Top 10 Reasons to Love It & Hate It

Rating: 9/10 (5 June 2005)

Top Ten Reasons to Love It
10. It's R2D2's best film. He was hilarious, athletic and capable.
9. The first time we see a lightsaber in Palpatine's hand, he kills off three Jedi Masters in like, what, two and half heartbeats? Booyah.
8. When Vader is cleansing the Jedi Temple, and those younglings come out of hiding, and that one little British kid asks what they're going to do, and Anakin switches on his saber, and the hair on the back of your neck stands up? Ooooooooooooh.
7. No, General Grievous wasn't much of a character, wasn't given any backstory, any explanation why he's a cyborg or why he's always coughing, and really, was totally unnecessary to the overall saga. But, if Lucas needed to have a fully CGI character to play with, Grievous was WORLDS better than Jar Jar ever was.
6. Speaking of which, no lines by Jar Jar, and a minimum of face-time? That's gotta make the top ten somewhere.
5. Palpatine, Palpatine, Palpatine. Wonderfully manipulative. From putting Skywalker on the Council, to faking weakness in his battle with Windu, to the lie about Padme's death? S'all just nailed. And that moment, when Vader learns Padme's dead, and he's crying out, and events are all but finished, and the Emperor's just standing there in the background smiling to himself? Perfect.
4. The money shot to end the film: Baby Luke, with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, against the setting twin suns of Tatooine, with Kenobi retreating in the background? There was no other way to end the movie, and here, George gets five stars.
3. Kenobi breaks out the ultimate Jedi move of all Jedi moves in slicing three (count em 1, 2, 3) limbs off Anakin's torso with one swift stroke. In ANH, when Kenobi tells Luke that Vader is "more machine than man?" Well, now we know just how much machine he is under there.
2. The Jedi betrayal. My biggest question going into the film was how we go from thousands of Jedi to just Yoda and Kenobi. A great set of scenes, heartbreaking, and a firm explanation.
1. By film's end, Darth Vader, cinema's greatest villain, becomes a very pitiable figure. Defeated by lies, manipulation, his own poor choices, and a shattered life, we finally understand how Vader became the man behind the mask, and the Emperor's puppet. Very satisfying.
Top Ten Reasons to Hate It
10. It's C3PO's worst film, even worse than the previous two. Other than his memory being wiped, what does he add?
9. What the heck happened to Padme? She went from strong-willed to wet paper towel. "Oh Anakin, I'm preggers, what are we gonna do?"
8. And speaking of Padme, why the heck does she die? Because she just gives up on life, what, with two children on the way? No way. The obvious choice was to have Palpatine behind Padme's death as another means of manipulating Anakin. Big missed opportunity.
7. Right before Windu loses his hand, while he's standing there trying to decide whether or not to kill the most evil man in the galaxy, is it just me, or does he look like he's got a bad case of gas?
6. Okay, yes, it was leaps and bounds better than Episode II, but the cheese continued to flow in the romance between Anakin and Padme in best Velveeta fashion. Seriously, George, just employ a ghostwriter for one flipping scene, will ya? O, where have you gone, Han and Leia?
5. Alright, it was nice to see the Wookie homeworld. And it was nice to see other Wookies than just Chewbacca. And yeah, I even thought it was cute when Yoda rode on Chewie's back. But why? Why, George, why? The whole scene was totally unnecessary. Totally. Unnecessary.
4. After a somewhat humdrum "climactic" fight between Yoda and Palpatine, there is no clear winner. Both Yoda and Palpy have been tossed around some. Yet, Yoda declares himself a failure and goes into hiding. Huh? At least he could have mentioned something about preserving the Jedi, waiting for the future, he and the Emperor were too evenly matched something. Instead, he just throws in the towel.
3. For a film meant to create a feeling of continuity with the original trilogy, it has big discontinuity issues. Padme dies, yet Leia remembers her mother in Return. Kenobi believes Luke is the "last hope" in Empire, yet he's present at the birth of both Luke and Leia. In ANH, Kenobi fails to recognize R2 (and visa versa) despite many adventures together; and tells Luke he hasn't gone by the name of "Obi-wan" since, "oh, before you were born," yet he's never once referred to as Ben in ROTS. Etc
2. Probably the worst plot mistake: The explanation for the Jedi spirits/dead-Jedi-disappearing comes from Savior Qui-gon (who is never seen or heard from) who has returned from Heaven to teach everyone how to become immortal? Oh, good grief. I'd rather they never explained it, then tacking on this nonsense at the last minute. All it would've taken was "Out of balance, the Force has become."
1. Total lack of compassion by Obi-wan. Kenobi refers to Skywalker as a brother, and behaved as the boy's father-figure for most of his life. Yet, after their big duke-it-out old graceless Ben leaves his fallen apprentice to die next to a lava flow, laying in the dirt, arms and legs cut off, and he's on FREAKING FIRE! Whoa, where's the love? And what does Kenobi do? Just grabs Anakin's lightsaber for a keepsake and walks off. No attempt whatsoever to show him compassion and help him, try and lead him back to the light side and redemption. This is the failing of the Jedi. They claim to be about unconditional love, but they never demonstrate it.