A BANG-UP ENDING TO THE BEGINNING OF STAR WARS

STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SITH
Directed and written by George Lucas; music by John Williams; cinematography by David Tattersall; edited by Roger Barton and Ben Burtt; casting by Christine King; production design by Gavin Bocquet; art direction by Ian Gracie, Phil Harvey, David Lee, and Peter Russell; set decoration by Richard Roberts; costume design by Trisha Biggar
With: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson, Jimmy Smits, Frank Oz, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Christopher Lee. Rated PG-13: Rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence and some intense images. Runtime: 140 minutes



Reviewed by Joel Johnson

The Star Wars saga has been completed with the release of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. It has already created a tidal wave at the box office. This isn’t anything new for a Star Wars movie. However, unlike the tepid and disappointing critical and audience reactions to its two immediate predecessors, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace and Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones, this final film is being widely praised. It successfully delivers both thrilling adventure and a dark complex story showing the metamorphosis of the boy Anakin Skywalker into the evil Darth Vader. It is certainly deserving of praise. The writing is more interesting despite abundant prosaic dialogue. And the acting is much better. It is still full of lightsaber duels, starfighter dogfights, and derring-do. The future envisioned by Lucas has demanded imagination from the set and costume designers responsible for the look of the film. They delivered visual splendor, and an army of CGI effect specialists have worked hard to create the spectacles beyond the grasp of mere physical artistry. But here the effects serve the story instead of just being eye candy designed to awe the audience. Ewan McGregor takes center stage as Obi-Wan Kenobi, delivering his best Star Wars performance. The diminutive Jedi master Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) turns in his most affecting performance. Samuel L. Jackson, Hayden Christiansen, and Natalie Portman have saved their best Star Wars acting for the final film. They are still somewhat stiffer than in most of their non–Star Wars gigs, but they definitely have regained human form. All that was missing was the marionette strings from their dreadfully Pinocchio-esque performances in I and II. Ian McDiarmid continues to shine as the duplicitous Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, also known by his Sith name Darth Sidious. McDiarmid has had the most faceted character to portray and has easily been the most compelling character of the last three Star Wars films. Perhaps even the last four, since we were introduced to his character in what is now Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi.

This, of course, brings us to the rather odd storytelling process for the entire Star Wars saga. In my childhood, one could go into the theater anytime and stay as long as one wanted. This meant one could start watching a film in the middle and then stay for the next showing to see what had been missed from the first half. This is exactly what George Lucas has done for us. We have seen the end of the story in Jedi, and now we have seen the end of the beginning in Sith. This is a rather discomfiting place to be left—with evil ascendant. This is complicated by the significant passage of time. The last half of the story was released in 1977, 1980, and 1983. The first half of the story came out in 1999, 2002, and 2005. A generation came of age between the time the earlier set (VI, V, and VI) was made and the time the second set (I, II, and III) was done. The special effects, particularly the computer-generated imagery (CGI), have probably gone through countless generations between 1977 and 2005. Can we evaluate all six movies fairly? Does memory play tricks on us in recalling the earlier films and remembering how we felt about them way back when? How much have fans of the earlier films changed over the intervening years? Lucas has, however, crafted the ideal DVD film set—at least from a marketing point of view. Fans who have seen the films in the order of their release will now have the opportunity to see them in Lucas’s numeric order. It will be interesting how the six-part story holds up. McDiarmid’s Darth Sidious looks grotesquely ancient at the conclusion of Sith, but was actually just thirty-nine when he first played the part in Jedi. The time frame for Jedi is supposed to be enough years later to allow the infants Luke and Leia born in Sith to grow up to be adults. Lucas, much to the chagrin of the original fans of the series, made The Phantom Menace a simple film with a child protagonist, assuring a new generation of fans joining their elders. There’s almost assuredly a DVD boxed set that Star Wars fans young and old will absolutely have to own. Lucas may not be the greatest filmmaker, but no one can accuse him of missing very many good business opportunities. Just like everyone else, I am looking forward to checking out how the six films fare in their new order. My favorite from the earlier films was the second film, now designated Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Perhaps one of the more disturbing developments over the years has been the increasing politicization of nearly everything. The public square has become a battleground between blue staters and red staters over a myriad of issues—from stem cell research, legalized abortion, health care, poverty, Social Security funding, encouraging democracy, dealing with terrorism, and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vitriolic content in our national political discourse has reached levels that are truly alarming. It often seems that no issue is evaluated on its own merits but is always in relationship to some other pet cause. On top of that, all manner of artistic endeavors are being scrutinized for some undertone of a political statement. Some have tried to see parallels between the story in this most recent Star Wars movie and our current political situation. Some have castigated Revenge of the Sith as a film with a deliberately insidious anti–President Bush message. Several quotations have been taken as exhibits to buttress this argument. I can’t reach into George Lucas’s mind to determine what he intended, but he has been working on the overall shape of this story for about three decades or so. This would be well before the president’s ascendancy to the White House following the 2000 election. Much of the story seems to draw upon ancient Rome with its Republic that morphed into the Roman Empire. I suspect that his dialogue references to absolute values and defining those not actively on one’s side as enemies reflect his perception of the underpinnings of tyranny. Instead of trying to find how George Lucas is casting aspersions on President Bush, the film-going public would be better served to see how the present political situation fits into an archetypal story of good and evil.

Regardless of one’s political loyalties, the film can and should be enjoyed simply as the adventure yarn that it is, just like its now sequel—renamed from Star Wars to Star Wars IV: A New Hope—was when it was first released in 1977. It did not intend to do anything much more than to entertain and excite its audience. It has become one of the most successful film franchises of all time. One can argue that attempting to make it into a grandiose epic of good and evil has challenged its capacity to simply entertain its audience. However, despite these pitfalls it will continue to amuse, thrill, and inspire. Its audience will continue to grow—first through DVD. Although Lucas himself has indicated that he will not make any further Star Wars films, he does plan two Star Wars television series. That should keep fans’ appetites whetted for the full-bore spectacle that only a theatrical film version can deliver. It took sixteen years for I, II, and III to get started, so I wouldn’t totally rule out a further series of films. “Never” may not be the last word either for Lucas or someone interested in assuming his mantle. It will be interesting to see whether or not there is an heir to George Lucas and who that might be.  

 

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