Star Wars Episode III
I'm writing this before reading anything regarding the last installment of Star Wars. I haven't read any reviews, analyses, or really, anything, in the hope that this will keep my review objective and from purely my perspective.
I'm extremely tired at this point, as we didn't get home last night until after 3.30am. We went and stood in line from 8pm until nearly 11 when they started seating. It wasn't as bad as it could be, never really breaking past the occasional drizzle. There was a fair number of people in costume, including a very professional Darth Vadar and a Stormtrooper. Their costumes were impressive, especially the Stormtrooper, though I wonder if they were made or bought, because they seemed of the expensive latter category. Among others there were also some Jawas that I believe were their children, as later at night they were walking around with them. This was in east Vancouver, so I can only imagine what it must have been like at larger venues or big cities. Part of me wishes we bought tickets for downtown Portland, the other part is glad it was relatively low-key.
As for the movie itself, it was definately better than Episode I or II. However, I would not go so far to say it was a good movie. It had problems, several of which were large enough to take me out of the movie and destroy the momentum they were building.
The repeated offender was almost all the Anakin/Padmé scenes. Perhaps it was because the other scenes had enough action to disguige the stitled dialog, but in reality, I think that Lucas simply does not know how to write love scenes. Through most of the beginning of the movie, this episode was looking pretty good actually, right up until they were alone in their/her? apartment. We see Padmé on the balcony combing her suddenly quite wavy hair - not five minutes ago, it was done up in Princess Leia buns. She looks quite possibly the ugliest we see her in the movie, with some sort of silvery gloss that I imagine they are trying to approximate moonlight with, but miserably failing. She looks sick, like she has Malaria and is sweating. Yet this is the moment for the amazing, "You're so beautiful," "Only because you love me," "No, no, I love you soooooo much," "You're blinded by love," gag, gag, puke, puke scene. I am of course paraphrasing what I remember from the dialog, but really, mine might in fact be better. Add to this dialog acting that looks like it's from a high school play, and you might to begin to grasp the disaster that these scenes embody. Every time they have a scene together it's more of this and yet, I blame the director/writer, NOT the actors, as in other parts of the movie, they are actually both quite effective. Padmé coming into her own near the end of the movie when she finds Anakin has foresaken her for the dark side. As a side note - notice how Padmé didn't age at all? Or merely a small amount as Anakin now looks to be approximately her age? I realize that when you're older the difference between, what was he, like 6? when they met? She was perhaps 16 at the minimum? A ten year age gap even well into your twenties is pretty damn large, and yet with each movie they seem to narrow it, in this one they look approximately the same age.
I was pleasantly surprised that the acting wasn't as bad this time as the previous episodes, yet I have no explanation of why, though it might be that the assistant held a bit more of the reins. In any case, the other major plot hole was the actual moment of Anakin Skywalker turning into Darth Vadar. They had done well, all the way up to this scene, using Chancellor Palpatine's guile to woo Anakin further and further from the good side; however, in the end he went and turned Palpatine in, staying true to the Jedi. I could even understand his going there, trying to protect his wife (side note - when did this happen? how? I wonder if they "married" them so that the baby would not be out of wedlock. I mean seriously, a senator and the leading jedi prospect getting married and no one sees or "feels" anything?!), and in the heat of the moment cutting off Windu's hand. But after that, it all went to hell. In two seconds he went from "What have I done?" to "Yes, Master I'll do anything you say." It makes no sense! There was no thought process, nothing that would make the leap from the troubled and confused Anakin, unsure of which side was good, to evil Darth Vadar, knowing he's on the bad side, trotting off to kill children for his new Master. Unless of course there was some sort of Jedi mind trick when I blinked. I felt like they'd cut out a good 40 minutes of explaination here, and the movie is definately the worse for it.
Other random annoyances, that I remember, but do not profess to be the only ones: they were clearly going for a Frankensteinian moment there after putting the Darth Vadar suit on Anakin, but really, it didn't match with the rest of the movie, it felt like someone thought it would be a cool scene and just cut and pasted it in. Fighting on a lava planet? Seriously. I'm all for suspension of disbelief but unless these are aliens thatare not affected by heat this makes no sense. At one point he catches on fire, yet they are able to dance around and fight in an atmosphere that by all rights should be suffocatingly hot, burning their lungs and really everything else because of the waves of heat coming of the LAVA. Not to mention the sulphur compounds poisoning them. I understand it looks cool to fight on a fire planet, and you wanted to burn Vadar somehow to explain his appearance later. Use a smelting plant where liquid rock is controlled and it's more realistic. Have an actual fire, I don't care. This environment brought me totally out of the movie.
On the whole though, it is entertaining. I don't regret seeing it, and hell, at least it's better than the first two. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. I'm going to give it a B-, slightly better than an average movie, but really, not a GREAT movie, not even above average.
