Visuals 10, Plot 2

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2005)

SW3 Revenge of the Sith is the most visually stunning and graphically satisfying movie I've ever seen. It was an immense cinematic achievement to get all those incredible scenes on the screen. Yet, the plot bothers me no end. Yes, I understand that George had to connect all the dots, fill in the storyline gaps, and portray how the arch-villain Darth Vader came to be. Still, what a great movie it COULD have been - if George's hands hadn't been tied to that downer of a plot.
Just one of the deleted scenes on the DVD, where Obi-Wan and Annakin escape the lair of General Grievous, gives us a teaser of what a marvelous treat this movie might have been. An involved and appealing plot concerning the adventures of these two powerful daredevils, complementing each other's strengths and weaknesses while overcoming the most nefarious of enemies throughout the galaxy, could have been a classic of science fiction movie-making to rank with the best. (And at least once in the script, one would have to say to the other, "I have a bad feeling about this.") Their chemistry, as depicted in that one deleted scene, was the stuff great movies are made of.
But it was not to be. We had to stolidly sit through what we all knew was going to happen anyway. Annikin would be seduced by the Dark Side, Padme would die while giving birth to Luke and Leia, and Obi-Wan would leave his friend and apprentice in agony on the lava flows of Mustafar. What a shame. Still, as Emperor Palpatine might have said, "It is inevitable." But I still wonder if it would do any good to petition George Lucas to make a new movie based on the very appealing adventures of Obi-Wan and Annikin. I'm sure we could thoroughly enjoy their swashbuckling light saber battles throughout George's galaxy without contemplating what lies in their future.