I have been anxious to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith since I first saw a trailer for the movie late in 2004. I felt that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones had some problems, but I still enjoyed them overall and wanted to see the last movie in the prequel trilogy.

Some of what I will be discussing would be spoilers for all the previously released Star Wars movies for people that haven’t seen them yet and have managed to avoid learning anything about the movies at all.

The Republic was divided by the ongoing Clone Wars. General Grievous, the leader of the droid army, kidnaped Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and was holding him on a star ship above Coruscant. Two Jedi, Obi-Won Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker board the ship, confront Count Dooku, and manage to rescue Palpatine. Once back on Coruscant, Anakin was able to see Padme, the woman he married in secret three years before. She shared that she was pregnant. Anakin started to have nightmares about Padme dying in childbirth. The Jedi had concerns about Palpatine motives. Anakin felt like he was caught between the Jedi and Palpatine. He was scared of losing his wife, which made him vulnerable. Palpatine continued to feed Anakin’s ego, saying the Jedi were holding him back. Obi-Won left to search for General Grievous while Yoda traveled to the world of the wookies with more members of the clone army. Anakin completed his journey to the dark side and became Darth Vader.

Most people have heard enough about the overall story of the Star Wars movies to know that Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith would show why Anakin Skywalker turned his back on his training to embrace the dark side and became Darth Vader, a powerful Sith Lord. Even though it really wasn’t a secret that Anakin would complete his journey to the dark side, it wasn’t known exactly how it would happen or what would be the final push to the change. Darth Sidious wanted Anakin as his new apprentice and set out to twist things to make the dark side look favorable. I thought that Anakin had started on the path to the dark side when he gave into his anger and even a need for revenge earlier in his career as a Jedi. Anakin’s descent didn’t happen all at once. It took several years to complete since he had started off believing in the ways of the Jedi. As he became a stronger Jedi, he became arrogant and felt he was being held back, partly because of things Palpatine told him. Anakin craved more power and he ultimately decided that turning to the dark side was the way to get it.

The action started immedately after the opening crawl ended. General Grievous and his droids were trying to escape with Palpatine. The sky above Coruscant was full of star ships and fighters engaged in combat. Obi-Won and Anakin were in two of the fighters, weaving around enemy ships and through the debris from explosions. The visuals in that sequence were amazing and I think some of the best featuring a space battle in any movie. The way the sequence was done made it seem more like the audience was in one of the ships with Obi-Won or Anakin. The special effects were very well done throughout the movie, which I expect from a Star Wars movie. It did seem like the plots of the last two movies suffered a bit because more emphasis was placed on the special effects. It didn’t seem that way with this movie.

Once they were on the star ship, Obi-Won and Anakin battled Count Dooku and then some of the droids with their lightsabers. Obi-Won had another lightsaber battle with General Grievous once he tracked him down. General Grievous looked like a robot, but he was frequently coughing and it sounded like he was wheezing as well. It was eventually shown that Grievous had been some sort of alien and part of him was still alive inside the robotic shell. When fighting with lightsabers, Grievous produced two more arms and used four lightsabers at once. That made for a very impressive fight. A battle took place on the planet where the wookies were from. Many wookies were involved in fighting the droids. Mace Windu and Yoda also had lightsaber fights against the Emperor. R2-D2 even managed to defend himself from some enemy robots a few times. The way he did that did cause some laughs, but it didn’t seem silly to me. There were very few laughs in this movie. It didn’t seem like anything silly was added deliberately just to try to gain laughs like it has seemed in some of the previous movies.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith culminated in the much anticipated lightsaber battle between Obi-Won and Anakin. The fight took place on a volcanic planet with lava all around them. Obi-Won and Anakin were both very skilled at fighting with lightsabers. Their fight wasn’t over as quickly as many of the others have been. They eventually ended up on some sort of craft floating over a lake of lava. I think that was the best lightsaber fight from all of the Star Wars movies. This scene shows why he had to wear the suit and helmet. This was the darkest and most violent of the Star Wars movies, which is why it is the only one to be rated PG-13. Several limbs were severed in the many lightsaber fights. That has become normal for these movies, but not to the extent it happened in this movie. Some very disturbing things happened once Anakin chose the dark side which could be upsetting to some viewers, especially young children. This one really isn’t meant for little kids.

The biggest thing that I felt didn’t work in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones was the romantic relationship between Anakin and Padme. They had made a connection as friends in the first movie and then went ten years without seeing each other. They hadn’t been around each other very long when they were declaring their love for each other and deciding to embark on a forbidden relationship. There wasn’t any chemistry between them, so it was hard to believe their feelings. In this movie, they were still keeping their relationship a secret, though they did manage to spend time together. The feelings between them didn’t seem to be as forced. Some of the dialogue they shared when alone was still bad. They did share a few embraces and kisses, but there wasn’t a love scene or any nudity. Anakin truly did love Padme and his desire to keep her safe motivated most of what he did.

The movie began with a battle that was very fast paced. There were a few different plot threads running through the movie, and it jumped around between them for the entire movie. That was done in all of the other movies as well. All of the threads were connected in some way, though some were more important than others. This was a fairly fast paced movie overall, especially during the action scenes. The pace did slow down several times. Things would be moving along fine and then it would change to a scene either with Anakin and Padme or Anakin and Chancellor Palpatine, and the pace would slow way down. Most of those scenes did seem to drag. Palpatine did end up sharing some interesting information, it just would have been better if it could have been done without slowing the movie down so much.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was a good conclusion to the prequel trilogy. Most of what I was left wondering about after the second movie was cleared up, including the minor things that bugged me with the droids. One thing that happened did contradict something that Leia had said in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. I did still feel like there wasn’t enough explanation for why certain things were done, but that didn’t make me like the movie less. Some information was shared that I think connected back to how Anakin’s mother became pregnant and could possibly help to explain other things about Anakin’s life. Qui-Gon, Obi-Won’s former master was mentioned, but he didn’t appear in ghost form like many fans had hoped for. That was a little disappointing. In addition to resolving things for the prequel, the movie also set up things that would lead to what would happen in the original trilogy, like construction starting on the Death Star.

