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He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
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:: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ::
by William the Bloody
Okay, here it is folks: the end of the series! Drooling fanboys unite!
Chancellor Palpatine is gaining power. Little by little, he has convinced the Republic Senate to surrender more and more power to him in order to expedite decision making and cut through the bureaucracy in this time of war. However, unknown to them all, this war was pretty much manufactured by Palpitine himself for the very purpose of gaining all the power. While the Jedi are trying gain peace by quelling the Separatists, Palpatine uses every opportunity to get Anakin Skywalker's ear, the young Jedi Knight who may well be the most powerful of them all. Anakin secretly has visions of his wife Padme's death in childbirth and is horrified by his potential powerlessness to save her. He tells Palpatine of this, who has gained his trust, and the Chancellor dangles the prospect of being able to cheat death by learning the Dark Side of the Force in front of him. Anakin's initial instincts are good, as he warns the Jedi Council of Palpatine's involvement with the Dark Side and they go to arrest him. Shortly after the Jedi masters go to arrest Palpatine, however, Anakin believes that he may lose his only hope of saving his wife from death should anything happen to the Chancellor and Anakin goes to rescue him, and in doing so begins his descent down the slippery slope to the Dark Side. Chancellor Palpatine anoints Anakin his Sith servant and gives him the new name, Darth Vader. Palpatine addresses the Senate and announces that the Jedi attempted to assassinate him and are therefore now enemies of the Republic and now asserts more power and declares the Republic to heretofore be known as the Empire and he is Emperor. All Jedi are now routinely assassinated completely unawares, with only Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda escaping with their lives. Yoda attempts to take down Palpatine and Obi Wan sees to Anakin. Palpatine thoroughly overpowers Yoda, but he manages an escape with the aid of the only Senator on their side, Organa. Obi Wan goes to fight Anakin by stowing on Padme's ship who is desperate not to believe all the horrible things she's been told he has done for the Chancellor. Anakin doesn't understand why Padme is now against him and strangles her into unconsciousness. Obi Wan and Anakin fight heatedly amidst the lava flow. Obi Wan wins by severing many of Anakin's limbs and leaving him to die. Palpatine senses Anakin's plight and races to his aid. Obi Wan rushes Padme to medical assistance, she gives birth to twins and dies shortly thereafter, having lost the will to live. Obi Wan, Yoda, and Organa decide that for their own safety the twins must be separated and raised in secret. Organa takes the girl as his own daughter and Obi Wan takes the boy to be raised by his last known relatives on Tatooine. Meanwhile, Palpatine sees to the well being of his servant and repairs all the damage done to Anakin with cybernetic parts, thus transforming him utterly into the Sith Lord, Darth Vader. YOU GOT ALL THAT?
The Good: Finally, Anakin checked the whininess at the door and is more brooding! Thank the gods for that. There were of course, a slew of great light saber fights in this one. Oh, how I do love the light saber fights. The special effects were naturally stellar. Everything was almost seamlessly blended. John Williams delivers yet another gorgeous score. This film promised to be way darker than Episodes I and II and did it ever deliver on that! We get a decapitation in the first 15 minutes and MANY more follow, along with the murder of the young Jedi-in-training, many of which were only children (yow!). Ewan McGregor made for an exceptionally good young Obi wan in this installment, truly convincing us that he is indeed a youthful version of Alec Guinness.
The Bad: Much of the acting was pretty poor, especially that of Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, which is too bad because of course this Episode is all about Hayden's character, so he gets loads of screen time. And I still don't buy into Anakin and Padme's "love". Honestly, there is more chemistry between C3P0 and R2D2 than these two. It takes more than two characters saying they love each other; there should be something in their eyes as they look at each other, the body language, ANYTHING! But no. There are so many inconsistencies in the overall Star Wars mythos from the original trilogy and this one that it boggles my mind. Like when Obi Wan and Yoda die in the original trilogy, they fade away, and yet in this new trilogy, we see many on screen Jedi deaths, and NOT A ONE of them fade away. Why IS that? Also, I don't think the Jedi use their "telekinesis" ability as much as they ought to in a fight. They seemed to use it more in the fights in Episode II than in this one, and that sort of bothered me. I mean, if I had telekinesis, you better believe I'd be using that every chance I had, particularly in a fight for my life! So, I don't know why they're ever scared of falling to their deaths if they can just move their own body with their mind to lift themselves to safety or slow/stop their fall. Several times in this film there is a Jedi dangling from a precipice and I just don't understand the problem. But, I'm arguing semantics.
Overall, this one is by far the stand out to the prequel trilogy. I couldn't careless if I ever see Episodes I and II ever again, but this one I may even buy. It delivered in every aspect of fan-service it needed to, since we already knew how it was going to end anyway, we just needed to see how it all got there. There is quite a lot of violence, and like I said, some is even directed towards children, so I'd not want to recommend this to kids under ten. If you're a hard core Star Wars fan, this is a must see, but if not you may still enjoy the light saber fights, if not the somewhat contrived story.
B-
