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Star Wars Revenge of the Sith DVD Review Page 2
The film finally becomes a tragedy (in the storytelling sense) as Anakin, now Darth Vader, leads a bunch of clone troopers into the Jedi temple. The most heart wrenching scene is obviously when the film cuts away just as he’s about to kill the Jedi babies. The following scenes are beautifully sad as the Jedi are gunned down by their own troops. I know what you're saying, "Jedi can't get killed like that!" Well, anyone who can’t believe how easily they can die should take a look at the end of Attack of the Clones where they drop like flies. Of course, Yoda’s no fool and he manages to escape. Obi-Wan also manages to escape as well. Who could have guessed that it would be Ob-Wan and Yoda as the final two survivors? They meet up and discover that there’s some sort of signal telling all the Jedi to come back to the temple. After somehow magically changing it so it will warn any surviving Jedi to go away, Obi-Wan wants to check out the Jedi highlight reels to see what happened exactly in the temple. Yoda warns him not to, but Obi-Wan must see the truth for himself and gets an eye full of Anakin killing babies and Palpatine christening his new apprentice Darth Vader. Don't worry it's not the same scene after they kill Mace, even though it looks like it. Yoda and Obi have a new plan of action. Yoda will take down Palpatine while Anakin tracks down his best friend. You know that Yoda isn’t going to win, yet his battle with Palpatine is awesome. The Emperor is so drunk on power that he laughs like a lovable old man that had too many Brandy Alexanders, albeit an evil old man that's had too much brandy, showing he really does enjoy his own wickedness. I wondered how Lucas was going to have one of the greatest Jedi of all time losing, but it was more of a draw. The poor little guy was too far away from Palpatine to take him down.
Obi-Wan is a little luckier because he gets a free ride to Vader. He hides aboard Padme’s ship when she goes to Anakin who in turn just finished killing the Separatist leaders. (As a side note: When Anakin takes down the Nemodian that pleads for his life it’s the only time I’ve ever felt sorry for the green bastards.) Padme finds Anakin to be a little too evil for her tastes, especially since he offers her co-rule of the galaxy. You got to handle it to the Sith, Anakin is ready to take down his new master after only a few hours of being evil. Maybe he realizes how dumb he was for falling for Palpatine’s bait and switch tactics. I could see Lord Vader every few years offering some poor slob a shot at co-ruler ship to the galaxy. “Storm Trooper TJK-6655, I couldn’t help but notice when you blast away at rebels you miss less than the other troopers. Join me and together we can destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy! No? Oh, okay then. You want to watch me choke a guy instead?” Obi-Wan appears out of the ship and Anakin lays a little smack down on Padme in furious anger thinking that she brought Obi-Wan to him. When the two old friends confront each other, Anakin admits he’s a republican and Obi-Wan says the stupidest line ever, “Only the Sith deal in absolutes!” In what universe is that statement not an absolute in itself? After the contradictions are over it’s time to get into action. The battle that follows is fairly intense if a little of a let down considering it was only built up for twenty eight years. My only problem with this scene is of course, “You were supposed to be the chosen one!” I’ll forgive Obi-Wan though, he’s had a rough time mentoring this idiot and having all his Jedi buddies get killed because he never saw the eighty thousand signs that Anakin was no good. Obi-Wan lets Anakin have it by cutting his legs and arm off when the idiot decides to do a double jump over him.
Padme is taken away by Obi-Wan and she goes into labor. This is intercut with Vader being sealed up in his trademark black suit. To get her out of the way for the next trilogy Padme has her babies and dies. As a thinking man of the 21st century the Padme dying stuff really bothers me. It’s something I might have read in my 19th century women’s lit class (no, I didn’t take the class to pick up chicks and if I would have I’d have been sorely disappointed) I can almost picture Padme saying, “Oh, I cannot live in this cruel world of men… I must pass on to a better world” then quickly succumbs to the sweet embrace of death. It makes her character even weaker than she was already with all the brushing of the hair and crying seen in this film. Instead of her being strong enough to raise her kids and protecting them from their father she makes herself die leaving them alone in the world. What a great Mom! The Darth Vader transition scene is done much better and there are two things that need to be said about it: A. He looks skinny in the suit because he’s pretty young. He’s got twenty years to fill the damn thing out people and B. The “No!” scream really isn’t all that bad. If I found out I killed my wife and unborn child(ren), betrayed my best friend, was badly burned and missing my arms and legs, and led to the destruction of a thousand year old democracy I think that “No!” would be a rather watered down reaction with a strong and prolonged screaming “Fuck!” being more appropriate for the situation. Get over it people, he’s upset and still vaguely human inside that suit. Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Bail Organa decide to split the twins up and go into hiding. Yoda pulls off a cheap move by saying that Liam Neeson has come back from the grave to teach them how to life on after death through the Force. This is a nice touch, but it’s a super cheap way to just mention it and not actually show a blinking and blue Liam Neeson at least waving or saying something like, “Your children will never know a Star Wars mythos that doesn’t include me, suckers!”
