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May 20, 2005

Episode III: Less Crappy

"Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith" is, in fact, less crappy than the other two prequels. However, it's still not a very good movie. I'm glad I saw it (and I'm glad I saw it in the theater, because when you hear other people laughing at the terrible dialog, you realize you're not being too harsh) but I have no need to see it again.

The Good: The story concludes with a satisfying, interlocking ballet of events. That's cool. "Sith" perfectly sets up for the fourth (first) film, with the creation of Darth Vader, the birth of Luke and Leia, the creation of the Empire, and puts in place the furniture of the original films (e.g., stormtroopers, rebels, and so on). There's an admirable, logical, planned quality to this movie that shows Lucas put a lot of thought into what he was doing in terms of the arc of the mythology.

The Bad: Oh, where to begin? Dialog, for starters - there's a scene between Padme and Anakin that boils down to each of them saying, "No, I love you more" to the other. It's HORRIBLE. I suspect, "No, I love you more" will get right in there with "More Cowbell" and "Goes FAR, get it? And zere is no vay it came from zat movie, which I have never seen, so how could I copy it?" as killer, snarky catchphrases amongst my friends. Then there's the effects - beautiful, but often difficult to follow, which means they go from "Ooh! Space battle" to "Uh ... that's kinda pretty" really fast. The mind disengages.

Actually, this is a point I'd like to make to filmmakers everywhere: less is more.

Before "Sith" I re-watched the "Attack on the Death Star" sequence from Star Wars to get pumped up. If you re-watch that bit, you notice that it tends to "clump" characters together - you have a small group of people that the audience can relate to, and the movie takes each of them in turn (for instance, the Y-wings attack first, then the first run of X-wings ("Stay on target!"), then Luke and Wedge go in and blow stuff up real good). This means that the audience is able to keep track of who is who when the models zoom all over the screen, and can stay emotionally engaged.

With "Sith", on the other hand, Lucas has decided to take full advantage of Moore's Law to cram each and every space battle full of as much crap as possible. It overloads. The audience quickly gives up trying to figure out who's in what ship, what the objective for the scene is, or - most critically - whether a character is in danger or not. It's numbing. And it's also bad storytelling.

A final note: I actually cursed Dave Chappelle during this movie. Samuel L. Jackson is, once again, playing Jedi Mace Windu, and, despite Sam's deep gravitas, all I could see in my mind was Chappelle as Jackson, doing "Samuel Jackson Beer" and him going, ("Goooood mother$$@# choice, mother$$@#! It'll get ya drunk!"). At which point, I started giggling.

(Or maybe that was "No, I love you more.")

Wait for video. And let someone else pay for it.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at May 20, 2005 10:07 AM. Posted to Entertainment.

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