Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode 4) started it all off, with Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, rogue mercenary Hans Solo, and of course Chewbacca (a Wookie) saving the galaxy from the evil Darth Vader.

In The Empire Strikes Back sees Darth up to his old tricks of trying to conquer the universe, and again the foursome stop it. It turns out the Vader is Luke's Daddy, but he doesn't always seem to be trying to be a good daddy...

Return of the Jedi sees Carrie Fisheer (Princess Leia) dressed in a rather skimpy outfit having been sold as a slave to Jabba the Hutt, a huge slug-like creature, while Luke fights off a Rancor and Solo gets his sight back. Oh yeah, and Darth tried to build a new Death Star and... you guessed it... take over the universe. Of course he fails but it's all happy ever after as he dies but the good part of him seems to live on, albeit he has to endure the spectacle of the Ewoks celebrating. As it turns out Luke is not only a Jedi Knight but also the twin of Princess Leia, meaning his crush on her is a bit short-lived. Oops... But then we all knew she was meant for Han Solo, didn't we? :-D

Turn back a few decades...

In The Phantom Mencae we met Obi-Wan Kenobi (who is actually a Padawan – trainee Jedi – and not the Chinese Take Away owner that you might expect from the name), and als a very young Anakin Skywalker, who is going to turn into Darth Vader... but not yet. Senator Palpatine is on the up and up and you know he's going to turn into the Emperor... but not yet...

Then we have Attack of the Clones, where lots of clones of the famous jazz guitarist Django Reinhart (ok ok it was really Django Fet, assassin extraordinaire) saved the Republic, Nathalie Portman (Princess Padme) gets most of her clothes ripped off but amazingly suffers barely a scratch in the gladiatorial arena of a distant planet, and ends up secretly marrying Anakin, who shows signs of the anger that will lead him to the Dark Side (but not yet) and Palpatine becomes even more powerful – but not yet the Emperor.

And so we now have...

Revenge of the Sith

Yep, these Sith don't take kindly to their universal domination plans being defeated by a bunch of upstart Jedi, and they don't mind saying so, either. Without going into much detail about the plot (I can't really – I mean, you already know what's going to happen, so if I tell you how as well it'd be a bit rotten of me...), we see how Anakin is swayed over to the Dark Side, how the Emperor becomes... well, the Emperor, and how things get to the stage they are at in the beginning of A New Hope. This we all knew anyway... the question is, how well are the plot threads brought together, and how good a film is it?

Now I'm not a fan of the recent films at all – I found them disjointed and overly concerned with trying to be "cute" (for that read "having at least one incredibly annoying character that children and most women would inexplicably like). They seemed to be trying to fit so much in that you're simply led from one scene to another without much explanation as to what was going on or why. Whereas I liked the first and third films (took me a while to get into it and still can't stand the Ewoks, but it was good nonetheless), and love the second film, The Empire Strikes Back - in fact it's placed very highly among my Top Ten Science Fiction Movies of All Time. (Whereas The Phantom Menace is on the Worst Ten list and Attack of the Clones has only recently been saved from that list by the risible Chronicles of Riddick.) But as you can see by my rating, this film is infinitely better than the other two Star Wars offerings of recent years...

There are still one or two continuity and logic problems in Revenge of the Sith, but they are (fairly) minor and can be forgiven, for this film is a real cracker. The action is fast and furious but the more sinister scenes are really sinister and the emotional scenes have genuine emotion in them. Despite a somewhat shaky start, with some ill-advised attempts at humour that don't really work and some scripting reminiscent of the awful intro sequence to Lost In Space (which actually didn't seem quite so bad when I saw it a second time, I have to admit), the film just gets better and better. A large part of this is due to the excellent performance of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader, who is truly exceptional here. In the last film he showed definite glimpses of just how good he could be, and in this one, armed with a far superior storyline and more scope to his character, he really shines. You can feel the conflict within him as he is swayed towards the Dark Side, and you can sense the anguish he feels at his relationship with Princess Padme. He handles the fight sequences with some aplomb, too. Ewan McGregor gives able support though his character is slightly confusing as he appears in one scene to be almost completely useless while in others he defeats whole squadrons single-handedly. After the shaky start mentioned earlier he seems perfectly suited for the role, and his wry humour comes over well in the middle section of the film. Portman is as beguiling as ever and is thankfully given quite a bit to do, though as she's pregnant for the majority of it she doesn't do much in the way of athletics! Old hand Ian McDiarmid gives a good performance as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, though he is slightly too over top at times. Yoda, R2D2, and C3PO all have their moments, and there are even brief cameo appearances by Chewbacca and (sigh) Jar-Jar Binks (who thankfully doesn't have a speaking part!).

As you probably already know, this film has a much darker tone than the other films, and this works to its advantage (though some scenes make it inappropriate for young children, especially those near the end). The action is pretty near non-stop but there's plenty of emotional impact to the film, sadly if I told you what ones it might spoil them for you slightly so I'll let you discover them for yourselves. The special effects are absolutely superb and the sound is tremendous, in the introduction you can literally feel your seat shaking as the giant spacecraft go by. The music (as usual by John Williams – well who else could it be?!?!?) is – dare I say it – perhaps the best he's ever done. (Of course there are plenty of excerpts from the original Star Wars score in there too.) The spectacle of the whole thing is obviously much greater on the big screen, and you really do have to see it at the cinema, but it looks like a film that will transfer well to the small screen later.

Overall it's an excellent film, and at times even breathtaking. Naturally no Star Wars fan would not already have plans to see this anyway, and wouldn't have been put off even by a flurry of 1-star ratings, but I can't see anyone being disappointed by this.


Star Wars Games:

Jedi Academy from the Jedi Knights series, published by LucasArts.

Knights of the Old Republic, also by LucasArts, the first real attempt at a Star Wars RPG.


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See Also

Top Ten Films of 2005

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Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12