Static Zombie

Meh. Spoilers...

Lucas seemed to want to make Vader a tragic figure, but how can he be, when he was too bone-stupid to figure out that a Sith Lord cannot be trusted to tell the truth? If he had learned through, say, surreptitious research in the "locked stacks" in the Jedi Library that the dark side was his only hope of saving someone from death, AND if he had solid, incontrovertible proof that Padme was doomed, THEN you could possibly imagine that he might choose to follow the dark side and still seem mildly sympathetic.

But no. He chose the dark side because he lusted after power, no matter what he told himself, and that makes him no so much a tragic figure as a freaking evil bastard.

And what's with Padme dying from "lack of will to live?" Apparently they can replace all your limbs in the high-tech world of Star Wars, but they can't replace your will to live. Oooookay.

And the love scenes! Aaaaaaa! My eyes! It burns!

"I'm beautiful because I love you!"

"No, you're beautiful because I love you!"

No, you're both annoying because George Lucas can't write dialogue worth a damn.

It's better than I and II, but barely. I'm not sure I'd even put it higher than Jedi, and I don't like Jedi much at all.

I really wanted this to be good. I got up at 4 AM and stood in line for 2 hours for a good seat. But it's bad. It's bad, bad, bad. Pretty, but just not good. The central conflict was stupid. The Jedi were MORONS in so many ways. The opening attack on General Grievous's made no sense from beginning to end.

Gah!

while i agree with much of your review, i don't agree with your complaint about padme. people really do die due to lack of will to live, and people can have all of their limbs replaced.

Don: Sure, but other than that, how did you enjoy the theater, Mrs. Lincoln?

If Vader, with all the powers of the Force at his command, can have Leia in his clutches and fail to sense that she's his daughter, I can believe that the Jedi are unable to sense that Palpatine is a Sith lord.

Grievous was cool. I was bothered by his coughing, until we were shown that he wasn't actually a droid but a living being-- perhaps the extreme of all that limb replacement that seems to prevalent out there in the galaxy. Sure, I immediately saw how he's going to be the most popular toy ever (FOUR lightsabres!), but cool nonetheless.

Anakin was never shown to be a person of even modest intelligence, so I was perfectly willing to go along with the idea that Palpatine, who's had sway over him since meeting him as a child, could turn him so easily. Sure, Anakin was impatient and yearned for more power. But what ultimately pushed him over the line was his love for Padme, and I liked that.

But I cried when Spock died, so what do I know?

All I can tell you is that I really enjoyed the film (horrendous dialogue notwithstanding)-- Artoo kicked some serious butt!-- and felt satisfied when it was over.

when it was over i felt like i had eaten a super sugary food. fun while it lasted, but ultimately not satisfying or substantial.

i remember being crushed when spock died because that was a real character with real relationships. anakin loved padme as if she were an object not a person. it didn't resemble a real or strong relationship imo.

I'm getting friggin' old.

First of all, I completely forgot to watch the Survivor finale.

Then, while watching the first midnight showing of Star Wars III, I dozed off during the entire "Order 66" sequence. I woke up to find the fellow sitting next to me dressed up as Obi-Wan quietly weeping.

I guess those midnight showings are one way to ensure that a percentage of your audience will have to go see it again.

And yea, Anakin's motivation for turnin' gangsta was a bit weak. On the other hand, this is Star Wars, not a Shakespearean tragedy.

Look, people don't die from "lack of will to live" in the hospital today, with our caveman technology. They can put you on a respirator. They can put you on a heart-lung machine, for jeebus' sake. You're telling me they don't have those technologies in the world of Star Wars, and they aren't going to try SOMETHING when a woman is dying in childbirth? Nope. Apparently, they have a "will to live" detector, and when that needle goes to zero, you just have to stand back and hand out the tissues.

It's not that Lucas couldn't have had her die in childbirth, it's that the dialogue and whatnot explaining it was lame to the nth degree. Lucas robbed that whole scene of emotional depth with his goofball dialogue.

And the Jedi being stupid doesn't refer to their inability to recognize Sidious; that's just convenient Force logic, which is fine. It's that:

- They couldn't figure out that Anakin had hooked up with Padme, even though he's freaking sleeping in her bed. Consider: Obi-Wan knows that when he wants to find Anakin, he goes to Padme first. Anakin's sucking face with her in the foyer of the Jedi Temple. He's got the poker face of a six-year-old.

- They didn't appear to have any suspicions when a random planet they didn't know about was creating a clone army for reasons they didn't understand, under orders from a Jedi who had died mysteriously. Sure. Makes sense. Don't look a gift army of clones in the mouth, even one that screams "trap" at the top of its lungs. And they just happen to find the clones just at the time when they desperately need them to fend off the separatists.

Exactly what kind of army did the Republic have before they found the clones? How exactly were they planning to fight off the separatists when they were building up their robot army and rattling their sabers?

The central conflict of the whole plot of this first trilogy makes no sense. Anakin's path to the dark side is just pointless.

The action sequences were cool, granted. The production design was fantastic. The final showdown between Anakin and Obi-Wan had some emotional weight, though only on Obi-Wan's side. He seemed truly shaken by Anakin's betrayal, and I felt for him when he shouted, "You were the chosen one!" And when we saw the shot of the necklace Anakin had given Padme clutched in her cold, dead hands, I felt a twinge.

But in the end, I didn't feel at all sorry for Anakin. I felt sorry for Padme. I felt sorry for Obi-Wan. But Anakin? Nope; his conversion to the dark side was not tragic or even interesting. He apparently does it because he's some combination of impatient, power-hungry, or idiotic, and none of those are heroic attributes. And because I never saw him as heroic, or even particularly likeable, I didn't care that he turned evil.

