Like a Tree

Rating: 8/10 (12 June 2005)

No, this isn't some Jedi metaphor that wound up on the cutting-room floor. It's how I would describe George Lucas' structure in the film. The leaves are the blowouts among droids, clones, etc. that Palpatine conjures up and manipulates to his own ends. The trunk and branches are the destruction of the Jedi and the birth of the Empire. The roots are Anakin Skywalker's betrayal of everything and everyone he loves to follow the Dark Side of the Force.
I was mostly disappointed with the 'leaves'. Not having gotten 'Clone Wars' in the mail from Netflix yet, all the battles in the first half often made me feel like I was at a sporting event where nobody had bothered to explain the rules to me. True, it was fun to pick up the references to films like 'Titanic', where the mighty vessel flips 90 degrees and they're slip-sliding away. But more often it seemed all-too-much like a sideshow, as Kenobi describes the war against the separatists (if not in those exact words). Also, George Lucas is free to use the wars of his fantasy universe as a metaphor for the actual wars of here and now. However, taking the line 'This war will be over once we capture Saddam Hussein' and replacing the last two words with 'General Grevious' is a lazy and literal-minded way of going about it.
As for the trunk and the branches, Lucas mostly gets it right. In the first two films of the new trilogy, I often thought "What are the odds that a skinny little light saber could protect you from 5 or 10 blasters at close range?" Well the odds finally caught up with the Jedi this time. Their extermination serves as a metaphor for any act of genocide throughout human history, without needing to spell it out. As for the senate caving in to Palpatine's demand to become emperor, I suppose they had the same "Go along to get along" mentality that approved of Augustus becoming dictator, and Hitler after him. My one complaint is that Palpatine's grand plan doesn't look so brilliant if his opponents are decidedly less so. I can't bring myself to fault the detective skills of the poor Jedi. So instead, I'll mention how Palpatine's toadies must have been as dumb as dirt not to realize what he meant when he said that he was sending Anakin Skywalker "to take care of you."
But as for the root of the matter, the fall of Anakin Skywalker, Lucas hits one out of the park. When Anakin envisions Padme's death in childbirth, and vows to follow the Dark Side of the Force if it means saving her life, it echoes Greek tragedy like 'Oedipus Rex'. He fulfills a prophecy precisely because he tries to prevent it (she is in perfect health, but loses the will to live after learning what heinous things he has done, supposedly, for her sake). The brief, red-tinted glimpse we get of the world through Darth Vader's eyes is chilling. I had long thought that the first words out of Darth Vader's mask would be something like "What is thy bidding, my master?" To hear Vader ask about Padme was heartbreaking, and to hear one last lie from the Emperor, that Anakin had killed her in a jealous rage, made me snarl silently at the screen.
But seeds have been planted for the future, and all the misfires of the previous two films fade from memory, when Uncle Owen & Aunt Beru take baby Luke to see his first double-sunset on Tatooine.