The Prequel that Rocked...

Rating: 9/10 (26 March 2016)

In 2005, it was time to end the Star Wars Prequel trilogy! The previous two films in the Prequel trilogy have over the years been considered cinematic disappointments in the Star Wars saga, so it's a surprise that the final film in the trilogy would be considered one of the best in the series.
The film begins with Anakin and Obi-Wan invading General Grievous' battleship to rescue Chancellor Palpatine, but first they encounter Count Dooku and cue the awesome lightsaber fight. This fight is super awesome and really fun, although watching Dooku get his head cut off is really sad as Count Dooku is the best.
After rescuing the Chancellor they crash-land Grievous' battleship on Coruscant as Grievous makes his escape. After this awesome opening, the story focuses on Anakin. There are scenes that are quite powerful such as Anakin and Padme looking at each other across a city, and there are less powerful ones like Anakin having a childish tantrum in the middle of a senate meeting to the head- shaking disapproval of Obi-wan.
Obi-Wan has a sub-plot too, as does Yoda, Mace Windu gets some awesome screen time, and Padme has some truly emotional scenes. Unlike the previous two prequels, Revenge of the Sith does a brilliant job in utilising its cast to create some truly tense and memorable moments.
Obi-Wan's journey involves him trying to find and defeat General Grievous, it's very straight forward and does a better job than his assassination plot from Attack of the Clones which felt cloudy at times.
Yoda's sub-plot is pure fan service. He visits Kashyyyk which is the home planet of the Wookies and we meet Chewbacca. But apart from that, there's nothing notable about this.
Mace Windu does his usual political talk until he's alerted by Anakin to the fact that Chancellor Palpatine may be the Sith Lord they've been looking for, at which point he whips out his purple lightsaber and attempts to arrest him, but the arrest turns into a lightsaber duel between Palpatine and Windu which is, kinder awful!
This fight is rather awkward as Ian McDiarmid, the actor who plays Palpatine, does not know how to use this lightsaber. He's swinging it around aimlessly and you can't take him seriously as the ultimate leader of the dark side.
This is the turning point in the film where Anakin cuts off Windu's hand to stop him killing Palpatine, and Palpatine uses his force lighting to shoot Windu out of the window to his death, finally completing Anakin's turn to the Dark Side, as Palpatine crowns him 'Darth Vader', now we're getting somewhere.
Palpatine gives the Clones 'Order 66', causing the troops to kill all the Jedi, with the exception of Obi-Wan and Yoda who manage to escape their detection. With most of the Jedi dead, Obi-Wan is sent to confront Anakin, and Yoda goes to confront Palpatine. Cue Lightsabers!
First of all, we have Yoda vs Palpatine. This fight starts off similar to the Yoda vs Count Dooku fight from the previous film but soon changes to a force battle in the senate. I really like this fight, the scenes with Palpatine throwing the senate platforms at Yoda is very cool, and good use of the CGI. But then there's the big fight of the series, the pivotal battle that sets up the Original trilogy.
The fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan is really fast and really epic, I love how intense this fight is and even though we know who the victor will be, we really want to see how this turns out. When you imagined what the final fight between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader looked like, this is probably what you wanted it to be.
Obi-Wan eventually gets 'the High Ground', but Anakin charges against him anyway leading Obi-Wan to severe Anakin's legs and arms, and due to the fiery heat of the lava, his body is burnt alive.
While Obi-Wan takes Padme to have her baby in a safe place, the Emperor takes Anakin's body and fits it into a life suit to keep him alive, enter Darth Vader! After giving birth to her two children, Luke and Leia, Padme dies because she's "lost the will to live" or something. Leia is taken to live with the Organas while Luke is taken to live with Owen and Peru on Tattooine, leading us straight into the Original Trilogy, finally!
Ewan McGregor once again rocks his performance as Obi-Wan. Hayden Christensen is still not Oscar standard but he's better than he was in Attack of the Clones. Natalie Portman is more emotive here, and Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Oz and Ian MacDiarmid are once again great.
The writing is better than the previous two films but it still suffers from some very awkward off-the-wall dialogue that is either really awkward because it was unnecessary, or so forced that the actors don't know how to say the lines effectively.
So... Overall, Revenge of the Sith is the best of the Star Wars Prequels. It's dark and awesome and shows what George Lucas can do when he's just trying to create a solid story and not trying to juggle continuity and love stories, endless comic relief and off- the-wall dialogue. We get something worthy of his original masterpieces, something that's truly enjoyable...
The Prequel trilogy is widely regarded as a great cinematic disappointment, but I feel that while not as good as the originals, they do get too much hate. While it's a wide opinion that the Phantom Menace really does suck, people are still divided on Attack of the Clones and fans really like Revenge of the Sith. They'll never be as good as the originals, but they're not as bad as most fans will have you believe...