T KNOW HOW IT ALL BEGAN****
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Sooo good! Almost as great as the originals! I need to see again!

Thought it was too bad Padme had the whole "I'm pregnant and trusting" thing going on rather than being more kick-butt, although she does do some couragous thing anyways.

I bit my nicely-polished nails during the last half hour so badly I need to re-do some of them. Sooo good!

Since when did Ewan McGregor resemble Kenneth Branaugh?

Chewbacca!

Yoda! I miss puppet Yoda, but CGI Yoda is pretty cool, too!

Anyone else think Anakin is super-cute? :wink:

That's all I can say in any real anything right now.

GO AND SEE IT!

I haven't seen this yet, so If I see any even vaguely spoilerish references to the film in any other thread than this and possible the news thread for the fiver, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOU. PAINFULLY.

Okay? :D

I'm afraid I'll have to be the voice of opposition.

The acting was, for the most part, bad. Everytime Padme started "crying" my friend Maxx and I started laughing. The ending was drawn out, and someone in the theatre actually said "Thank God!" when the credits started rolling. And could any more hands be cut off?

All in all, 7/10. Good story badly acted and drawn out. Would be 6/10, but +1 for total lack of Jar-Jar.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you, Hotaru. I didn't think the movie was all that great. I mean, it could've been great. Good overall story. Just the dialog, the acting, the fact that over 50% of the movie was battles (and many of them pointless battles), made everything seem inconsequential. My wife fell asleep during the movie. Heck, I was tempted to do the same.

So, what, that puts my SW movie rankings at 5, 4, 6, 1, 3, 2, I think. Maybe swap 3 and 2, but I'm not keen on rewatching 2 to try to figure out how it stacks up to 3.

Oh, come on, this movie was much better than the other two prequels. Then again...nothing beats the original 3 Star Wars movies. Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Ewoks, puppet Yoda, and Hans Solo RULE!

Okay, yes, so Sith has its weak moments, but overall, it's still the 4th Star Wars in my books...I guess I'de have to rate 'em 4,6,5, 3, 1, 2 (What? you ask, 6 ahead of 5? Well, I loved the Ewok show and the flying through the forest when I was little, okay?)

Actually, my dad loved the first prequel, with JarJar, kidlet Anakin and Liam Neeson. While I agree with the Liam Neeson part, as he is a great actor, I think my dad needs to change his job...he said George Lucas was brilliant having JarJar, as he represents the average 14-year old boy!

Am thinking of seeing if I can force my dad into teaching 5th graders rather than high school, because he's obviously been around to many teens in the past few decades...

You got to remember the prequels were written a long time ago, and they have to tie into the original trilogy. But yes, the dialog could have been better.

Well, overall I thought it was the best of the prequels, but nothing amazing.

I think they could have done the way Anakin switched to the Dark Side better. The way they did it here seemed kind of unbelieveable. (Then again, it could have just been the bad acting)

I think one thing (besides better acting, plot, dialog, etc.) that these prequels needed was Humor. They just weren't funny at all.

I'd probably give my rankings as: 5, 4, 6, 3, 2, 1

Aww, I didn't even get to maim anyone.

Anyway, I thought it was... good. Not outstandingly brilliant, but good all the same. I was slightly disappointed about the ending - I'd heard in several places that it was going to lead right up to the beginning of Episode IV, but evidently somewhere along the line that was dropped. Ah well.

Bah. And bah. And BAH.

Terrible acting. Terrible dialogue. Poor plotting and writing. Impressive CGI effects, but you know what? I don't care.
It had its good points. A few things were competently done. Most, though, were done with incompetence so blatant, I was wincing the entire film.

RotS was better than the other two prequels; that's not exactly saying much. I also found it to be an exceptionally bad movie - not only in comparison to the original trilogy, but in its own right. And I admit to a certain sense of frustration seeing a lot of people adoring this particular movie, since I somehow feel like they're being taken in by hype and flashy special effects. I'm hopefully wrong on this point, as people who's taste and intelligence I admire have said how much they liked this movie. But still: BAH.

I've critiqued RotS more thoroughly on other sites, so I think I'll just link to those instead of rewriting it all.
Ornery Forum
My LJ

Ouch. Pre-warning - I just realized I should apoligize to Zeke for stealing his kitten joke for a diatribe he probably isn't going to like very much.

:oops: Sorry, Zeke. :oops:

Actually, ROTS made me realize a few things. I don't care that the dialogue is terrible. (Well, actually, I do, but it doesn't sink the film for me.) I have previously decried Hayden's merits as actor. But you know what? I don't particularly care anymore. I've accepted that. I also went in knowing that there will be ludicrousness. So? It's a sci-fi fairytale. Of course the dark hero turns around. Why beat around the bushes? Amidala dying from grief wasn't the best idea, sure, but what else could they have done? Emotions have always played a big part in SW. Within the context of that story, I can understand that her sadness ultimately killed her.

Yet, there's so many good things I hardly hear anyone mention. The music kicks ass. There's tons of other little things - the "Longing stare into the horizon" thing between Amidala and Anakin, the music, the sheer terror in Anakin's expression as the Vader mask lowers over his face...you know, despite its faults, I'm just not cynical enough to decry this movie. One might even be tempted to go the Kevin Smith route and say "It's not for the critics."

Gatac

Sorry, Gatac, but that just doesn't work for me. Ceasing to care about a movie's faults does not make it a good movie - it makes you an uncritical and undiscerning viewer. Which is fine, when it comes to watching a movie just for fun - but not for discussing its merits.
(No offense meant. That was a general "you", not a specific "you.")

Good music is a good thing - but the music should be serving the film. The CGI should be serving the film. However great the soundtrack is, however great spin-off computer games and novels and action figures may be - the film, as a film, is poor.
As for other little things - there are some good moments. But few. Very few. Without the little moments, the movie would have been back on the same level as the previous two - well, maybe not quite that bad, but somewhere close. But even the good little moments aren't exceptionally good. Wistful gazes between lovers and terrified expressions are hardly new, and the ones in RotS may be pulled off well ("may" is key), but are far from outstanding. So: the occasional good moment is something RotS didn't do badly. But they didn't do it particularly well either, and certainly not well enough to cancel out the terrible acting and script.

A particular reviewer rated RotS as follows: 9/10 with your brain off, 2/10 with your brain on. I'm quite inclined to agree. Perhaps the difference between me and all the enthusiastic fans of the film is that I see little value in a movie enjoyable only in brain-off mode.

TOTAL agreement - but I have to add, that I felt it was too unevenly paced. It takes hours over the climatic duel, and yet Anakin's conversion to the Dark Side seems to go

Anakin: I'm all angsty now! Boo-hoo!
Palpatine: Turn to the Dark Side, join me!
Anakin: No! Nae! Never!
Palpatine: We have tacos.......
Anakin: Ooh! Tacos!

*shrug*

Could anyone enjoy the original Star Wars with brain firmly switched on? I'm not trying to be deliberately dense here, but where does this standard to which you hold the movie come from? Using the same yardstick, you could pretty much trash the entire franchise.

Gatac

I enjoyed Ep III, not least because the romantic scenes worked very well as comedy. They were hilarious!

The big flaw I couldn't forgive is just what you mentioned:

Palpatine: Become evil now.
Anakin: No.
Palpatine: But--
Anakin: Okay.

But whatever. I thought it was a lot of fun. Not Citizen Kane, and certainly not Ep V, but fun. Why grouse? Enjoy, as drama or as camp, however it strikes you.[/i]