Kevin Smith, director of "Clerks", "Chasing Amy" and "Silent Jay
and Bob Strike Back" has just released a review of Episode III
"Revenge of the Sith" on his website. And according to him,
"Sith" didn't disappoint and was "a thousand times darker" than
"The Empire Strikes Back".
Looks like after two lacklustre prequel trilogy episodes, Lucas was
actually saving the best for the last.
* SPOILER WARNING *
"Revenge of the Sith" is, quite simply, f ucking awesome. This is
the "Star Wars" prequel the haters have been b itching for since
"Menace" came out, and if they don't cop to that when they finally
see it, they're lying. As dark as "Empire" was, this movie goes a
thousand times darker - from the triggering of Order 66 (which has
all the Shock Troopers turning on the Jedi Knights they've been
fighting beside throughout the Clone Wars and gunning them down),
to the jaw-dropping Anakin/Obi Wan fight on Mustafar (where - after
cutting his legs and arm off, Ben leaves Skywalker burning alive on
the shores of a lava river, with Anakin spitting venomous
sentiments at his departing mentor), this flick is so satisfyingly
tragic, you'll think you're watching "Othello" or "Hamlet".
I saw a gorgeous digitally projected version of the flick, and
lemme tell ya': this is a beautiful looking film. The opening space
battle sequence is the best in any of the six "Star Wars" movies.
Grievous and Kenobi's lightsaber duel is bad-ass, with Grievous
rocking four sabers. The Clone Wars end rather early in the flick
(about the halfway point), leaving the rest of the film to
concentrate on Anakin's turn to the Dark Side, and the resulting
slaughter of the Jedi.
Perfect example of how dark shi t gets: remember the Younglings -
the kid Jedis in training from "Clones"? As a result of Order 66,
when Anakin invades the Jedi Temple with an army of Clone Troopers,
he enters the Council room to find a gaggle of said younglings
hiding behind the seats. They see Anakin and emerge, asking "What
should we do, Master Anakin?" The query's met with a stone-cold
Anakin firing up his lightsaber. The next time you see the kids,
Yoda's sifting through their corpses on the floor.
Yes, it's just that dark - and rightfully so. This is the birth of
Darth Vader we're talking about. The only comic moments in the
flick are given to R2D2, and while good, they're all pretty few and
far between; the order of the day is dark, dark, dark.
Ian McDiarmid and Ewan McGregor steal the show, but Hayden
Christensen silences any naysayers who wrote him off as too whiney
in "Clones". This is the flick that feels closest to Episodes 4, 5,
and 6, because - for the first time since "Return of the Jedi" -
there is a clear villain. And for all the shadow-play Palpatine has
been upto in the last two flicks, his treachery is about as subtle
as John Williams' score in "Sith." Whether he's slowly drawing
Anakin toward the Dark Side during an opera/performance art piece
with his promise of the Sith's power of life over death, or he's
engaged in a balls-to-the-wall lightsaber duel in the Senate with
Yoda, his "Little, green friend" (his words, not mine - which I
kinda dug, because, interestingly, I think it's the first time
anyone's acknowledged that Yoda is green in any of the "Star Wars"
flicks), this is the Emperor's movie.
The last fifteen minutes dovetail nicely into Episode 4 (or just
plain "Star Wars" for you non-geeks), and the movie is full of
link-up moments as well.
- At flick's end, Threepio and Artoo are given to Captain Antilles
(with the caveat that the Protocol's memory be wiped).
- The twins, natch, are split up. Leia heads to Alderann with Bail
Organa, and Obi Wan hands Luke over to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru
(indeed, the closing shot is Owen holding Luke while looking out
over the setting suns of Tatooine - mimicking the shot of the adult
Luke doing the same in "Star Wars", complete with callback cue from
Williams).
- After he succumbs to the Dark Side, Anakin tries to convine Padme
that he can overthrow Palpatine, and together, he and Padme can
rule the galaxy as husband and wife.
- Vader and the Emperor stand beside a younger Grand Moff Tarkin on
the bridge of a Star Destroyer, overlooking the earliest
construction stage of the Death Star.
- Yoda telling Obi Wan that, as he heads to Tatooine to hand over
Luke and go into exile, that he should spend his time learning to
commune with those who've crossed over to the next stage of life,
as Yoda maintains he's been doing with Qui Gon (and Ben will later
do with both Luke and Yoda, in "Empire" and "Jedi" ).
- And, hands-down, the best link-up to "Star Wars" moment that I
enjoyed the most: Bail Organa and Yoda stepping into the hallway of
the Rebel Blockade Runner that opened "Star Wars". Unlike all the
high-tech CGI wizardry of the rest of the prequel Trilogy, this is
a low-tech looking set, right out of circa '77, and for some
reason, it really captured my imagination. I mean, this is the same
exact hallway in which we got our first look at Vader, oh so many
years ago, and I appreciated the hell out of Mr. Lucas including it
- because it really felt like a nod to the hardcores.
Look, this is a movie I was genetically predisposed to love. I
remember being eight years old, and reading in "Starlog" that Darth
Vader became the half-man/half-machine he was following a duel with
Ben Kenobi that climaxed with Vader falling into molten lava. Now,
twenty six years later, I finally got to see that long-promised
battled - and it lived up to any expectation I still held. I was
sad to see the flick end, but happy to know it's not the end of the
"Star Wars" universe entirely (I've read stuff about a TV
show...).
"Sith" doesn't happen; "Sith" rules.
- Excerpt from Kevin Smith's "My Boring-Ass Life" online diary
