Star Wars III: Revenge of the Crap

Written on May 23, 2005

Revenge is a dish best served by anyone other than George Lucas. This man has single-handedly destroyed the greatest film series ever made. He kept America in suspense for six years as he fiddled with the magnificent creation that was (yes, was) Star Wars and it’s two sequels. Instead of a continuation of the epic drama and high adventure that are standard fare in such a large-scale space opera, we got plastic acting and horrible dialogue. This is the only constant throughout the three movies. Hayden Christensen, certainly the most overhyped bad actor that ever lived, makes Sylvester Stallone look like Jimmy Stewart. Natalie Portman is no Carrie Fisher. The so-called “love” between Anakin and Padm� is practically non-existent. In fact, none of the characters have any real chemistry between them, and the result is this horrible monotone babbling with dialogue that feels like the actors are having bamboo shoots shoved under their fingernails to force them to say each line, when in fact it is the audience that is being tortured. In all three movies. All three!

Ian McDirmid as Palpatine was the most interesting character by far, if only to watch evil as it whispers in your ear. And Ewan McGregor was not nearly as bad as his fellow actors, providing more emotion himself than all the other actors combined — which is still not saying much.

Yes, the movie is interesting because you see the genesis of Darth Vader. Yes, the special effects were nice, but they really weren’t very memorable. Yes, this movie is better than the other two. Yes, it is more interesting, and darker. Yes, there are plot holes and character inconsistencies large enough to fly an Imperial Star Destroyer through. And yes, there is definitely a political agenda at play in this movie.

Comparisons with Titanic have been greatly exaggerated. The only commonality is that at one point in the movie a big ship breaks in half as it nose-dives toward a planet. That’s it. But that happens at the beginning, and the only tragedy in this movie is that it was made by George Lucas!