Sith Happens: 20 Years of "Revenge of the Sith"

It's interesting how the reception of the Star Wars prequels, particularly the first has so dramatically changed over the 26 years since The Phantom Menace came out in 1999. There was plenty of vitriol and disappointment from fans when the film was released, and Attack of the Clones wasn't beloved either. Revenge of the Sith- released 20 years ago this past month- was the most critically well received, and I think fans were more responsive. But overall these well liked movies. Red Letter Media became famous for their "Mir Plinkett" reviews and I think fans who liked them were in a minority.

But over time, with people my age or younger who saw the prequels when they younger, and gained a presence online, the prequels have gone through a resurgence. It's not unsurprising. There's something incredibly nostalgic about this franchise, a certain magic that makes it different from anything in film history. And it feels like we're in a era where everything not immediately beloved is almost reclaimed automatically. Prequel fans say the sequel trilogy will never be reevaluated but never say never, right.

But as the prequels have become more praised, with many claiming they're masterpieces of cinema, I've gone in the opposite direction, becoming critical and negative towards them, though I don't consider them irredeemably bad. They are intriguing contradictions-grand scale achievements that revolutionized filmmaking, but not really great films on a directing, acting, or screenwriting level. George Lucas's greatest gift as a filmmaker is his unique imagination but I think he struggles with, and maybe is a little bit bored, with the more intimate and human parts of storytelling. Lucas set out to create a Shakespearian/Greek tragedy with back drop concerning the fall of democracy, but he also wanted to revolutionize and experiment with new special effects. He ended up getting lost in the technology and not taking enough time to finetune the story and character beats and overall dramatic and political arc of the story. 

But I understand why for my generation Revenge of the Sith is the Star Wars film. I get it. I can see why at 10 or 12 years of age it blew a lot of peoples' mind in the same way the original films did for the previous generation. The opening action sequence, the lightsaber duels, as well as Obi Wan fighting General Grievous, are really spectacular stuff. Revenge of the Sith is the best of the prequels even though the execution of its stories and themes is still uneven. It has the most dynamic pacing and the strongest overall dramatic arc. In the previous two prequels Lucas was too leisurely in his pacing. In The Phantom Menace in particular we spend an entire act before even getting to Anakin Skywalker. And even then it's not really his story. In Attack of The Clones we get more focus on Anakin and an actual internal struggle, something lacking in Phantom Menace, but in Revenge of the Sith, there's more urgency, and it feels like an actual movie.

At the time Revenge of the Sith was supposed to be the final Star Wars film, bringing the saga full circle back to those twin suns on Tatooine, and a lot was riding on it. As I mentioned, many were disappointed with Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones and Lucas had to stick the landing on this one. The critical reception was much better this time, with former New York Times critic A.O. Scott calling it better than the original Star Wars, even though he said it made his inner child shudder. And in 2012, critic Camille Paglia called Revenge of the Sith was the greatest work of art of the last 30 years 

Revenge of the Sith is the most streamlined of the prequels but that turns out to be a double edged sword. As I said earlier, Revenge of the Sith feels more urgent compared the first two prequels and has more forward momentum but at the same time it feels almost too compact and rushed. I think the problem, again, lies in Lucas being too leisurely in those first 2 prequels, with Phantom Menace not really being Anakin's story. While most of the necessary pieces are there in the previous films- leaving his mother, not being accepted by the Jedi, the death of his mother, and his love for Padme (Natalie Portman)- something still feels lacking in the development of his arc. For one, Anakin and Padme's lovey story wasn't organically told. However, you can feel Anakin's desperation in wanting to save Padme when he begins having visions of her dying from childbirth. Anakin had visions of his mother dying and wasn't able to save her in time, so it makes he's so determined to prevent this from happening again.

 We also needed see more of Anakin coming to believe the Jedi were corrupt and a genuine threat, turning so violently against them. It's an interesting angle Lucas takes that Palpatine (Ian McDermid) is kind of right about the Jedi. I do sometimes find it hard to know how to take the Jedi in these films, since we don't really get to know them. The Order 66 montage is superb and, again, it makes this film feel more dramatically immediate, but are the Jedi tragic or are they the cause of their own destruction. I guess it's supposed to be both. If we had seen more of Anakin's friendship with the other Jedi, this sequence probably hits even harder. When Anakin tells Obi Wan (Ewan McGregor) that he should've know the Jedi were taking over and from his point of view the Jedi are evil, it doesn't feel completely earned. I guess the point is Anakin isn't thinking straight and is trying to convince himself that what's he doing is right. Still, when  he says he's brough peace and justice to his new Empire, it doesn't really fit with the motivation of trying to save Padme. There is that red flag scene in Attack of the Clones where Anakin talks about the merits of fascism but it's only briefed touched upon and laughed off.

