Blog 86: Episode III - Revenge of the Blog

Current Jerky Style: Kippered

So, Episode III right? I'm sure if you're reading this you've read the internet before so you must have seen at least one other review of this film by now. But they all suck compared to mine. And with that I'm not really even going to try that hard.

Episode III did what so many people hoped it would do: not suck as bad as Ep. I and II. But did it "not suck" enough to redeem them? Yes. Did it "not suck" enough to redeem George Lucas? No. NONONONONONO NO! He's still a fuck ass for more reasons than I care to commit to the annuls of my sacred blog. But the film? The opening 10 minutes of the film was cooler looking than anything he's put in any movie ever, it not only showed off the CGI, which Luc-ass loves to do, but it showed it off in a way that was exciting instead of just flashy. It was a space battle that is so far in my mind unequaled, and that's saying a lot cause I hold a special place in my heart vacant for awesome space battles. I won't say the movie went down hill from there but it's at about that point that the script starts being recited by the characters, which is often the worst blow a Luc-ass film can take. I will give them credit though, in this film they stayed a bit away from the highly uninteresting and mostly useless attention to the daily policies and politics of The Republic that took up so much time in the first and second pictures. There are a few key scenes in that donut honeycombed senate dome, one involving actual senators and one involving pinball Yoda bouncing around like old school Samus Aran on a wall jump frenzy kicking the ass off Darth Sidious. But at least they didn't talk about politics, I mean who really wants to watch Space C-SPAN? Moving on. As I mentioned before the script was probably the most grueling part of the movie. As always the dialogue was stale and predictable, the words sucking the ability of the actors to emote any of the intended subtext from the lines, leaving some scenes that were supposed to be tense feeling comical, and some moments that were intended to be touching and deep to feel more like a high school drama exercise, what with the awkwardness and overacting. And overacting there was, or maybe underacting, either way the scenes, specifically between Padmé and Anakin, did little to make the implied relationships between characters seem like they had history or depth. If they didn't come right out and tell you, you'd never know that Padmé and Anakin were deeply and secretly in love, and you'd never believe that Obi-Wan and Anakin had spent countless adventures and 13 steady years at eachother's sides. Without laying another boot on the dead horse's ass: the script sucked. The best parts of the movie were the saber fights where the only dialogue was grunting and gasping and the scenes where ships take off and land (which takes up literally 25 minutes of the movie). We do get to see the creation of Vader and the reasons why he looks like humpty dumpty in Return of the Jedi when Luke pops off his lid. We get to hear the voice speak fresh words for the first time in 22 years, unfortunately one of them is "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!". In that context, the arms held out, screaming to the heavens. He could have been holding a dead child in his arms it was that bad. I mean, I grew up with a Vader that only spoke threats and sinister commands. He choked guys for no reason, he blew up planets for fun and his chain of command had a higher turn-around than McDonalds! I'd almost request an Episode 3.5 just to see the 20 year span of Vader flexing his iron grip on the star systems and becoming less of the Emo Vader and more of the "You have failed me for the last time...(choke)" Vader.

Without giving away too much of the film I'll say a few words in closing. Jar Jar is in there for a second but he doesn't open his mouth, thank God. Obi-Wan rides a giant lizard. You get to see a little Death Star. It's dark, it's broody, it's got lava and it's got dismemberment and 3rd degree burns. It ends with all the pieces falling together to lead to A New Hope, but it leaves you wanting those missing spaces afterwards. It's not all it could have been but it's all we get, and we can only hope that Luc-ass never gets short on cash and decides to make 7, 8 and 9.

My final rating: Out of a possible 10, considering the tainting it owns from it's predecessors: 6. It's better than the first two but it's still inexcusable that the classic trilogy had to endure so much embarrassment and tragedy just to tell 7 hours of story that could have been summed up in one 2 hour film.