“There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.”
Revenge of the Sith is one of the most frustrating movies I’ve ever seen.
Don’t get me wrong- it’s good. Parts of it are really good, even. But it could have been so much more. And it’s so frustrating because with a few small tweaks, it could have been up there with the greatest Star Wars movies ever. And for some people, it does make it there- but for me, it falls short.
Today, I wanted to find out why. Let’s take a look at the movie, it’s themes, and what it says about it’s characters, and the universe of Star Wars.
The movie begins with a battle over the skies of Coruscant. Anakin and Obi-Wan are racing towards the Seperatist flagship to rescue the Chancellor from the evil General Grievous. I think this action scene is mostly well done, but I’m not as blown away by it as others seem to be. It sets the trend for the major flaw of the action scenes in this movie- they just go on for so, so long.
The thinking in the Lucasfilm camp at the time was that Revenge of the Sith was going to be the last Star Wars film ever, and so they needed to load it up with as much action and fan service as physically possible. The end result is a film that feels slightly bloated in the action department, with scenes going so long that you begin to tune out of the action.
The scene above Coruscant goes on for almost 10 minutes before we even get to the ship, and once we do, it’s more filler action until we reach the Chancellor’s chambers. This filler action is more forgivable, in my opinion, because it manages to set up Anakin and Obi-Wan’s friendship better than anything in the other prequels. This setup should have happened in Attack of the Clones, but it works well enough here to make Anakin’s fall to evil work on an emotional level.
Once they get to the Chancellor’s chambers and confront Dooku, the real meat of the story begins. We get a glimpse of Anakin’s dark side tendencies when Palpatine manages to goad him into killing Dooku. Anakin is scared that he did this, saying it wasn’t the Jedi way, (Remember that, it’ll be important later.)
Next, the gang escapes the chambers and after some wacky misadventures, gets caught by General Grievous. Grievous is a really weird character in my eyes. He isn’t a bad character, per say, but his function is so strangely apparent. He blatantly only exists so that Anakin can kill Dooku and still have an enemy to face until the Palpatine reveal. As soon as the Sith Lord is unmasked, Grievous is almost immediately disposed of. It’s unusual to have a character that exists so blatantly for the function of the plot.
Once they escape and crash land the ship on Coruscant, Anakin has his reunion with Padme, who reveals that she’s pregnant. This scene has some of Hayden Christensen’s best acting in the whole prequel trilogy, as you can see all the emotions he’d be feeling run across his face at once. Fear, joy, confusion, love, it’s all there.
And then the nightmares begin. Anakin begins to fear for Padme’s life, which is when Palpatine swoops in and begins seeding his distrust in the Jedi Council. This is only exacerbated by the Jedi Council’s suspicions of Palpatine’s true intents, which Palpatine is able to twist into “the Jedi distrust the Republic itself” These scenes should be really good… but again, the stiff direction holds them back. They feel stilted and awkward and exceedingly monotone, making it hard to get invested in the characters, or what’s happening.
That’s not for lack of trying on the part of the actors, however. Ian MacDiarmid is playing Palpatine perfectly, as a friendly father figure with some extremely sinister undertones. When it comes time to take that turn into comical bad guy, he does it exquisitely. I’m so glad he’s back in Episode 9.
Soon, Anakin is so suspicious of the Jedi council that he begins to truly view them as a threat to the galaxy. At the same time, Palpatine is convincing him that maybe the Sith weren’t so bad after all… So when Obi-Wan leaves to confront Grievous, Anakin is alone with only the Chancellor to further seduce him to the Dark Side.
I suppose I should probably talk about the Grievous fight. It’s nothing special, and serves no real purpose other than as an excuse to get Obi-Wan off of Coruscant for Order 66. It’s the same reason Yoda goes to Kashyyyk. Therefore, it’s hard to comment on what it means for the characters or the universe, because it’s just filler action so that the plot with Anakin can progress. It’s part of what lends the movie to feeling long and bloated.
Anyways, once Grievous is dealt with, it’s revealed to Anakin that Palpatine is actually a Sith Lord. (Dun dun dun!) Anakin can’t bring himself to kill Palpatine, so he reports the incident to the Jedi Council. They tell Anakin to stay out of the situation. This leads to what is probably the best scene in the movie, and maybe in the whole prequel trilogy.
Anakin is in the Jedi Council room, looking at Padme’s apartment, as she looks back. The music swells as it becomes clear that they can both feel each other through the Force. It is clear from the tears rolling down Anakin’s face that he’s conflicted about what he should do, eventually turning away from Padme in shame, his face entering shadows, as he makes up his mind and races towards the Chancellor’s office.
Besides the plot implications (plus the first appearance of what could be a preliminary Force Bond), this is one of the scant few scenes in the prequels where the films decides to show, not tell. It doesn’t have the actors standing monotone and stiff-faced, telling us how conflicted they feel. It shows us. With acting, atmosphere, music, and not a single line of dialogue.
As Palpatine fights the Jedi who have showed up to arrest him, eventually he finds himself cornered by Mace Windu. Then Anakin walks in. He sees Mace Windu about to kill Palpatine, when Anakin insists that killing him wasn’t the Jedi way. Mace responds with “He’s too dangerous to be kept alive.”
Did you catch it? That’s exactly what Palpatine said about Dooku. This is when Anakin becomes convinced that there is no fundamental difference between the Jedi and the Sith. He becomes the most terrifying thing in the galaxy- a centrist.