Revenge of the Sith opens pretty well, the strongest of all the prequels' beginning. I like that we see more of the Anakin/Obi Wan friendship then previously, and Anakin feels more like the mature and skilled Jedi that we heard about in the original film. Christensen's acting has gotten a lot of flak over the years but the way Anakin was conceived and written by Lucas, Christensen's acting is kind of fitting. I do wish we had seen more of the Clone Wars in these films instead of just getting the beginning and the end, and it's another reason why Phantom Menace feels kind of disconnected from the second and third films, with it being more of a set up for a duology rather than part one of a trilogy. The Clone Wars maybe should've been ongoing through the trilogy and we could've seen how it devastated the galaxy, establishing that it was so destructive that people wanted to prevent that ever happening again, which is why Palpatine restructuring the republic in to an Empire and killing off the Jedi is so embraced. For such grand-scaled films we don't see how the politicians actually operate, or how they feel and the wider galaxy feels . It is strange that Lucas doesn't use the death of Anakin's mother, Shmi, as more a catalyst for why he turns against the Jedi, since it is largely their fault for keeping Anakin away from, when he could've saved her if he had gotten to Tatooine. The films don't do enough with the whole "Jedi don't anything about slavery" angle, and how that relates to Anakin, who as a child wanted to save the slaves on Tatooine. The irony obviously is that as Vader he helps oppress the whole galaxy.  

Lucas himself compares himself to Vader, saying he became the very thing he fought against. In Anakin's case it was the Sith, in Lucas' case it was the Hollywood studio systems and corporations. Lucas then became a corporate businessman and the conflict between being an artistically pure filmmaker while also making films that could sell toys is deeply felt in the prequels, as well as Return of the Jedi.

I do give Lucas credit for being ahead of the curve with the whole fall of democracy thing. "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause," spoken by Padme, feels pretty relevant in today's world.  Lucas obviously wanted to parallel real world politics and events, showing realistically in a fantasy setting how a democracy becomes a dictatorship. As much as Star Wars was an escapist fantasy, Lucas always had political messages and allegories he was delivering, basing Palpatine on Nixon, and the Empire on the US. The rebellion is the Vietcong, with the Ewoks being the less technologically advanced society that overtakes a massive war machine. And when Anakin tells Obi Wan "You're either with me or you're my enemy," people have always seen that as a clear allusion to George W. Bush. Lucas always talks how these movies "rhyme," and I'll add that  history repeats itself, which keeps these films very relevant. Palpatine and the Empire can be whatever dictatorship or colonial power you want them to be, they're not  locked in to the 70s. And of course the sequel trilogy is all about having to continuingly fight the same battles. 

Lucas also wanted to show even an innocent child who's good at heart become a fascist monster.. I mean how many people started decent before they became monsters? The first time we Anakin is him asking Padme if she's an angel, the last time is this man stuck in a machine looking over a planet destroying weapon. It's quite an arc.  When Anakin and Obi Wan part before Anakin goes down the dark path, Obi Wan reminds us he has trained Anakin since he was a boy. It's a wonderful moment that makes Obi Wan's final speech to Anakin even more tragic. McGregor really sells the love Obi Wan had for Anakin, probably better than the movies have.  

The film's best scene is arguably where Palpatine tells Anakin the story of "Darth Plageuis the Wise." I don't know if Lucas had someone to punch up the dialogue in this scene but it's really well crafted in showing Palpatine beginning to plant the seeds of distrust in Anakin's mind regarding to the Jedi. We see that Anakin does admire what it means to be a Jedi, even though he has a difficult relationship with the council. I love when Palpatine says "They made you do something that made you feel dishonest," in relation to Anakin being made to spy on him. So warm, so understanding. It's easy to see why Anakin viewed him as someone he could talk to. Did Palpatine have some genuine fatherly warmth for Anakin? Maybe so. McDermid is so good in this film because he knows exactly how to pitch his performance, from seductive and warm to hammy. While actors have struggled under Lucas' direction, McDermid knows what kind of movie he is. 

