Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

I just got back from seeing Star Wars: Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith.

It's hard to believe, but the original film, just plain old Star Wars, appeared almost 30 years ago in 1977. Princess Leia was played by a then 21 year old Carrie Fisher who is now (arghh!!!) nearly 50. That's how much time has gone by.

The original movie was a ground-breaker. If you're not around my age, almost 60, you can't know the thrill it was to see that gigantic spaceship cruise down from the top of the screen at the beginning. We'd never seen anything even vaguely like that before.

Computer graphics hardly existed back then. The spacecraft in the original were scale models, and the difficulty of making them (frequently in several different sizes) limited what could be done. Today, with the aid of photorealistic computer graphics, a sci-fi director can put hundreds or thousands of spacecraft on the screen, all moving independently of each other an with no risk of wires getting tangled.

Even with all the realism however, some things can't be changed and really date this series of films.

Just as when I was a boy in the 1960's I could see all the flaws in the sci-fi films of the 1950's, so anyone who spends much time watching the Discovery or Science channels can point out all kinds of flaws in the more recent star wars.

Let's start with an obvious howler: In a galaxy long, long ago and far, far away English is spoken, even though England doesn't even exist yet.

And while we're at it: Yoda, would it be so hard to take a few night courses and learn proper English syntax? You can hop around like a grasshopper while wielding a light saber, but you still are saying things like "A worried mind have you." Someday one of your Jedi buddies is going to be cut in half while trying to parse something like "Out to your left look. Being attacked are you by clone."

Apparently back then in that galaxy far, far away, a person can hop into a spacecraft in about 10 minutes be at the other side of the galaxy. At least Dune had an explanation (albeit a wacky one) for being able to do this. In Star Wars movies, you just accept that this is possible.

Then, there are all those strange-looking aliens. The problem with them is that if there is life elsewhere, it's probably much more different from us than the Star Wars aliens. It seems like most aliens in Star Wars are based on a human model: two arms, two legs, and a head. The aliens in these movies are basically nothing other than very badly deformed humans.

There's a scene in this film where on one of the alien worlds, the planet apparently has a twin which is so close it looks huge in the sky. The thing is, objects that large and that close would have an enormous gravitational effect on each other which would cause so much internal friction that both planets should probably be so volcanic as to be uninhabitable. After all, our little moon can raise the ocean 60 feet in some places, but if the Moon were the same size as the Earth, the effects would be much more dramatic, and probably incompatible with life. Also, unless the two planets were rotating around each other (or more correctly around their mutual center of gravity), they would be drawn into a collision with each other.

The philosophy in this world is of the penny ante variety. The Matrix actually gives us much, much more to think about. And sometimes the Jedi in this film seemed confused as to right and wrong themselves, breaking their code because Chancellor Palpatine was evil. Well, gee, if your code isn't adequate to help you in the face of evil, isn't it time to hang up your light saber and join The Dark Side?

Of course, maybe the problem the Jedi were having involved the fact that Chancellor Palpatine had the blessing of the galactic legislature, so that if Palpatine (who was planning a kind of coup) was a traitor, in a sense so were the Jedi. Both sides mouthed a support for democracy, but both sides were more or less ready to suspend the galactic constitution in order to get their way.

Just like the Matrix series, the Star Wars series has grown more and more bloated and over-designed as time has gone by. The final Matrix movie was worse, with graphics which were at times so alien and gigantic in scale that it was hard for a mere human to relate to them. The computer-generated interiors, exterior architecture, spaceship design, and battle scenes were just way over the top. The same could be said about the wardrobe and makeup, but at least Natalie Portman's Padme didn't have to wear the kind of outrageous hairstyles and outfits she wore in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.

The idea of the Jedi knight is almost custom-built for the mind of the 13 year old boy, what with special swords, monkish garb, and magical skills, and perhaps that is George Lucas' genius. Even I, at age 58, still find this aspect somewhat cool, but in an embarrassing way, as if I still thought Nehru jackets and Beatles-style "mop top" haircuts were cool.

Someday someone might explain to me how it is that Jedi can be slammed around the room like rag dolls and not break every bone in their body. They are highly-trained warriors with lightning fast reflexes, an ability (through the mysterious "force") to anticipate their opponent's actions, and someother powers that are actually magical. None of this explains how they avoid the many broken bones you'd think they'd have after some of the fight scenes.

One thing that doesn't work very well is the love relationship between Anakin and Padme. I for the life of me can't imagine what she would see in him. From the start, Padme has been wise beyond her years. Anakin has been immature and impulsive.

Of course, a lot of the dramatic tension is gone from the story since the whole story has been told out of order and in a fashion where we already know who lives and who dies, so the movie is not so much about what happens as the how and why.

Even so, I found it an enjoyable two hours, even if during the time it took George Lucas to give us the last three parts of his story, Peter Jackson showed us all how to do an epic by giving us the Lord of the Rings trilogy, much better movies in almost every way.