In all seriousness, though, the birth of Vader scene is really good. I honestly get chills when Palpatine gives Anakin the name Darth Vader. And it’s followed up by one of the most genuinely heartbreaking scenes in the movie- Order 66.
We see the Sith Grand Plan finally come to fruition, and in moments, the Jedi Order collapses. The montage of Jedi being taken out by clones, then the attack on the temple, then the final shot of the Temple in flames is really powerful. Again, it’s delivered almost exclusively without words. It shows that when the movie is confident enough to let the scenes speak for themselves, they can be powerful.
Soon Obi-Wan and Yoda are picked up by Bail Organa, and they head to Coruscant to shut off the signal recalling Jedi to the temple. Meanwhile, Anakin goes to Mustafar to kill the remaining Seperatist leaders. Meanwhile meanwhile, Palpatine is declaring the creation of a new Empire in the Senate.
The contrast between these scenes is really cool, especially all of the cuts between Anakin murdering all of the Seperatist leaders, killing the Separatist Alliance, and Palpatine in the Senate Rotunda, killing the Republic. All that is left in the galaxy is the Empire.
Soon, Yoda and Obi-Wan resolve to try and face down the Sith menace themselves. Yoda will face the Emperor, and Obi-Wan will (reluctantly) face down Anakin. After a genuinely heartbreaking scene where Obi-Wan confronts Padme about their secret relationship, Obi-Wan follows a distraught Padme to Mustafar.
The final confrontation scene is really intense. Padme begs Anakin to turn back, but he’s too far gone. In his rage at seeing Obi-Wan again, he chokes his wife to death and begins loudly proclaiming about the glory of his new Empire. Obi-Wan declares he will do what he must, and they begin to fight.
Meanwhile, Yoda confronts the Emperor, and the final fight of the film begins. Or… fights. I’m gonna be honest, I’m kind of mixed on these ones. Like the other fights, they go on for a really long time and are kind of an action overload, and I think the shock kind of wears off at some point, and it just becomes a mess of CG, lightsabers, and flips.
Anyways, the fight ends with Anakin roasted, Obi-Wan in tears, Yoda defeated, and the Emperor laughing. Obi-Wan leaves with Padme, and the Emperor comes to collect Vader. This leads to another very cool sequence of cross-cutting between the death of Padme, and the birth of Darth Vader. The final moments where the mask finally comes on, as Padme insists there’s still good in Vader, is another genuinely very cool moment. No real comments on it other than it’s extremely cool.
The Jedi decide to send the twins, Luke and Leia, away to hide from Vader. The film (and at the time, the saga) ends with a montage of Vader and the Emperor overlooking the Death Star, Leia going to Alderaan, and finally, Obi-Wan returning Luke to the Lars homestead on Tatooine, as Owen and Beru look to the twin sunset, a twinge of hope in their eyes.
Written and Directed by George Lucas.
So what does the movie have to tell us about the characters, and about the universe? Well, there’s a lot to consider here about the failure of the Jedi Order, and what constitutes balance in the Force.
It’s commonly accepted now that the dogmatic view of the Force that the Jedi took was one of the things that ultimately pushed Anakin over to the dark side. They were restrictive and emotionally suppressive, which led him to have unhealthy relationships with the people who actually loved him.
The Jedi Council’s view of the Force is that it’s something to be dispassionately observed, studied, and used- not ever something to feel. The Order spent a very long time teaching their recruits to detach themselves from their feelings in order to become true Jedi. But this clearly doesn’t work, because emotion is natural. Emotion is natural, and so is the Force.
That isn’t to say that the Jedi are bad and the Sith have it right for allowing their trainees to experience the full range of emotions- obviously not, they blow up planets for fun. What the Sith lack, in comparison to the Jedi, is compassion for life. This is evidenced by Anakin’s line to Padme after he kills the Separatist leaders, “Love can’t save you, Padme. Only my new powers can do that.”
This is the final, fatal flaw of both the Jedi and the Sith. They each unbalance the Force by neglecting one of it’s key aspects. The Jedi protect life and justice, but they cut themselves off from feeling anything, and therefore deny themselves the true splendor of life’s emotions. The Sith dive headfirst into emotion and feeling, but they have no regard for the care of the universe itself, only interested in their own personal power.
This fundamental imbalance will (hopefully) finally be answered in The Rise of Skywalker later this year. Because Rey is the perfect balance between the Jedi and the Sith. She cares deeply about the well-being of her friends, and the galaxy. Crucially, however, she isn’t afraid to feel that. Contrast this with Anakin, who cared deeply about his friends but couldn’t ever show it.
When people ask why the sequel trilogy even exists, or why the conflict between good and evil didn’t end on the second Death Star, this is why. Luke kept to the ways of the old Jedi Order, clinging to the failed rituals of the past. In that light, it’s no wonder that another scared Skywalker boy leads another techno-fascist empire to take over the galaxy.
The sequels have already ended the old Jedi Order. Now, with the return of Palpatine, they can finally end the Sith, too. And in their absence, our heroes can finally learn from past mistakes and make an Order that cares about the galaxy, allows its members to feel, and, finally, have balance in the Force.
Thank you for reading! Please tune in next week when we enter the original trilogy era with the underappreciated, yet highly flawed, Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Thanks again for reading, and may the Force be with you- always.
-Owen
Owen Writes about Everything 