The Best Prequel

Rating: 10/10 (30 May 2007)

The Star Wars franchise has brought back the magic of the Star Wars series with "Revenge of the Sith." How does it do this? It simply learns from the mistakes of the past two films.
One of the major flaws of the first and second prequels was the acting. Though Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, and Ian McDiarmid gave phenomenal performances, there good work was foiled by Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen, and especially Natalie Portman. Though the film does not cut Natalie Portman out of the film, which would have been rather awkward, her screen time is cut down considerably. Christensen still struggles as Anakin, but his work in this film is not quite as consistently bad, and he does a very adequate job turning evil.
Ewan McGregor steals the show in terms of acting, capturing the agility of his character's proposed age, as well as the calm wisdom of Alec Guiness, who originated the role and was nominated for an Oscar for it. He is actually given the best storyline, which involves an eventual confrontation with an infamous new villain, General Greivous.
The storyline of this film rivals the original trilogy in quality, involving multiple layers of betrayal and distrust. The film takes way a bit of the politics that stuffed the second film, and replaces some of it with true suspense.
Of course, the real savior of the film is Yoda. Yoda's foreshadowed duel with the Emperor is absolutely breath-taking, and does explain a lot about Yoda's character.
Still, what this film has at its core that neither of the other prequels had is emotion. I felt very sad that the series was over after the end of the film, actually craving more. Still, it left me very content and is truly a great film.