A brilliant end to the Star War legend

Rating: 9/10 (24 May 2005)

I'm not going to analyze everything that happened in this film -- there are a lot of folk out there who will do that just fine. What I do want to do is point out something that everyone else seems to be missing. Something that takes this film out of the ordinary space opera genre, and should make it immortal.
Lucas made Anakin/Darth Vader the very essence of the "tragic hero" that is discussed in all literature courses. The one with the one, huge flaw that causes him to make his tragic mistake.
Well, actually, he had two  patience was the first, but it's the lesser of the two. The very sad thing is that the big flaw was the fear of losing the one person in the world that he thought loved him, and that he loved more than life. And the biggest tragedy is not that he becomes Darth Vader, but that his ultimate decision to turn to the Dark was what caused her death, which, of course  I think that it was doing this that turned Revenge into something more than just a space opera, and took Lucas out of the realm of the good directors and into the same circle as Spielberg, Hitchcock, Truffaut, and Ford.. It may have become the classic example of the tragic hero that some films have come close to but not truly shown. At least for this generation (and I don't mean yours and mine, but your kid's).
And now, for something completely different...
I also think that this film brought the ideal of computer graphics nearly to fruition, too. I could still tell just a little bit when the living actors stopped and the computer-generated avatars began, but it was practically seamless. The fights between human and digital creatures were wonderful. And I could truly believe that Obi-Wan and Anakin were really fighting in a very nasty environment  at least until they started to surf the lava. C'mon! Lava flowing like that has to be somewhere in the 1,500 to 2000 degree Farenheit range. One does not stay real fresh when completely surrounded by lava, no matter how fast or slow it's running. So, I have to give that part a little teeny tiny "thumbs down". However, even at that point, I couldn't tell where the humans left off and the digital guys started.