Another great passage in the film is Anakin and Padme looking across the Coruscant skyline from two different locations, edited to look like they're looking at each other. When Lucas lets the images and John Williams' music do their thing he's at his best. I think Lucas definitely struggles a bit with character arcs and A to B plotting. To be fair Lucas never wanted to be a conventional narrative filmmaker, wanting to do experimental films and documentaries, which is why I think he grapples with character scenes arcs and plotting. His first film, THX-1138, based on his short film, is more abstract and mood driven then plot driven. And American Graffiti is very loose in its and structure and has pretty basic characters. The original Star Wars was probably the most plot driven thing he had done at that point. But even that film is very stripped in terms of plot and character.   

While the montage with Anakin and Padme is splendid. Lucas lets down Portman as an actress and Padme as a character. A big part of that is cutting out her scenes where she's forming the rebel alliance with Mon Mothma and Bail Organa. It feels like she has less screen time then in the previous 2 films and just isn't as proactive. She was essentially the hero of Phantom Menace and she was the one who wanted to go help Obi Wan in Attack of the Clones. For being so important to Anakin's turn, she mostly just sits at home in this film. And I while I get that dying from grief is a real thing, I don't think Lucas really sells just how much trauma she's been though

While Lucas is perhaps the most influential filmmaker of the last 50 years, I feel his fellow fillmakers and friends who came up in that era, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian De Palma are better filmmakers overall. It's hard not to wonder what Lucas would have done if Star Wars hadn't taken over the world and had been more of a modest success. I know directing the film was such a grueling ideal that he didn't direct Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, but again I'm interested in what he would've directed and what his legacy would be. Creating something as game changing as Star Wars is a mighty weight to hold on your shoulders. I think even Lucas views it as a curse sometimes, despite it giving him a permanent place in film history. 

I feel fans have a hard time criticizing Lucas, using the argument that he made the films he wanted to make the way he wanted to make. My problem is this basically negates any criticism of any film, or any piece of art. The artist made it intentionally that way so it's beyond criticism. I get it, Lucas made Star Wars and many fans have such warm feelings towards Lucas that they have difficulty seeing him as anything less than a God. I mean, Lucas is second to none when it comes to creating a whole cinematic universe on screen, more so than something like Marvel, but I feel post Empire Strikes Back, the films start to become more uneven, including Return of the Jedi, even though there's plenty of stuff I like about that film.

I also feel Lucas probably relied a little too much on CGI for the second and third films. I know people will make the argument that more practical effects and sets were used for these films than the originals but it's hard not feel you're often drowning in a computer generated world, especially when you cut to Ewan McGregor walking in a real environment on the set of the Tantive IV. Now, there is some great us of CGI in this film, particularly that shot of the twin suns at the end. And there's Coruscant in general, maybe my favourite planet in the series, and a great representation of what the Republic used to be, as well as a contrast to where Anakin grew up. 

For better or for worse, Revenge of the Sith was the end of an era, the next time we would see Star Wars on screen would be without his involvement. And regardless of how good you think the newer films, one can tell that these are films made without the original creator, films and tv shows that are riffing on what came before. I think Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi is the most ambitious and narratively and thematically curious of the new trilogy, the one closest to having more a directorial vision. I'll probably have to write about that one one day. So, how do you feel Revenge of the Sith on its 20th anniversary. Comment and let me know. 

Begun, the Clone Wars have: "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones" at 20

 

Spoilers Below

For a while I've wanted to talk more about Star Wars on this blog, since along with James Bond and Planet of the Apes, it's probably the most important film franchise for me. With the second installment of the Prequel Trilogy, Attack of the Clones, turning 20, I've decided this was a good opportunity to discuss more of my feelings on the series. Attack of the Clones is perhaps the most maligned of George Lucas' maligned trilogy, though the trilogy now has the same nostalgic reverence of the Original Trilogy. If the older generation hated these films then the younger generation, people my age or younger, really took to them. I still consider myself an OT fan but I was at the right age to like these films when they came out. However, over time  my feelings have grown increasingly complicated. I like things about the PT and dislike others. And you know what, often they're the same things. The PT have great ideas and are conceptually brilliant but the execution of the story is were many of the problems lie. It feels like the scripts are all a couple of rewrites from being really solid, especially the first 2. However, I don't want to focus too much on the PT overall. Instead, let's talk about  Attack of the Clones.

As Scott Mendelson points out in his retrospective piece, by the time Attack of the Clones was released, there were challengers to Lucas' blockbuster throne such as the first The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films. The first Spider-Man came out several weeks before Attack of the Clones and became the highest grossing film of the year, the first time a Star Wars film wasn't the number one grosser. Attack of the Clones also didn't have the novelty of being the first Star Wars movie in 16 years like The Phantom Menace had. That, and since Phantom Menace burned people so badly there was trepidation about this film. Moreover, during the whole prequel era these aforementioned were better received by critics and audiences. 

