Almost everything it needed to be

Rating: 6/10 (19 May 2005)

The biggest movie franchise of all time deserves the biggest ending, and the Revenge Of The Sith is certainly big, but like many big things, it's also ever-so-slightly clumsy.
I'm part of the generation that grew up playing Star Wars with my friends while the original trilogy was still unfolding; like many people my age I tend to look back at A New Hope, Empire and Jedi through rose-tinted spectacles. Were the original movies really that amazing, or did our personal Star Wars fantasies make them into something bigger than they deserved to be? Well, let's be honest, it's more fun talking about Star Wars than it is watching it, and even the biggest Star Wars fan will probably have at least one movie they enjoy more than Lucas's original trilogy.
When it comes to the new trilogy I think it's obvious the history of The Saga was not well thought out in the beginning. Compare it to, say Harry Potter's comprehensive back story, and you'll see what I mean. I was hugely disappointed in Phantom Menace when it first came out, but after six years my opinion has softened, because for all my criticisms it did have some great moments--like the Darth Maul vs Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan fight and Liam Neeson's performance in general was superb. I have to admit, too, that I did enjoy Attack of the Clones (despite the way it force fed you the plot at the beginning) because again it had its moments--the battle in the arena is surely up there as one of the best moments in Star Wars history, along with the attack run on the Death Star in A New Hope and Luke vs Vadar fight in Empire.
So what about this, the final instalment? Well, it's clearly the darkest of the new trilogy, but it's also the most coherent. There are times when it's a little heavy-handed with the plot, and other times it trips over its own feet in its rush to get a particular point across. We are also told a few things that don't need to be said, because while it feels like the end of The Saga, it's only really the middle. It is, however, both action-packed and dramatic, with the shift from being a democratic republic to an evil empire being handled as well as can be expected within the confines of a single movie. It certainly does most of what it needed to do in order to wrap up the series and feed into the originals, and it does it better than might have been expected back in 1999, when Phantom Menace was first released. It also does something that few sequels ever do, and that is it makes you feel happier about Episodes I and II. Compare it to the Matrix, Aliens or Highlander sequels, and you realise its actually pretty good.
Finally, there are people who will hate it, but then that's to be expected when the originals are still so idolised. If you are in doubt about the series I strongly recommend watching the excellent Clone Wars cartoon series--not only does it set the mood for ROTS, it also stands as testament to the fact the spirit of The Saga didn't die in 1999 after all.
***Spoiler Alert*** Oh, yeah, and Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vadar at the end. Who saw that coming?