Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005)

"So this is how liberty dies - to thunderous applause"

Introduction

Star Wars Episode III is what everyone was waiting for. The title "Revenge of the Sith" already had the Star Wars fans excited for the final prequel. Hopes were dashed in Phantom Menace and they were further corrupted by the love-story of Attack of the Clones ... now we were to see Anakin truly become Darth Vader. The teasing of Anakins "medochlorians" through to the arrogant Anakin we saw in Attack of the Clones was now to come full circle as he turned to the Dark Side. Apprently, many things were changed during the production of this film as Lucas had planned this film even before Attack of the Clones. The focus had to be fully upon Anakin - nothing else could distract us from his fall from grace. Plot-points that involved understanding the deletion of the galaxy Kamino and showing Han Solo at the age of 10 were scrapped so that we would be fully immersed in Anakin. There is a side to me which would have had a kick out of seeing Han Solo as a child ... but, considering how much I enjoyed Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith I don't think I would want to change anything at all. Who knows - maybe in ten years time, Lucas will add the Han Solo scene in anyway. And he will scream "No-o-o-o-o!" as little Han see's Anakin for the first time.

At the End of the Clone Wars...

Revenge of the Sith begins three years into the Clone Wars as Jedi's defend the Republic in the face of the separatists that continue to rebel against them. We see the Jedi meetings whereby multiple Jedi's are not physically present as they defend their own planets. But at least, unlike Attack of the Clones, we see Obi-Wan and Anakin on a mission together. They are more confident and know exactly how to use their strengths. This is what Attack of the Clones should've shown more of - our two lead characters "kicking ass". What is strange is how we already know that the leader of the Republic - Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is a bad guy - we know he is Darth Sidious. The entire farce about Palpatine being "taken prisoner" is even more interesting - as an audience, we virtually know more than every character on screen. Grievious doesn't realise who Palpatine truly is, Anakin doesn't realise how he is being used, Dooku doesn't realise how expendable he is ... as we know Anakin is who Palpatine really wants as an apprentice.

This first action sequence sets in stone the downfall of Anakin - Dooku, the anatgonist in Attack of the Clones is murdered, by Anakin, in the first action sequence. Anakin is challenged by the direction to kill him, but comfortably does so - especially as Palpatine reveals how he knows about the sand people. It reminds me of Scar in The Lion King telling Simba - "It's our little secret".

Anakin and Palpatine truly come out of their shell in this film - the best scene in the prequels, possibly in the entire franchise, portrays Palpatine discuss the 'power' of the Dark Side during an opera. "It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith who lived many years ago. He was so powerful and so wise that he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life... He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying".

Hayden Christensen is widely considered the major flaw in these films - but the dialogue between Christensen and McDiarmid is incredible - you can see the cogs turning in Anakin's head. He is desperate to save Padme, he believes he is stronger and superior to all the Jedi's. It is Palpatine's flattery and obsession that creates such ignorance and arrogance in Anakin. The two are a force to be reckoned with and you can see how the two complement each other so well.

Righting the Wrongs

In The Phantom Menace we discussed the 'duality' of life, whilst in Attack of the Clones we are presented with confusion and corruption. Revenge of the Sith categorically fights the definition of good and bad. Despite all the corruption in the senate, the ignorance of a the majority is what gives Palpatine strength. As Padme stated: "So this is how liberty dies - to thunderous applause". On a galactic level, it is unclear who is good and who is bad - the separatists fight against a corrupt Republic, the Jedi's fight to represent the corrupt Republic ... the Jedi hold back information and skills from others whilst the very nature of democracy appears to be what is continuing the Clone Wars.

We know from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope that the Jedi lose their power and respect - and become outsiders to the galaxy. I think the parrallel's to Fascism and the rise of power that Hitler had, feeds well into the saga. It is difficult to comprehend such corruption managing to slither its way into a position of authority - but Lucas manages to not only show how true evil manages to creep in, but also how that same evil distorts and damages others. Moreso, how Luke is then born into this world and knows no other truth. Through these prequels, we have seen the glory days of the senate and galaxy - whereby Jedi's protected the universe. Not only is the growth of power to Palpatine fascinating to watch - but it is incredibly believable.

In Attack of the Clones, Anakin killed the Mothers and children of the sand people through his hatred for them - in Revenge of the Sith he murders all the Jedi. The "younglings" are murdered by the character we have sympathised and understood since The Phantom Menace. Lucas is not attempting to cater to an audience who just want action - he is trying to show us something we haven't seen before and explain how anyone can be corrupted.

Corrupted Motives

One thing which I believe is very difficult to clarify is the motives Anakin has for turning to the Dark Side. He becomes obsessed with saving Padme - this obsession makes him ripe for blackmail, which Sidious exploits. Add to this Anakin's distrust in the Jedi - rooted in his own arrogance and desperation to be accepted as a Master. The changes we see in this film are heart-breaking - though we follow Anakin and concern ourselves deeply with his struggle to protect his family, follow his feelings and desperately do what he believes is right (which, unfortunately, is wrong), we realise that on a larger scale Anakin is single-handedly what ensures the defeat of the Jedi.