For those who need a refresher on the plot, it goes like this: Former Queen of Naboo, now senator, Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) survives two assassination attempts and is taken back to Naboo to hide by Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), who has grown infatuated with Padme over the last ten years and is struggling with being so close to her again. Meanwhile his master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) tracks the dart that killed the would-be assassin to the cloning facility on Kamino, where they've been creating a army using the bounty hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison) as a DNA donor. Jango even had the Kaminoans make him a son, Boba, who we know will be the future bane of Han Solo's existence.

If Phantom Menace was an ensemble piece then then Attack of the Clones is the closest the Star Wars series has gotten to a character study. It asks the question we came to prequels to find out: who is Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader. The answer wasn't what fans expected. Making Anakin a nine year old boy in Phantom Menace was Lucas' first subversion of fan expectations. Then in Attack of Clones, instead of a noble, good-head on his shoulders young man with some personal flaws, this Anakin was all flaws. He's petulant, whiney (though I guess that's where Luke gets it from), disobedient, overly infatuated with Padme, and in one scene, murders a bunch of people. Lucas doesn't portray Anakin as a mythic, larger than life hero, the badass warrior who becomes a badass villain. Instead, Lucas saw Anakin as a "pathetic individual." 

I'm conflicted about Anakin's portrayal in this film. It's certainly a unique characterization and psychologically complicated. Anakin definitely had psychological issues which demanded serious therapy. The characterization does a make certain kind of sense. Unlike the other Jedi who were taken from their parents before they grew attached to them, Anakin left his mother when he already formed a bond with her. He grew a crush on Padme and then spent the next 10 years being taught to suppress his emotions. He was never in a relationship with a woman so I can see how his crush grew until it became an obsessive infatuation. Anakin has no idea how to talk to women so his creepy/stalkerish behaviour towards Padme is fitting. 

The problem lies in the execution. Lucas could've gotten away with Anakin being immature and angry if we saw  him mature throughout the film and become the noble warrior and friend Obi-Wan looks back on fondly in the original film. That, and if his infatuation towards Padme was examined and called attention to as being unhealthy. Either that or you establish Anakin as a heroic warrior, albeit a little arrogant. Then you show him crumbling upon meeting Padme again. Despite his confidence in every other area, when it comes to romantic feelings he's very awkward but in a charming and un-stalkerish way. Padme would deal with her romantic feeling in a more diplomatic (since she's a politician). Lucas also could've fleshed out the idea that neither of them had a normal upbringing, having sworn themselves to their duties.

The romance would've made more sense if Anakin was a little older in Phantom Menace. We could've seen more of Anakin and Padme's friendship grow, allowing Padme to have similar romantic feelings towards him. Since he was a little boy in the she could've never had those feelings; and she definitely wouldn't have feelings for Anakin now, not the guy who extolls the virtues of fascism. That's a weirdly handled scene. It's supposed to be cute and is set against the backdrop of hills from The Sound of Music but when he says "If it works" as a response to Padme saying his preferred style of government sounds like a dictatorship it's very dark foreshadowing for what is laughed off and forgotten.

Then there's Anakin's murder of the sand people for the death of his mother, Shmi (Pernilla August). Anakin going off to save Shmi is one of the strongest parts of the film, with Anakin on a speeder bike set against Tatooine's twin sunsets being a visually potent image. It's a shame Lucas is a such a flat visual stylist when he's shooting dialogue scenes. Shmi's death is honestly effective, showing us hints of an emotionally stronger and better film. Anakin's Kubrickian stare before he murders the sand people also showcases Christensen's acting ability which are often lost under Lucas' dialogue. But what I want to get at is Padme's reaction to Anakin telling her about killing "Not just the men, but the women and the children too." She's way too relaxed and even more so than him championing fascism, it makes usus question how Padme could fall in love with Anakin. 

I also feel like Anakin pretty much becomes Darth Vader when he kills the sand people. When you give in to hate and anger is when you turn to the dark side. In Return of the Jedi Luke's pivotal moment is when he almost kills Vader but then grants him mercy. I understand Shmi's death is crucial to Anakin's choices in Revenge of The Sith. His dreams of her dying which came true and he's scared of his dreams of Padme's coming to fruition as well. However, the murdering of the sand people just feels like too much too soon.

