Each time I see Revenge of the Sith...
- Thread starter zenophite
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Avilos
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If that is the case maybe you should stop watching it...
Of course it doesn't actually get worse but it seems to me like the flaws in the whole prequel series seem to more and more outweigh the good points. Perhaps all of that wonder built up for star wars as a child is finally running out and the inanity of the storyline decisions Lucas made are taking the forefront.
I know, maybe i should stop watching it but there's still an 8 year old in me somewhere that jumps at the mention of star wars I guess....
I know, maybe i should stop watching it but there's still an 8 year old in me somewhere that jumps at the mention of star wars I guess....
I feel the same way about Forrest Gump.
Well, certain flaws in the dialog probably stick out more.
But to me, that movie will always be great. Seeing that final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan in theatres with surround sound was one of the most epic experiences of my life.
But to me, that movie will always be great. Seeing that final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan in theatres with surround sound was one of the most epic experiences of my life.
So stop watching it.
Generally, I've found all the prequel films get worse the more one watches them. This is even true of AOTC, which I loved, loved, loved when it was released in theaters. I still like it a lot, and would rank it up with ROTJ, but some of the luster has worn off.
And given that I hated ROTS as soon as I watched it, the less said the better...
And given that I hated ROTS as soon as I watched it, the less said the better...
Yeah, as much as it is generally disliked, AOTC is actually my favorite of the three prequels.
I watched it once and that was enough for me
But in defense of Lucas, once up a time the man was a visionary. He made a really great first movie. Now when I say "first" I don't mean Phantom Menace I mean Episode IV !! It had a great fairytale like story, great styled old spaceship models, its dialog didn't suck so much and it had great actors like Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness (who hated the movies so much he asked to be written out of them). Then some where along the line StarWars stopped being about story telling and scifi more about a money hungry Lucas trying to make money from kids with things like Fozzie bear Yoda, JarJar and Ewoks. Sith has many problems, Anakins mannequin portrayals in the new trilogies makes you appreciate actors like Mark Hamill much better. Sith had poor lines of dialog, it was too dark, too predicable. However one good thing about Sith is Jar Jar Binks isn't really in it.
But in defense of Lucas, once up a time the man was a visionary. He made a really great first movie. Now when I say "first" I don't mean Phantom Menace I mean Episode IV !! It had a great fairytale like story, great styled old spaceship models, its dialog didn't suck so much and it had great actors like Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness (who hated the movies so much he asked to be written out of them). Then some where along the line StarWars stopped being about story telling and scifi more about a money hungry Lucas trying to make money from kids with things like Fozzie bear Yoda, JarJar and Ewoks. Sith has many problems, Anakins mannequin portrayals in the new trilogies makes you appreciate actors like Mark Hamill much better. Sith had poor lines of dialog, it was too dark, too predicable. However one good thing about Sith is Jar Jar Binks isn't really in it.
One thing I've gathered from reading these boards is that opinions on the Star Wars movies, especially the prequels, are far from uniform. To round things out, my favorite of the prequels is The Phantom Menace. (Yes, really! Even with its annoyances, I think it's true to the wonder of Star Wars in a way that the others aren't.)
Revenge of the Sith has stayed about the same for me; I had mixed feelings about it when I saw it, and I still do, meaning that it comes out being mediocre.
The problem was less darkness or predictability and more shitty pacing and plotting. All the important stuff happened in the last act, with barely any conntecing material holding it together. It was like Lucas has some enormous checklist of things he needed to do to transition to ANH, and he just ran through it as fast as he could in that last 40 minutes, without regard to whether or not the events made sense in context.
Case-in-point: Padme's death. She needed to die so she'd be out of the picture for ANH, but there wasn't anything in the story up to that point that really motivated it. So she just...dies, for no reason. Because she has to. Oh, and the spits out the names "Luke" and "Leia," apropos of nothing, because the twins need names, after all.
And this all comes on top of a film that spent the bulk of its running time showing us all sorts of irrelevant stuff, like Obi-Wan chasing a cyborg around on a giant lizard. Did we really need to see that? I would much rather have had that time devoted to the material that got shunted into the final act. Even when I was watching the film for the first time, I was cognizant throughout that the clock was ticking down on the last ever Star Wars prequel, and that this precious screentime was being wasted on noise and eye candy that signified nothing. It made the compressed nature of the last act feel like even more of an insult.
Much as I'm also bothered by TPM, I know what you mean. The world of the Star Wars galaxy feels more real and expansive in that film than in either sequel. Perhaps it's the reliance on more model-work and less CGI environments, but TPM manages to make the Mos Espa spaceport feel huge and solid, and the hills of Naboo look like real grassy fields on an alien world. For whatever reason, the background worlds in both AOTC and ROTS were never quite able to escape the feeling of being synthetic contrivances projected onto a big screen.
That said, the sense of wonder is why AOTC is my personal favorite; the arena battle and clone armies alone were joyous to watch on the big screen. The feeling after walking out of the theater the first, second and even third time was of having just ridden an amazing roller coaster of an adventure film. It's a shame that ROTS couldn't keep that momentum going.
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I thought the prequels got progressively better. Without necessarily ever becoming very good; just better than the films which preceded them. I tried to watch Attack of the Clones recently, I just couldn't. Blanked out at the eight minute mark. And there's a lot I like about that movie, the fantastic visuals; the lush romantic theme...
Revenge of the Sith is the movie that contains most of the stuff that Lucas had thought out in his head years ago, according to him. I think it was something like seventy percent with TPM having around ten. Frankly, it shows. It's the most compelling of the prequel trilogy; though not without significant flaws. But I think most of its flaws were present in the previous films as well.
Revenge of the Sith is the movie that contains most of the stuff that Lucas had thought out in his head years ago, according to him. I think it was something like seventy percent with TPM having around ten. Frankly, it shows. It's the most compelling of the prequel trilogy; though not without significant flaws. But I think most of its flaws were present in the previous films as well.
I find that each prequel gets progressively worse. Mostly due to decreasing amounts of Liam Neeson, increasing amounts of Hayden Christensen, a degenerating performance from Ian McDiarmid, increasing boredom from Ewan McGregor, a worsening role for Natalie Portman, more and more tedious space battles, and an increasingly phoned-in score. Oh, and General Grievous was forty times cooler in the cartoon.
Which all goes back to when the entire Star Wars universe jumped the shark - Return of the Jedi. No one ever wants to admit it but Lucas never could write. His first trilogy involved two good acts and when it came to ending it - he couldn't. So he switched protagonists midstream, and we were suddenly watching Anakin's redemption from evil instead of Luke's triumph over evil (which is what the story had been so far). The prequels never had a chance because the good story Lucas was telling, the compelling story - he abandoned before he ever even finished it, making the whole effort (that is all of Star Wars) fundamentally flawed from the get go. From a storytelling point of view that is. If you like animated action figures and space battles and what not, I suppose it's fine.
Well, you don't actually outline what you think the flaws are. You just say, "It gets worse each time I watch it." You don't actually discuss its merits or lack thereof -- just your aesthetic reaction. Further, you do so in regards to a topic that has been discussed to death on this board, and you seem to imply that you've discussed it before by virtue of your not including the details of why it's bad.
In short, you don't so much come across as wishing to rationally analyze the film's weaknesses as you do someone who repeatedly watches a movie he doesn't enjoy, which is irrational.
Thespeckledkiwi
Vice Admiral
I think it doesn't help when new stories are coming out and the writing is so much better.
