With Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the Star Wars saga comes full circle back to the very beginning.
There has been a lot of buzz recently about how good this movie is. I’ve partially read some early reviews, keyword being partially because these early reviews are mainly from the Internet and contained mainly spoilers. While I was skimming through the reviews, what I read regarding the acting, action and story were very encouraging. This made me very excited about the movie. However, the empty hollow feeling that I got after watching the over-hyped but underperformed Phantom Menace was still fresh in my memory. Keeping this mind, I walked into the cinema feeling hopeful but cautious.
After 2 hours and 20 minutes, my initial feelings of doubts about the new Star Wars movie were unfounded.
Revenge of the Sith is very good by the prequels’ standards- which is not to say a lot because quite frankly apart from being technical achievements, the prequels are quite bad. It is also good when compared to the original trilogy, especially when compared to the Jar-jaresque Return of the Jedi.
The story of Sith picks up 3 years after the end of the previous movie, Attack of the Clones. The movie opens with Anakin Skywalker and Obi-wan Kenobi, zipping above and under Republican ships on orbit over Coruscant, on their way to rescue Chancellor Palatine who had been kidnapped by a Separatist strike force. The first 20 minutes of the film shows off the valiant and resourceful duo as they sliced and diced their way through a fierce but visually brilliant space battle. The opening action climaxed when Anakin is faced with a choice to either slay Dooku or to bring him to justice. Palpatine prompts Anakin to do the former and it is the first step down the slippery slope into the dark side for the young Jedi. Of course, for those who do not know yet- Palpatine is Darth Sidious (Darth who? The guy behind the robe in the Phantom Menace who gave orders to the oriental accented Neimodians).
But the fight is not over yet. They meet the new villain for this movie, a prototype man-machine hybrid by the name of General Grievous. The general was once a living being who has been supplemented with robotic limbs and exo-skeletal shielding. The machine parts give him strength, agility and speed and it is implied that he is a slayer of Jedi. A fight ensues and just when the odds are tipped against Grievous, he smashes the window of the ship and makes his escape, leaving Anakin, Obi-wan, Palpatine and R2-D2 to land what is left of a ship down on the narrow streets of Coruscant.
Withouth a doubt, this is has got to be one of the best and action packed opening of any movie. The action is exciting and the fantastic visual effects serve the story very well by making what seemed to be improbable to be real.
The comradeship and chemistry between Anakin and Obi-wan is so much more better this time. Unlike the young Padawan in Attack of the Clones, Anakin has matured to become a Jedi Knight, no longer the student of Obi-wan but a compatriot. Indeed, this is also reflected in later scenes where Anakin addresses Obi-wan by his name rather than “master??? and how Obi-wan sings praises of young Anakin. In fact, Anakin takes Obi-wan as the father that he never had and Obi-wan regards Anakin as a dear friend and warrior.
Back in Coruscant, Anakin reunites with Padmé Amidala and she tells him that she is pregnant. Of course, this poses a little problem for our star-crossed lovers. Though secretly married, he is Jedi and she is a senator, news of their relationship would change them for the worse. Anakin could be expelled from the Jedi order and Padmé could be asked to step down. But luckily for them, they do not have to find out what could happen to them because the end for everyone is coming.
After that news, Anakin begins to have premonitions of Padmé dying during childbirth. These premonitions are similar to the kind that he had 3 years ago about his mother. He feels then that he had let his mother down in Tatooine and he is not about to lose Padmé. He is obsessed with finding ways to prevent the death of another love one. And it is with this obsession that Anakin accelerates his fall to the Dark Side of the Force.
Ever since the freed slave boy came to Coruscant, Palpatine has been keeping a watch on Anakin. The Sith Lord has been plotting behind the scenes to create a war so that he can publicly manipulate the bureaucracy of the republic and seize power. He has mentoring, advising and caring for Anakin so that one day, when the time is right, he can turn Anakin to the dark side of the force. And with the increasing strength that Anakin gained over the past 3 years, the time is almost at an end. Unbeknownst to Anakin of Palpatine’s true identity, Palpatine tells Anakin that only with the power of the Dark Side of the Force can one stop death and achieve immortality for oneself or for loved ones. Anakin, of course, is more than curious.
The Jedi, however, are increasingly worried over Palpatine’s ascension as he seizes more civil liberties and gives himself more power. They see Palpatine as a crafty politician who may not be what he seems as he had managed to stayed as Chancellor for so long. They suspect that Palpatine’s intention may not be noble after all and that all he is really after is power and more power. But stretched thin as they are, they have no choice but to lead Republican clone armies in their desperate attempts to assist planets from being overtaken by the Separatists. And now, news is that Kashyyk, the homeworld of the wookies are in trouble. Yoda volunteers for this mission while Obi-Wan investigates the whereabouts of General Grievous. Anakin, meanwhile is secretly given the role of spying on Palpatine by the Jedi Council, a role that he reluctantly agrees to do.