Coming back to the romance (there's a lot to talk about regarding the romance), David Lean's Doctor Zhivago was an influence on the film. Lucas even wanted the poster for Attack of the Clones to mimic the poster for Lean's epic romance about the Russian Revolution and Russia's role in WWI, the backdrop for a romance between a Doctor Yuri Zhivago and Nurse Lara Antipova. While Lean was a director who was able to make the scenes between his characters as powerful and memorable as his grand compositions (he also directed one of the great romances with the smaller scale Brief Encounter), Lucas' scenes between characters are often his weakest, due to the dialogue, blocking and compositions lacky dynamism. I know the dialogue in the Star Wars was always intended to be hokey and melodramatic but since this is more complex story, I think the dialogue and the performances should've been on a higher level than in the OT.

The PT is at its most powerful when Lucas allows the images and music to tell the story The image of Anakin and Padme in silhouette being led out to an arena to be executed, with John Williams' love theme playing, says more than Lucas' words could ever do. I wish Lucas did rely less on dialogue to sell us on this romance. Anakin's and Padme's actions should have spoke for them as we saw them grow closer because of the threat on her life. They never feel in danger though, not until they're led out to die with Obi-Wan on Geonosis.

Speaking of Obi-Wan, we unfortunately don't get to see enough of his friendship with Anakin in this movie. I always feel Phantom Menace could've focused on Anakin and Obi-Wan becoming friends, ending with them becoming master and apprentice. Attack of the Clones would then show us how that affects their relationship. There are moments of warmth between Anakin and Obi-Wan but it'd been nice to see more of that great friendship. It's important to remember that Obi-Wan was never supposed to train Anakin. Obi-Wan's master Qui Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) was going to train Anakin against the council's wishes. When he was mortally wounded by Darth Maul his dying wish was for Anakin to be trained, to which Obi-Wan agreed. Both Obi-Wan and Anakin lost a father figure, and father/son relationships are obviously an important theme in Star Wars. So, both Anakin and Obi-Wan are both living in Qui-Gon's shadow and attempting to live up to his high hopes for both of them. I think it was a missed opportunity not to mention Qui-Gon at all in this film. It would've been a good bonding moment if these men reminisced about their surrogate father. 

Obi-Wan gets more to do in this film since he got the shaft in Phantom Menace, with arguably Qui-Gon taking on some of what his role originally supposed to be. His sub-plot in this film ties more in to the larger story of the film, the beginning of the Clone Wars. The Clone Wars were name dropped in the original film but we never knew exactly what they were about. Essentially they were a piece of world-building that made the Star Wars universe more alive, that it was a piece of history everyone knew about. It's established  Attack of the Clones and paid off in Revenge of the Sith that the Clone Wars were the beginning of the end for the Jedi. There was something insidious (Darth Sidious) about the creation of the clones but the Jedi were too-shortsighted to truly to see it. It's an idea that I wish was better presented. The way Lucas portrays it makes us question the Jedi's intelligence. It shouldn't have been so obvious how shady the cloning operation was. However, I love the Imperial March playing over the Clones getting ready for battle at the end. It's another example of how great a filmmaker Lucas can be when he's not relying on dialogue to tell the story, just images and music.

I think Lucas is often a better conceptual director than he is a narrative one. He always been an experimental filmmaker at heart, from his early film school films, including THX 1138, which became the basis for his first feature film of the same name. However, he's not always great at crafting character or story arcs, The plot is driving things rather than the characters' choices.  Anakin doesn't really have a character arc here. He doesn't mature and he's already so infatuated with Padme from the beginning there's not much room for him to go anywhere regarding his feelings, at least not how Lucas goes about it.. Stuff happens in Attack of the Clones but it doesn't feel like there's a real arc to the story. Lucas creates a sound structure but doesn't always know what to do in that structure.   

Attack of the Clones does at least give us a clearer picture of how things will connect to the OT, with the beginning of the Clone Wars and Anakin's romance with Padme. The film in several ways is the key to understanding Anakin's story, the middle chapter and heart of the PT in the same The Empire Strikes Back is the heart of the OT. Though I'd argue Attack of the Clones- as I did earlier- suffers from having to re-introduce Anakin. It would've made the flow of the story from Phantom Menace to Attack of the Clones tighter and stronger if we had the same actor continuing their performance from the first film. So, in cloning, I mean closing, Attack of the Clones is the awkward first step towards Anakin's downfall in Revenge of the Sith. We see the beginning of man's obsession with preventing those he loves from dying, which will lead to death of whom he loves and his own spiritual death. 

So, is Attack of the Clones an underrated masterpiece or does it rank low on your list of Star Wars films? Comment and let me know.