By far, the most memorable sequence is when in Sith Lord guise, Palpatine orders the storm-troopers to kill all the Jedi. We see characters who are protecting one-minute, and the next murdered by an Army they assisted. The devastating affect Anakin's decision has had on the fate of thousands is truly epic - almost on a par with the destruction of Alderraan in A New Hope. One thing Star Wars does not shy away from is epic-scale tragedy - genocide and murder. Considering we are watching something primarily for "kids", it is facinating to see how Lucas manages to squeeze in allegories of historical events potentially as diverse as the holocaust, communism and the cold war. We even see the terminal end of the Democratic Republic becomeing the Galactic Empire. This is equally facsinating as we know A New Hope provides that hint of a line whereby a general states the success of destroying the last remnants of "the republic". It is about complete power and destruction.

Who Are We Really?

Lucas stated in an interview that he was interested in "the deeper psychological movements of the way we conduct our lives" and these deeper psychological movements are clearly the focus in Revenge of the Sith. This film depicts the deep hatred Anakin has for Obi-Wan - and by the end of the film it is too much. He burns on the lava and, in agony, calls out "I hate you", you truly feel the pain he feels - his anger towards the choice he has been had to make and anger he believes Obi-Wan is responsible for. Both Sidious and Anakin, as their faces are scarred deep by the evil within them, hark back to The Exorcist, even as Palpatine continues to sell himself to the senate - and people seem to still support him.

Connection to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

But it doesn't end there - we see the birth of Luke and Leia and how her "broken heart" is the reason she died. I cannot help but think that, narratively, we would gain much more insight if we clearly saw how Anakin was directly responsible for her death. At any rate, a nice reference to Millais' Ophelia is a nice touch as Padme's funeral begins in Naboo.

Totop it off, we see an incredible final shot as we know that the next trilogy is where this leads - Anakin and Padme's love has disrupted the galaxy, but it is their children who bring balance to the system. An incredible film that ensures that this prequel will not be forgotten ...

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002)

"I'm a Jedi - I Know I'm Better Than This"

Introduction

Attack of the Clones is renowned for being the worst Star Wars film. Combine the love-story between Anakin and Padme, with busy action-sequences that show a lack of clarity and ultimately too many special effects and you can see why people fall out about this film. It would always be difficult for Lucas to present the middle-episode to the two bookends of the prequels - The Phantom Menace introduces us to the world again whilst Revenge of the Sith is the destruction of the Republic and the Sith taking over the Senate. Attack of the Clones is firmly establishing what pieces of the chess-set are placed in the appropriate positions before Anakin truly turns to the Dark Side. The themes are consistent in this film - indeed they build upon the themes of duality in Episode 1 - but you can see that the problems lie in what films-of-the-time adjusted what may have been a very different story...

Influenced by Others

Wikipedia explains how, due to the mixed critical-reaction to Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Lucas was hesitant about writing the script for the sequel. In fact, the first and second draft by Lucas only emerged three months before filming, only to be followed by a rewrite by Jonathan Hales (who had worked previously with Lucas on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) leading to a completion of the working-script only one-week prior to production. Rather than establishing something new, I believe Lucas turned to cinema of the previous few years to inspire him. As an example, Attack of the Clones features a stunning sequence through Coruscant - the Blade Runner urban-planet - that, through the yellow-spaceship and chase-sequence, seems to vividly recall Besson's The Fifth Element. Unfortunately, the Blu-Ray seems to exclusively focus on the production, rather than pre-production of the films so I could not gain any concrete source as to whether this was indeed the case.

Even the plot itself, regarding clones and "machines-creating-machines" (as C3PO would say) seems to attach itself to the zeitgeist of the moment. Dating back to 1999, the Wachowski's produced, wrote and directed The Matrix. The filming of both sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions must have been regular discourse amongst the Hollywood elite - and the script must have been easily accessible for someone like Lucas. So it is no surprise that when we reach the planet of Kamino, our ipod-aliens reveal the clones creation: Morpheus told Neo - "endless fields where human beings are no longer born. We are grown". We see this same process on the planet Kamino.

Then as a third example, following Anakin's capture on Geonosis, we suddenly change set from hidden-caves and red-planet imagery to a huge Colosseum of Sebulba-creatures - as if Lucas watched Gladiator and recalled how much we liked Sebulba in Phantom Menace, simply squeezing the two together. Not only does the sequence visually resonate with the Roman-Epic-genre, but also the very nature of their 'extermination' (using creatures to kill our heroes) recalls a deleted sequence in Gladiator whereby Christians were fed to Lion's.

If I think back to The Phantom Menace, I do not remember such obvious connections to blockbusters of the time. In fact, I think it was refreshing to see a new type of blockbuster - no natural disasters feature in The Phantom Menace (as the blockbusters Armageddon, Deep Impact, Dantes Peak and Volcano had proved in the few years prior to The Phantom Menace's release) whilst Attack of the Clones seems to be reliant on these obvious inspirations... unfortunately, the films it imitates are more successful in their themes and styles.