And now back to your regularly scheduled friends page. Review and rating subject to change if I feel like it.
I'm extremely tired at this point, as we didn't get home last night until after 3.30am. We went and stood in line from 8pm until nearly 11 when they started seating. It wasn't as bad as it could be, never really breaking past the occasional drizzle. There was a fair number of people in costume, including a very professional Darth Vadar and a Stormtrooper. Their costumes were impressive, especially the Stormtrooper, though I wonder if they were made or bought, because they seemed of the expensive latter category. Among others there were also some Jawas that I believe were their children, as later at night they were walking around with them. This was in east Vancouver, so I can only imagine what it must have been like at larger venues or big cities. Part of me wishes we bought tickets for downtown Portland, the other part is glad it was relatively low-key.
As for the movie itself, it was definately better than Episode I or II. However, I would not go so far to say it was a good movie. It had problems, several of which were large enough to take me out of the movie and destroy the momentum they were building.
The repeated offender was almost all the Anakin/Padmé scenes. Perhaps it was because the other scenes had enough action to disguige the stitled dialog, but in reality, I think that Lucas simply does not know how to write love scenes. Through most of the beginning of the movie, this episode was looking pretty good actually, right up until they were alone in their/her? apartment. We see Padmé on the balcony combing her suddenly quite wavy hair - not five minutes ago, it was done up in Princess Leia buns. She looks quite possibly the ugliest we see her in the movie, with some sort of silvery gloss that I imagine they are trying to approximate moonlight with, but miserably failing. She looks sick, like she has Malaria and is sweating. Yet this is the moment for the amazing, "You're so beautiful," "Only because you love me," "No, no, I love you soooooo much," "You're blinded by love," gag, gag, puke, puke scene. I am of course paraphrasing what I remember from the dialog, but really, mine might in fact be better. Add to this dialog acting that looks like it's from a high school play, and you might to begin to grasp the disaster that these scenes embody. Every time they have a scene together it's more of this and yet, I blame the director/writer, NOT the actors, as in other parts of the movie, they are actually both quite effective. Padmé coming into her own near the end of the movie when she finds Anakin has foresaken her for the dark side. As a side note - notice how Padmé didn't age at all? Or merely a small amount as Anakin now looks to be approximately her age? I realize that when you're older the difference between, what was he, like 6? when they met? She was perhaps 16 at the minimum? A ten year age gap even well into your twenties is pretty damn large, and yet with each movie they seem to narrow it, in this one they look approximately the same age.
I was pleasantly surprised that the acting wasn't as bad this time as the previous episodes, yet I have no explanation of why, though it might be that the assistant held a bit more of the reins. In any case, the other major plot hole was the actual moment of Anakin Skywalker turning into Darth Vadar. They had done well, all the way up to this scene, using Chancellor Palpatine's guile to woo Anakin further and further from the good side; however, in the end he went and turned Palpatine in, staying true to the Jedi. I could even understand his going there, trying to protect his wife (side note - when did this happen? how? I wonder if they "married" them so that the baby would not be out of wedlock. I mean seriously, a senator and the leading jedi prospect getting married and no one sees or "feels" anything?!), and in the heat of the moment cutting off Windu's hand. But after that, it all went to hell. In two seconds he went from "What have I done?" to "Yes, Master I'll do anything you say." It makes no sense! There was no thought process, nothing that would make the leap from the troubled and confused Anakin, unsure of which side was good, to evil Darth Vadar, knowing he's on the bad side, trotting off to kill children for his new Master. Unless of course there was some sort of Jedi mind trick when I blinked. I felt like they'd cut out a good 40 minutes of explaination here, and the movie is definately the worse for it.
Other random annoyances, that I remember, but do not profess to be the only ones: they were clearly going for a Frankensteinian moment there after putting the Darth Vadar suit on Anakin, but really, it didn't match with the rest of the movie, it felt like someone thought it would be a cool scene and just cut and pasted it in. Fighting on a lava planet? Seriously. I'm all for suspension of disbelief but unless these are aliens thatare not affected by heat this makes no sense. At one point he catches on fire, yet they are able to dance around and fight in an atmosphere that by all rights should be suffocatingly hot, burning their lungs and really everything else because of the waves of heat coming of the LAVA. Not to mention the sulphur compounds poisoning them. I understand it looks cool to fight on a fire planet, and you wanted to burn Vadar somehow to explain his appearance later. Use a smelting plant where liquid rock is controlled and it's more realistic. Have an actual fire, I don't care. This environment brought me totally out of the movie.
On the whole though, it is entertaining. I don't regret seeing it, and hell, at least it's better than the first two. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. I'm going to give it a B-, slightly better than an average movie, but really, not a GREAT movie, not even above average.
And now back to your regularly scheduled friends page. Review and rating subject to change if I feel like it.