In the end we are left with what I think is an excellent capper for a so-so new trilogy on the whole. I really like that the real story of why the Jedi fell was because of their self righteousness and over confidence in their own power. Their devotion to outdated conduct codes and from on high morality doomed them. It also serves to make Luke’s role in the original trilogy so much greater. After watching Return of the Jedi it’s easy to see why Luke succeeded where his father didn’t; he openly challenged Yoda’s insistence to not help those he cared about and used the love of his friends as a strength rather than a hidden weakness. Where Luke learned to harness his feelings for others to turn away from the dark path, Anakin was forced to hide his emotions and found solace in the corruption of the Emperor. If anything I’ve got a much greater respect for that whiney farm boy now than I ever did before. This edition is amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better looking transfer in my life; Lucas doesn’t mess around when it comes to making DVDs. The surround sound provides enough thrills, although there isn’t one particular scene I can point to as being overly excellent like the Jango’s sonic bombs in Attack of the Clones. You will not be disappointed with this one. Extras: This two disc special edition or Revenge of the Sith follows the pattern of the other Star Wars releases with it’s similar packaging and a great motion menus. There amount of features is satisfying, but I get the feeling that Lucas is holding back for future releases. For anyone who wants a play by play of the making of the film by the main man himself on the first disc there’s a commentary featuring Mr. Lucas and a few other big wigs spliced together. There’s more information than you’d ever need to know, but since a lot of Star Wars fans are trivia freaks this is a must watch. A couple of documentaries are on the bonus disc and its funny seeing the stunt doubles like a balding Obi-Wan Kenobi. “The Chosen One” is a Anakin to Darth Vader themed min-doc. Strangely, it shows George Lucas actually directing his actors. Is this Lucasfilm propaganda? “See, George is a real director still!” One other reason to watch this doc is that it shows a tiny bit of the redone CGI Yoda that was made to replace the piece of crap Yoda puppet used in The Phantom Menace. Yep, they made changes to the new trilogy already… look for it in a future DVD edition! One of my favorite Star Wars extras “Trailers and TV Spots”, at least in the way of archival purposes, is back with the footage that had me dying to see the film in theaters. Also included here is the “A Hero Falls” music video which was an attempt to replicate the success of the Duel of the Fates music video from The Phantom Menace. There a ton of TV spots that had one in particular standing out because its directed soley at children. I know if I was a little kid and saw this film I would have freaked out. As a commercial platform, this DVD does its job as I want to buy both games featured now. There’s a great little teaser demo of the Star Wars Battlefront 2 game if you place the DVD in an Xbox, which I’m sure will appear as a review later on. The other game, Star Wars: Empire at War is represented by a tantalizing trailer. Also in this section is a ton of exclusive production photos for those interested in that sort of thing. What most people will want to watch is the deleted scenes on the bonus disc that show a few scenes of the formation of the Republic. That explains why there was a series of lame action figures of Mon Mothma and Jimmy Smitts with the phrase “REPUBLIC SENATOR!” next to them. There’s also a scene that shows General Grievous killing a Jedi in front of Anakin and Obi-wan. They then decide on a plan on how to take him down using a series of baseball like hand signals. It’s sort of funny, but they don’t have to shove the signs in our fucking face. Besides a FELLOW JEDI WAS JUST KILLED and then we are supposed to laugh at their silly antics? Come on! Okay, I’m done now. The best deleted scene only lasts a few seconds and shows a defeated Yoda landing on Dagobah. Score: Film: 9.0 Extras: 8.5 Edition: 9.0 -Paul (One Last Parting Shot: So we have to see a young Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones, but we don’t get to see him in his trademark suit kicking random Jedi ass in Revenge of the Sith? Totally lame. At least Lucas spared us from him pissing on a beloved character anymore than he could have.)
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