Nothin' but Star Wars

Some things about Star Wars Episode III, which I finally saw today. When it came out, I just wasn't especially interested in the prequels anymore - and then of course I bought The Art of Star Wars; Episode III, which is like all concept art books, where you get to see enough art for any four movies, all of which would've kicked ass. As far as I'm concerned, I'm basically into the prequels thanks to Iain McCaig, Terryl Whitlatch, Dermot Power and Doug Chiang. So I didn't feel really compelled to actually see the finished product until a friend suggested hey, it's an okay movie and I should just to gain closure.

So watching the movie 8 years after the fact...

• There's a good movie there - it's visually stunning! - but pacing and dialogue are off. The "we're having a baby!" dialogue between Anakin and Padme is like something out of a teenager's bad Inu-Yasha fanfic or something. Palpatine's dialogue with Anakin is merely unconvincing (and it's really hard to swallow that the same dude went from "I don't really want to work with Palpatine but it's my only chance to save Padme" to "I must murder these undertrained children for the sake of my Empire!" in one scene.) The most emotionally convincing part of the movie is when Anakin's sitting and waiting to find out what's happened to the Chancellor, and waiting and sitting, and sitting and waiting until he finally reaches a decision - and that part's got no dialogue. And again every time Yoda opened his more-enlightened-than-thou trap, I couldn't stand the character. I'm supposed to believe he's like Milarepa in a good mood and instead he's just a massive uncompassionate dickhead.
  
  
• Pacing. That first part where the Jedi board the ship, defeat Count Dooku, and rescue the Chancellor despite all odds, reads as something that's supposed to be a fast-paced super exciting hook to get you interested - more like the beginning of the Indiana Jones films rather than how it's paced more like the dungeon crawl which is the middle third of Ep IV. I think because there's not enough cuts between different actions the whole thing doesn't really work as that, either.
  
  Or there's this potentially brilliant sweeping action where Grievous' shuttle enters the Utapau system, he deplanes as it lands, and sweeps into a private conference room to talk to Darth Sidious. It's an awesome idea but the timing on it is all drawn out somehow.
  
  Or there's the fight between Yoda and Darth Sidious which is just crummy. Part of that for me is that by this point Yoda's now been firmly established as this completely unsympathetic jerk and I'm starting to burn out on oh, yeah, now they're going to fight each other with telekinesis after they have a lightsaber fight and oh there's some Force lightning in there. Yeah fine I know Yoda doesn't kill the Emperor let's fast forward a bit please.
  
  Then there's the final combat on Mustafar, which has this awesomely cool element of the two guys riding droid platforms down a river of molten lava while fighting. This is such a neat fight that I sort of wish they'd gotten to it really quickly, instead of having all the fighting on the gantry crane.
  
  And the ending is interminable. By now Star Wars is as ingrained in my understanding of the world as the basics of Norse mythology. Look, I know that Luke winds up with the Lars family, Leia winds up with the Organas, Threepio gets his CPU reimaged, Yoda goes into exile, and the Empire's building a Death Star. I don't need to see all of this - I kinda wish they'd done some much faster cutting between those story elements if they had them at all.
  
  
• Vader's "nooooo!" People have talked about how crummy this was, and it does successfully reduce all the tragedy of what's happened into a cliche. Here's how I would do it; Anakin regains consciousness. He crushes bits of droids through telekinesis, breaks his bonds and walks forward first shakily and then without flaw on his new prostheses. He has just gotten past certain death, survived where Obi Wan failed to kill him, the Chosen One destined to wield greater powers than Jedi or Sith. And then he asks about Padme and gets the answer... and immediately the Dark Lord sags, shoulders slumping, head lowered. No words. No "noooo!"
  
  
• I think the last chunk of the movie, with Obi-Wan handing over baby Luke, is incredibly depressing. I mean... here it's sunset and, now with their newly adopted child, Beru joins Owen as he looks across the expanses of desert, watching the binary stars set, like Luke does in Episode IV. Wait a moment. Owen used to be the sort of guy who'd take time to watch the suns set. I imagine that 18+ years of sandpeople raids, equipment failures, and just trying to get hydroponic farming going in this inhospitable place where nobody should theoretically be farming anyway, turns Owen from the guy who used to watch the suns set, into the dude you see in A New Hope who couldn't care less because darnit he needs to sleep so he can be up in 8 hours to do more of the same stuff.

Again, it's not a bad film! It's potentially a really good movie, just it's so weirdly whatevered enough that it winds up being "eh, okay for nothing else being on in the hotel."