From this point on the movie gets really, really dark.
His concern about Padmé’s destiny, being caught in between the Jedis and Palpatine, Anakin is torn between the interests of the 3 polar opposites. And the difficult choices that he has to make will not only influence him and the people around him but also the fate of the galaxy.
Moving the story along, Anakin chooses the Dark Side of the Force in order to save Padmé and the termination of the Jedi begins. In one of the more moving scenes in any Star Wars movies, Palpatine gives Order 66, a galactic wide alert to all clone troopers to kill all Jedi in sight. Here, the movie cuts between scenes of Jedis being killed unsuspectingly by their own clone armies in different planet and one is reminded of a similar scene at the end of the Godfather when Michael Corleone gave the order to destroy all of his enemies.
Even the younglings shown in Attack of the Clones were not spared as Anakin made it his own mission to destroy them and the Jedi temple itself.
In the midst of this Yoda and Obi-wan survived Order 66 and team up with Senator Bail Organa to save whatever that they can. One of the first thing that they must do is to return to Coruscant and to disable a trap asking all Jedis to return to Coruscant. Meanwhile, Palpatine turns the situation to his advantage by saying the Jedis committed treason and in order to provide security for the citizens of the Republic, he is remaking it into an Imperial government with him as the first emperor.
Yoda and Obi-wan decides to split up to take on the pair of Siths. Yoda confronts Emperor Palpatine while Obi-wan tricks Padmé into bringing him to meet Anakin in the volcanic planet of Mustafar. The flight scene between Yoda and the Emperor plays out on the floor of the Galactic Senate and for once, the audience can see how frail and helpless Yoda is against the more powerful Emperor. Yoda is overpowered and he escapes.
Meanwhile, Anakin force chokes Padmé, thinking that she is responsible for bringing Obi-wan to kill him. After dropping her down on the floor, former student and master fight. The duel between the former student-master and later partner pair leaves Anakin broken and battered.
The final few moments of this movie ties all of the loose ends of the prequels to the original trilogy. Anakin, though now limbless and horribly scarred, is rebuilt as the half-man, half-machine heavy breathing Darth Vader. Padmé gives birth to twins, Luke and Leia and dies of as a result of heartbreak. Yoda and Obi-wan go into hiding until a suitable moment presents itself again to take on the Sith master and apprentice.
With the element of suspense gone, George Lucas’ job was all the more difficult. Coming from two critically disappointing prequels, fan expectations are low but almost every fan (including me) wanted to see the saga ends (or how the saga began, depending on how you see it) on a high note. We’ve been waiting 18 years to see who Darth Vader was before the helmet and why did he turn to the Dark Side of the Force in the first place.
The cleverness of Revenge of the Sith is not in it’s ending but in the human drama that occurs in the middle of the movie. It chronicles the choices that Anakin has and the path that he chooses at the end of the day. Given the same choices, I wonder if anyone would have so differently.
In fact after watching this movie, our perception of Darth Vader changes substantially. Before this, the only humane moment of Darth Vader came at the end of Return of the Jedi when he picked up an anorexic Emperor and threw him down a shaft to save his son, Luke. With Revenge of the Sith, we now understand that Anakin is really the hero of the whole Star Wars saga. It chronicles how a slave boy was rescued, trained, rose to fame, fell in love, made some bad choices and repented at the very last moments of his life.
In fact, through the eyes of Anakin, he really believed that he is doing nothing wrong. By siding with Palpatine, he chose to believe that the Jedi and Sith are 2 sides of the same thing and they could not possibly exist peacefully side by side. He chose to believe that power is absolute and strength came from the display of such power. He chose to believe that if one is not with him, then one is his enemy. But deep down, Anakin has been trained to see things very differently. He has been taught to be selfless and giving. This duality in Anakin played up in the very first scene with Darth Vader. After taking his first few infamous breaths through the artificial respirator, Darth Vader/Anakin asked about the whereabouts of Padmé.
The Jedis are far from being faultless by bringing about their own destruction. By putting Anakin, by far their most powerful Jedi, into a situation where he has to choose, they are pushing him towards Palapatine. The interfering of the politically naïve Jedis into galactic politics made them pawns in Palpatine’s ascension to the imperial throne.