*cue music*
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a man named George Lucas made a trilogy of movies that were original in their medium and became icons of their time, even though, objectively speaking, they were quite shallow in plot and characterization. But there is no denying that Lucas developed a universe with a grandeur no movie had as yet managed to achieve, and his achievement lived on for decades after he released it.
Then he decided to make prequels. But as with many noble intentions (if by noble you mean lucrative), he was tempted by the Dark Side, succumbing to the deep temptation of losing all subtlety in the search for greater grandeur in setting. In The Phantom Menace he suffered from pandering to childhood, and opened himself to the old general critique of SF: "for children." In Attack of the Clones, he proved he should not be permitted near any romance dialogue on pain of being subjected to horrible romance dialogue.
But now, in the final test, George Lucas makes Revenge of the Sith...
*pan down, music quietens*
But seriously, Revenge of the Sith is a considerable improvement over the previous two prequels. Yes, Anakin/Vader is acted by a truly wooden actor...but I think his inability to act anything other than "petulant teenager" is a feature, not a bug. It very much fits inwith someone who is easily twisted into evil. Yes, there is still horrible romance dialogue...but less than last time. What impressed me the most about it was that Lucas was willing to do horrible things to his characters, which was precisely what was necessary for writing this tragedy. The irony of the ending was a nice touch; from then we can see how, psychologically, Darth Vader would have no choice but to bury his Anakin self once and for all (well, at least until the last scene in the throne room) and self-justify by devoting himself to the Emperor.
So there was lots of annoying stuff; C3PO could have been cut out of any number of scenes. On occasion, Palpatine descends into caricature. But the agony of the Jedi was worth it.
One interesting thing about the story is the essential necessity of patricide and fratricide among the Sith. There can only ever be two, we are told; so to become an apprentice, one has to kill an apprentice, and to become a master, one has to kill him too. We knew that this happened in Return of the Jedi, but we know in the prequels that it is systematic. I can't help but see a political comment there, even if unintentional: the Jedi are the essence of solidarity, their fighting style invested in Force-coordinated action in concert, suffusedwith a mutual feeling that spans the galaxy. The Sith are pure competition for power, where the apprentice is always the rival and near-enemy of the exploitative Master, and always seeking to dethrone him, and where the apprentice must stab the rival in his back. Thus to bring "balance" to the force, Anakin/Vader must do both, once in the prequel and once in the original series. In the original series, he must rejoin the collectivity of the Jedi by committing a sort of patricide, and agree to yield his own life for this. Since many will not have seen the movies by now, I won't tell you what he has to do in the prequel. But his destruction of the Emperor can be seen as resulting in a balanced force: destructive rivalry and creative solidarity.
Unfortunately, today I see us having tilted far over to one side...and bringing balance to the Force won't be easy but sadly quite painful. I hope that we are spared this, and maybe if we're lucky we will. May the Force be with you.
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