It is, though, a testament to the power of Star Wars that I stood in line for 2 hours to see this film after having sat through two previous lousy films. And you know what? I'd do it again. When I saw the words, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." on the screen, I started to tear up. The original Star Wars was so good that Lucas will get my dollars pretty much forever, just on the off chance that I might feel a small bit of that wonder and awe I felt watching the opening scenes of Star Wars.

Dana said:

> "people really do die due to lack of will to live"

You said, "do die due..."

Though I don't feel as angry about it as Don seems to (use your anger, young one), I too was disappointed. Especially with the good-turns-to-evil storyline which, as Don argues, was pretty unconvincing. For a much, much superior treatment of essentially the same storyline (young man starts movie good, ends movie evil), see The Godfather. Or, for an improvement on the whole "Order 66" thing, see the basptism scene in Godfather Part II. Both of these came out well before even the first/IVth Star Wars, so there's really no excuse.

Lucas has a wonderful imagination (c.f. that super-cool rolling/legged machine that the robot general gets to ride in his battle with Kenobi), and he can create a richly detailed alternate universe, but I'm afraid he falls short when trying to tell an epic story.

A question for the group that I'm asking over on my blog: Why is Han Solo the only missing major character cameo from the original three?

As for the terrible dialog and plot holes - you all forget that ALL SIX Star Wars movies had terrible dialog and plot holes that you could drive Death Stars through with room for a fleet of Super Star Destroyers to spare.

Let's face it - all of the Star Wars movies are equally terrible, but we've grown more used to some of them over the years.

Personally, I feel that of all 6 movies, Attack of the Clones was far and away the best movie. This latest installment was okay, but it really felt rushed - it should have been 2 full movies they tried to cover so much. This movie should have culminated in the defeat of General Grievious (and hey, some teeny bit of backstory *there* would have been nice) and the turning of Anakin to the Dark Side, with the next movie being about his sinking deeper and deeper into the Dark Side as he went on ever more evil and nefarious missions for Palpatine, culminating in the desecration of the Jedi Temple and the showdown with Obi Wan. I mean, "Welcome to the Dark Side, buddy, time to go kill some babies" hardly seemed believable.

Having said all that, I didn't hate it, it just wasn't as good as any of the previous movies with the exception of Episode 1 or Episode 5. Call me crazy, but I think Phantom Menace and Empire were the two worst of the Star Wars franchise.

A few random thoughts:

Hahaha. Order 66. I had forgotten about that. Why not Order 666? Because Lucas likes to use the art of subtlety, people. He obfuscated it, see, by removing a six. That clever bastard.

And excuse me, but am I the only one bothered by the revisionist R2? Where were the cool rockets and ability to defend himself from battle droids throughout the first three movies (and only legitimate ones in my mind)? I know that would have come in handy several times. Maybe he later gets an "upgrade".

It appears to me that Lucas learned to direct actors by directing Atari 2600 video game characters. Probably learned to direct his editors there, too.

All this suckiness is nothing compared to the most gratuitous and unexplained memory wipe this side of Gilligan's Island (C3PO). Thank you plot-hole filling offhand comment.

Funny how out of a planet of wookies Chewbacca is one of two to step up and act as emissary to Yoda. Wasn't he a low-life smuggler later in his life? This is probably explained away (I mean, fleshed out, of course) in the books and other lore, but for someone who only knows the movies it seemed like a ridiculous reason to get him into this movie.

Overall, let me weigh my grumpy vote on the side of "no, it really did suck a lot". Did it suck as much as the last two Lucas turds? No, but then Prison Bitches 4 probably didn't suck that much.

Rich, you're crazy.

For those wondering about the backstory to Gen Greivous or just if you haven't seen it, try to take a look at the Clone Wars cartoon that came out between EP2 and 3. They fill in the story nicely and there is a surprising amount of exposition in them. The first 20 episodes were 5 min. fillers between programs so the entire run is an hour. They really hit stride in episodes 21-25 however. Each episode is 20+ min. and are imo better than any of the prequel movies in both story telling and originality. Even the love scenes between Anakin and Padme are well done and believable. It gives me hope that the continuing cartoon and live action TV show will show signs of life once Lucas gives up a little control.

Ihave to say I was very dissappointed in Eps.1-3. I mean you hereall te timein the 4-6 how bad ass Darth vader is and how powerful heis and yet he lost almost every fight he got in. He was never great at being a jedi. I mean seriously think about it. Yes he was smart and could get lucky,but when people hail you as the one shouldnt you be beating people left and right or at least be able to hang with them in a fight.For the most part he would lose mean the count took his arm in the first 5min of the fight, secondly he killed kids wow be dela you can beat up kids,and to think theentire Jedi order killed because they got shoot in the back no one sawthat coming?? Then this great empire lastwhat 20 yrs before it comes to and end yet people are acting like Jedi are like Unicorns in the later episodes?/ I mean jezz it was only 20 yrs ago most of the general and admirlas are like 40 they should have worked with or kille dthe jedis so why are they talking shit to Vader about religion. And getti ng on Vader his turn to the darkside was stupid and made no sense.

The dark sith lord basically told him im evil and ca be trusted that I killed my old master, but I want you on my side and on more than one occassion told him it was okay to kill innocent or at least passified people. Not to mention this dude proised you he could save your wife then side moments later after he's killed a Jedi that " Oh well I dont know how to do that but toghether we will learn" ps I guess your wife is just fucked!!! and you still follow him?? GImme a break.

Basically star wars was bulit up to be more than lucas could deliever I honestly believe that any good fan with a vision of how thy thught things should have been could have came up with betterplots and events to Eps 1-3 and made far better and interesting movies that we all would actually like and make sense with out massive plot wholes idiotitc symbolic explanations for things that would make dead head explode.