Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith (2005)

“Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order 66.” – Darth Sidious

Number of Times Seen – Between 10-20 times  (twice in Theater including opening night 19 May 2005, DVD and 16 Jan 2014)

Brief Synopsis – In the midst of The Clone Wars, Anakin and Obi-Wan must rescue Chancellor Palpatine from Count Dooku and General Grievous

My Take on it – This was the movie I (and many others) waited for, for over twenty-five years…

As a kid, a friend told me the myth of the 9 chapters of Star Wars.  He only knew bits and pieces (since even Lucas didn’t know it all at the time), but the thing that stuck in my memory was the fact that Kenobi and Anakin fought on a volcanic planet and during that fight he turned into Darth Vader.  Now, at the time, I really didn’t understand what that meant because I imagined Anakin getting covered by lava and then Vader appearing 🙂

The fight sequence on Mustafar which is coupled with Yoda’s fight with The Emperor is done superbly.  These are the ways we all always imagined intense Lightsaber duels would be like.  They were choreographed excellently and it actually completely puts to shame the future duel between Kenobi and Vader aboard The Death Star 22 years later.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The opening sequence involving the rescue of Palpatine is amazing, the fighters weaving in and out, the destruction and chaos all around and the heart-stopping action is truly breath-taking.

I’ve heard that the original cut of this movie was over 4 hours and the rescue itself is over an hour of that.  If anyone knows how to get a copy of that, please let me know.  I’m willing to pay for it…seriously.

Lucas does a great job of slowly building on the friendship between Anakin and Palpatine.  This in effect is the perfect method to keep Anakin confused when the time came for him to decide what to do; which ultimately turns fatal for Mace and 3 other Jedis (and the rest of the Jedi order)

Speaking of Mace, he is once again bad-ass here when he takes on The Emperor and almost beat him (if Anakin wouldn’t have interfered).  Samuel L. Jackson was right and his character doesn’t go out looking like a “punk”.

Anakin, (who obvious has some kind of an emotional disorder) is very distraught and confused and on the spot decides that he must remain true to his friend Palpatine in order to learn how to save Padme’s life.  He is sent to the Jedi Temple to slaughter all of the “rebellious” Jedi while The Emperor informs the clones that they should execute Order 66 – i.e. kill all Jedi without prejudice.

This scene is so sad to me that I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I saw the Clones kill one by one, their Jedi Generals.  The only happy note was the fact that Yoda sensed something and beheaded two clones in one swoop and then was safely sent away by his compatriots, the Wookies (including Chewie!!!!  Yay!!)

The battle scenes are truly epic here.

Once again Yoda proves that “size matters not” as he fights The Emperor (and almost wins).  I loved how Yoda overpowered Two Imperial Guards with just the flick of his hand and showed The Emperor how powerful a little green guy can be.

This movie ends with the infamous Harry Potter scene (which is funny that that’s the way it is referred to since the concept of Owen and Beru getting little Luke came into being long before anyone even heard of HP, even JK Rowling). If you listen carefully, John Williams adds into his SW score notes from HP just at the moment Luke is handed over.

Special effects are truly wondrous here and even if Lucas doesn’t know how to write dialogue, he sure as hell knows how to think up special effect moments in a movie.

Bottom Line – Very worthy final chapter in the prequel trilogy. Ties in very nicely with the original trilogy.  Amazing Special Effects and Music.  Still crappy dialogue, but the story is done extremely well. Highly Recommended!

Rating – Oscar Worthy

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