Star Wars critique - a lesson in uselessness

Rating: 2/10 (23 May 2005)

What is the point of writing a review of a Star Wars movie? Nothing. No matter what is written, everyone will go see it, maybe even twice or three times, and Lucas will make another gazillion dollars. Incredible, because along with the first two installments, this movie is not very good. But it is Star Wars, and it is filled with out favourite characters, so we love it anyways. But boy is it bad.... I thought Episode I was lame and childish - bad: JarJar, Midichlorian, the pod race Episode II held great promise but ended up being a Beverly Hills 90210 episode with space violence - bad: one-liners, Natalie Portman's acting, most of the acting, dialogue, "gladiator" scene with the heroes escaping chains to fight a multitude of lame aliens. Episode III held the most promise of all the films. After two lame prequels we finally were gonna able to bite into the meat of the story and delve deep. Boy was that a mistake to believe! This is probably one of the most illogical movies I have ever seen. There isn't much in it that makes sense, that fits the grand scheme. And some things are completely irrational and illogical. If I am fighting with lightsabers on a volcanic planet, why would I wander on to some overhanging piece of metal where I can suddenly start tight-rope walking, and then resume my saber fight. When Luke and Vader fight on the precipice of Bespin's ventilation shaft, it makes sense because you see how they got there, it had a logic to it. In Episode 3, this logic is seriously missing. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the action scenes - they were that ridiculous. The big battle scenes have no sense of danger or purpose, but the set pieces do have some grandeur that lacked in previous battle scenes of the prequels. How is it possible that in the middle of a chaotic and very dangerous space battle (opening scene), Annakin and Obi-Wan can focus on those stupid buzz droids without having to worry about other attacks from other ships. One minute everyone is targeting them, the next, they are off playing "sweep the buzzdroid off my wing". Totally silly. Once again Natalie Portman is horrendous and useless in the film. Did she just not try? or does she have no real talent and gets by with looks and croneyism? On the other hand Ewan McGregor is a truly redeeming aspect of the film. He is the one actor who managed to truly inhabit his role in all the films. Hayden Christensen is a great actor too, put his part is so "half-written" he never gets the chance to truly show his transformation from jedi to Vader - all we get is stupid "look at me, I'm a model" looks - kinda like if Derek Zoolander had Jedi powers, or if Brad Pitt from Troy made a cameo appearance in a monk's cloak. This is one of the major disappointments of the film. No one cares and wants to see Annakin and Padme play teenie bopper movie-of-the-week melodrama for the weak minded. We all want Annakin going bad and becoming Vader. And we do get treated to that, its just not good enough though. The reasons for switching to the dark side are almost comical, they are that lame. The murder of the Jedis? A joke. Supposed to be the great tragedy of the story line, and it comes off as unimportant, almost happenstance. And cmon, can these soldier clones really kill all the Jedis with a couple of blaster shots. What should have been the major plot point of the 1st act, becomes a throwaway scene. The jedi have become incompetent and quite unwise. They haven't seemed to make a wise choice in any of the movies. Put Annakin on the Jedi council before he becomes a master, thus infuriating him and creating a schism between him and the jedi - wise it is not Master Yoda!! Oh, and Sam Jackson didn't want Mace Windu "to die like a sucka". Sorry Sammy, you did! These movie are simply not thought through well enough. The story lines lack cohesion, there is no logic to anything in it, and in the end, it turns out that the Jedi kinda suck. Shame on you Georgie, you are capable of much more thought and passion. This is not meant to be a review, more of just a rant. I love Star Wars and I wanted to films to be better than any other ones. But they are not. They are watchable and fun, but they did nothing to cement this mythology into our cultures. They have become as disposable as a BigMac or the Matrix sequels, or the Nightmare on Elm street movies. With as much freedom as Lucas has on a movie set, why he choose to take the easy cash cow route instead of making scifi art is astounding. All I can say now is - stick to Star Trek - a much better, more thoughtful and satisfying film franchise (even is ST10 was a lame ending for STTNG).