Star Wars | Episode III

Well I must say George Lucas came through on this one. After a mediocre pair of prequels, my expectations for this movie were quite diminished. The first promise for something better came with the release of the soundtrack (more on that later), and I was pleasantly surprised that the movie delivered. As with the other episodes there are some plot holes that you have to look past, but the underlying story carries the movie well. Read on if you've seen the movie (or don't mind spoilers).

Thinks I liked:
• Anakin’s character arc.  He begins the film still a touch disobedient, but his respect for Obi-Wan is there.
• Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine / Sideous.  I need say no more.
• Obi-Wan coming into his own.  His arc is the opposite of Anakin’s; He starts off somewhat weak and indecisive but ends up in command and kicking ass.
• Yoda.  From the animators to Frank Oz, this is some of the best Yoda I’ve seen.  The expressions (such as when the Jedi start dying) are just awesome.
• The lack of Jar Jar was once again welcome.  He didn’t get offed as I’d hoped, but his absence was sufficient.

Things I disliked (otherwise known as “Plot holes I had to ignore”):
• Ships that break into two separate pieces should not fly as well as they did (especially when the half that falls off includes the engines and most of the control surfaces).
• If your civilization is advanced enough to have spaceships, you should be able to put out flaming spaceships with something a little more advanced than super soakers (even we have foam for this purpose on Earth).
• Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) ships do not need to land on runways long enough to accommodate 747s.  Period.
• It should have taken a bit more than Palpatine saying “Help me please!” to turn Anakin, and his turn should not have been so sudden and final.
• Lucas has always had a problem with the concept of space and time.  If a planet is on the other side of the galaxy, it should take some time to get there.  Palpatine sensed Anakin in distress in the outer rim from Coruscant and was there to pick him up within the hour.  Also, at the end of Episode II we see the plans for the Death Star, and at the end of Episode III it is well underway, but will take the rest of Luke’s childhood and adolescence to complete.
• “Hide the children we must!”  “Hi, I’m a well-known politician who lives at the center of the galaxy.  I’ll take the girl.”  “OK, the other we will send to live with his family on his home planet.  They’ll never look for him there.”

Don’t mistake the number of dislikes vs. the number of likes as me thinking the movie was bad.  It wasn’t.  The bad things were mostly small and easy to look over in the right frame of mind.  I mentioned in my soundtrack review that there might be a surprise ending.  Don’t bother.  The music at the end of the film and the last track on the soundtrack are quite different save the part before the credits.  Other than that, there were some nice Duel of the Fates themes that did not appear in the soundtrack that were quite welcome.

Rating (out of 4):