The Crucial Love-Story

The heart of this story is the relationship between Padme and Anakin. This one film, even from its poster, understands how their love is the one thing this film needs to communicate to the audience in preparation of Revenge of the Sith. Ironically, it begins as Padme tells Anakin - as if to stop his advances - "Well, you'll always be the boy from Tatooine", adding another pointless conflict as it becomes a will-they-won't-they situation. Why not shave the twenty-minutes over the two-hour mark and just start the story with the two characters clearly besotted with each other? This focuses the conflict primarily in hiding their love from others. Instead, we see Anakin (in a very creepy way) try and seduce Padme and over many drawn-out sequences, she gives the impression she is not interested (but it is clear she is) before the fateful kiss. This long, drawn-out love story is simply uneccessary when so many other (much more interesting) situations are happening all over the galaxy.

Talking about more-interesting events, we have Obi-Wan's storyline that becomes increasingly less-Star-Wars and more James-Bond in it's nature. Obi-Wan, as a detective, is hunting down the man who is responsible for the creation of an Army - a man who is a Jedi and attempted to kill Padme. This journey, not only seems at odds with the Sci-Fi nature of Star Wars but it crucially separates our two characters. Rather than seeing the clear divide between Anakin and Obi-Wan through passionate and personal arguments that rely on well-written scripts, instead we see Anakin relay his frustrations to Padme and Obi-Wan engage in undercover-agent tactics as he claims he is working for the Jedi that ordered the creation of the Army. Obi-Wan seems lonely and rather than establish the Anakin and Padme love from the outset, we are forced to sit through a pointless excercise in flirtatious behaviour, whilst it could be Anakin and Obi-Wan on a mission.

But it is the rebellious nature of Anakin that leads to providing the foundations of his 'dark-side'. The murder of his Mother by the sand-people place Anakin in a position whereby he needs to confront his demons - the power of a Jedi, the anger of revenge and the justice of capital punishment. We know people who decided to deliver their own justice - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But you can see that the excessive force that Anakin uses to gain justice - through killing Mothers and children - hints at a much deeper issue and a darker side that we have not witnessed before.

Indeed, we are never expected to truly adore Anakin - he is sullen, grouchy, selfish and arrogant. He holds very little respect for Obi-Wan but this does not make us despise him. This makes him a teenager. Furthermore, he has been told that he is powerful and the teachings of his Jedi Master to "trust and follow your feelings" is a dangerous path if your feelings are, as Yoda says, steeped in anger. "Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering". We see how Anakin's anger begins at this point and his hatred for the sand-people inevitably leads to suffering.

It is Simply too Confusing

One thing that I believe crucially turns people off this film is the confusion that resides within it. The entire film, we question what Count Dooku's motives are. We are told by both Jedi and Palpatine that Dooku needs to be stopped as he is the leader of the separatist movement. At this point, we accept the Republic is good, despite the corrupt leadership of Palpatine. But we are confused further when Dooku speaks to Obi-Wan and explains how deep the Dark Side resides within the Senate - and how Qui-Gon Jin would agree as Dooku trained Qui-Gon and Qui-Gon trained Obi-Wan. This begs the question as to whose side Dooku is on - because he is arguing that the senate is corrupt. This lack of clarity and difficulty in what is good and what is bad, though a theme that leads nicely into Revenge of the Sith, distances us from the story as we don't know who we should trust. It does all make sense at the end - as the war begins - but it does not change the fact that for at least thirty-minutes, you are a little lost. Its easy to say Dooku is bad - but the fact that his separatist movement is due to a corrupt senate (which we know is true) blurs this narrative thread.

This is one of those films that could argue the case that you are suppsed to be confused as the conflict and anger clouds the judgement in a wide range of characters - Padme is equally conflicted and rebellious as she forces Anakin to save Obi-Wan, despite the dangers that the Jedi Council fear. There is confusion in Jar-Jar Binks as he attempts to help by supporting the non-democratic support of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine only to lead to his first decisive action to create a clone army. When seen in this light, I think we can all appreciate the purpose of this film as an exploration of making the wrong decision for the right reasons. Consider how much Anakin wants to save Padme when she falls out of the spaceship and yet Obi-Wan has to argue his case to justify the greater concern of Count Dooku escaping them. Difficult decisions and confusion as to what is right and wrong.

Mechanical Ethics

What is clear and decisive - unlike humans - are machines. They are programmed to complete tasks. You instruct, they follow. No emotions, no attachments. Machines are the perfect creation. This is what contrasts against the confusing challenge of emotions. As soon as people decide to elect Palpatine as Supreme Chancellor, he decides to create an Army - an army that will follow orders and complete tasks. Much like a machine. It is no suprise that we then cut to a chase sequence within a factory. Padme, Anakin, C3PO and R2D2 are all escaping the grasp and pressure of the controlled, regimented and 'perfected' nature of machines. As Palpatine begins to destroy the freedom of the galaxy - we see the systematic and definitive nature of mechanical power. Palpatine has systematically gained power and his partnership with Dooku proves how the Jedi played into his hands. The Clone War begins, as planned, and Palpatine knows that it is only a matter of time before his power extends. Only the Jedi Council stand in his way ... the Revenge of the Sith is imminent.