Merciless End to the First Trilogy

Rating: 5/10 (31 December 2012)

I recently watched Sith on Spike TV after having not seen it for a while. Right after that they showed the first Star Wars (or to Star Wars geeks, Episode 4, A New Hope). There was absolutely no comparison between the two movies..the original Star Wars was that much better. There are a number of reasons, but it boils down to this. In Star Wars and Empire, the effects supported the story and the characters. In the three "prequels," and in particular this movie and Clones, the characters and story are more of an afterthought to support the massive amounts of CGI/effects and cartoon characters invented by George Lucas.
In Sith, the episode which is supposed to be the lead-in for the original Star Wars movie, all the pieces seem to be there for a compelling space opera..tons of effects, all kinds of weird space alien characters, lots of action sequences, and it does tie together the first trilogy of "prequels." Yet it doesn't work, at least not for me. The primary reason is that, like in Clones, I couldn't care less about the main characters, especially the now thoroughly annoying Anakin Skywalker. It gets so you WANT him to freaking go over to the dark side and get it over with so we don't have to listen to his incessant whining anymore. Anakan is such a sniveling obnoxious little punk you just want to reach through the screen and smack him. And when he does ultimately turn into Darth Vader, he lacks the one element so essential to Vader's character: Menace (amazing given how many people he kills..including a bunch of kids training to be Jedi). As Vader he continues to behave like a petulant, obnoxious kid who got sent to bed without his dinner. Much of the blame has to go squarely on the shoulders of Hayden Christenson. Yes, the lines he had to read were awful, but his rancid performance made it far worse.
Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan is bland (unfortunately, he couldn't do what Alec Guinness could do with boring dialog). Ditto Natalie Portman as Padme. Just one example: She and Christenson take the scene where Padme confronts Anakin about the evil he's done, which should be powerful and poignant, and manage to make it boring. That took some doing. As I stated in my review of Clones, it's hard to believe that Luke and Leia's parents could be such dullards. OK, as far as Yoda goes, I have to admit that unlike other Star Wars fans, I never did like the sanctimonious little muppet-turned-CGI image, but unfortunately he's one of the few semi-interesting characters in this movie. Also, Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine/Darth Sidious is evil enough, but he doesn't come off as scary so much as like a little a-hole you just want to punch.
There were other problems. Too many elements going on at once, and too many characters (General Grievous in particular was not only lame but unnecessary). One thing that really bugs me is how it is that Yoda and Mace Windu, for all of their knowledge of the force, don't see ANY of this coming. They don't even SUSPECT what Palpatine is up to until it's too late (they should have been immediately suspicious when he got "emergency powers" in the previous flick). And how exactly is it that Yoda and Obi Wan "lost?" OK, they had to lose to lead into the next movie, but come on. All Obi Wan had to do to Anakin-turned-Vader was KILL HIM. His legs are gone, his body is burning...JUST TAKE YOUR LIGHT SABER AND CUT OFF HIS FREAKING HEAD ALREADY!!!! Yeah yeah, I know, he can't bring himself to kill his former apprentice and buddy, but he can watch him burn instead of mercifully ending it all? Against the emperor, Yoda just kind of gives up. He gets knocked down and falls for a long way, but is far from dead or beaten, yet comes to conclusion that he has "failed." OK, so everything's on the line and you just throw in the towel and wait for Skywalker's two kids to come along and fix everything 20 years later? Nope, I'd say not much thought was put into the actual plot.
What's sad about this and the other Star Wars "prequels" is that they could have been REALLY good..like the first two Star Wars flicks were. But they had actors that couldn't act, scripts with dialog that went beyond insipid and a creator/director who was so caught up in his CGI and cartoon characters that he lost sight of what made his first two movies so special. Lucas once said that a special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing. Time to listen to your own advice George. I give Sith 5 out of 10 for the effects and action sequences. If they rerun it on TV go ahead and watch, but don't waste your money on the DVD or Blu Ray.