Sometime after the Clone Wars started, General Grievous joined the Separatists to lead the droid army. It was never explained how he got involved in the war or why he was the way he was. He had a very strong robot exterior, but the remains of some sort of life form was inside the suit. He did say that Count Dooku had taught him to fight with a lightsaber. I would have liked to know some more about the character, but there really wasn’t time for that sort of explanation. The voice that Matthew Wood provided for the character fit with how he looked. Jimmy Smits had more scenes, though his part of Senator Bail Organa wasn’t as big as I had thought it would be. Christopher Lee didn’t get much to do as Count Dooku, but he did a good job with the scenes he had. Samuel L. Jackson gave a good performance as Mace Windu. He did seem to be a knowledgeable and powerful Jedi, though not much was known about him.

C-3PO had a smaller part and didn’t end up serving as comic relief. He was with Padme and aware of her secret marriage. R2-D2 was in more scenes, and seemed to have some new abilities as well. Jar Jar Binks was only shown for a few seconds and he didn’t say anything at all, so people who can’t stand him should be relieved. When Yoda traveled to the wookie planet, Chewbacca was briefly introduced, along with another wookie, Tarfful. Owen and Beru were shown, though neither of them had any lines. Yoda was shown doing more, including fighting with his lightsaber again. Frank Oz provided the voice for the character again. Ian McDiarmid did a very good job with the part of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. He played a bigger part in what was going on, and went through some changes as well. His performance really matched the character.

Natalie Portman was in several scenes, but she didn’t do too much in them since Padme was pregnant. She wasn’t involved in any of the fighting like she had been in the previous movies, which made sense because of her condition. She was mostly shown with Anakin. She was worried about her husband and upset most of the time. It did seem like Padme was turned into a wimp, which was disappointing since she had been established as a strong character in the first movies. Maybe part of it was supposed to be hormonal changes and possibly even the strain of keeping her marriage a secret. She and Anakin spent time together and other characters were aware that they at least had a friendship, so it seems hard to believe that they managed to keep it a secret. Obi-Won was a very important character in this movie, and Ewan McGregor did a very good job in the part. He conveyed Obi-Won’s anguish over Anakin’s turn to the dark side without going over the top. He was believable in the part. A few times he used some gestures that Alec Guinness used for the character in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

The overall story all six of the Star Wars movies told was about the Skywalker family. The original trilogy was about Luke and how he fought with the rebels to bring down the Empire. The prequels were about Anakin Skywalker and how he went from being a slave as a child on Tatoonie to being the powerful Darth Vader. I didn’t like Anakin as a boy and I liked him even less as an arrogant, whiney young man. He annoyed me in both movies and I just couldn’t see him as a likeable character. Maybe I would have felt differently about him if I hadn’t already seen the original trilogy and knew what he would become. I still didn’t like Anakin in this movie, though he did seem less annoying to me. He still had his moments of arrogance when he spouted off about how he should have more power. He did get a little whiney once or twice, including a scene where he seemed to be on the verge of a tantrum, but he wasn’t whining as much overall. I was glad about that because that really got on my nerves in the second movie and made it very hard to believe he was the future Darth Vader.

Anakin had done a few things in his past that opened him up to turning to the dark side. He felt remorse about those things and was really troubled. Once he turned to the dark side, he didn’t feel remorse for anything he did. It had taken years for Anakin to reach the point where he turned, and after that he was instantly evil. He didn’t question what Darth Sidious told him to do like he did with Obi-Won and the other Jedi. Anakin chose to join the Sith, but there was some manipulation on the part of Darth Sidious. He was aware of Anakin’s weak spot and exploited it to get what he wanted. Hayden Christensen once again played Anakin. He did seem to do better with the role. He was convincing in the part, especially after Anakin turned. The suit that Darth Vader wore in the original trilogy was shown briefly and James Earl Jones again provided the voice for the few words that Darth Vader spoke after he was in the suit.

CAST

Kenny Baker - R2-D2
Ahmed Best - Jar Jar
Hayden Christensen - Anakin Skywalker
Anthony Daniels - C-3PO
Joel Edgerton - Owen Lars
Samuel L. Jackson - Mace Windu
James Earl Jones - Voice of Darth Vader
Christopher Lee - Count Dooku
Ian McDiarmid - Supreme Chancellor Palpatine
Ewan McGregor - Obi-Won Kenobi
Peter Mayhew - Chewbacca
Frank Oz - Yoda
Bonnie Piesse - Beru
Natalie Portman - Padme
Jimmy Smits - Bail Organa
Matthew Wood - Voice of General Grievous

Written and Directed by George Lucas

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is the best of the prequel trilogy and definitely worth seeing. I think it is one of the best Star Wars movies overall. It has amazing battles, the best lightsaber fights of all of the movies, and the transformation of Anakin into Darth Vader. It did deserve the PG-13 rating, so parents should take that into consideration before taking children to see the movie.

Other Star Wars Reviews
Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Characters ~ Star Wars Trilogy ~ Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace ~ Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones ~


Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12