Thursday, May 19, 2005

Star Wars ROTS review - first viewing

Caught the 1 minute past midnight show of SWROTS. In a word: muh.

It's not that it wasn't good. It was great, compared to the Episodes 1 and 2. Of course, comparing anything to those two buckets of rotting tripe makes everything look good in comparison.

The action and storyline were fast-paced, and evenly spread throughout the film. But I felt as though much of the story could have been put to better use if it were placed in the earlier films insted of being crammed into one frenetic movie.

The special effects were very good, though I am not as easily pleased by eye candy as I once was, regardless of how many man-hours were placed into the rendering of any character.

Where the film really suffered was the writing. The dialogue was so bad that anytime Padme or Anakin said anything, I wanted to slap them. Thank god we didn't hear a peep from Jar Jar Binks – otherwise I might have snapped and killed everyone in the theatre in a violent rage.

Other deficiencies: Bad acting (But what can you do with a bad script?). And though John really appreciated Ian McDermid's performance as evil crusty Palpatine, I thought he was a little over-the-top. Of course, Lucas isn't exactly known for subtlety.

(...And my SISTER has it....*[hits you over the head with a hammer]*)

Another grievance: not enough wookiees. They're like the fiercest warriors around, and Kashyyk supposedly gets invaded later on and the wookiees get enslaved by the Empire. I would've liked to see the reverse of the Ewok battle... you know, big hairy bears getting pummeled by clone troopers...

I was extremely disappointed in the sheer lack of fanatics at this event. I go to the soul-draining midnight shows specifically for the spectacle that is the wretched hive of nerds and geeks who congregate at these events in full costume. I counted no more than 2 lightsabers – and they didn't even duel! – one fully-dressed Jedi knight, and some punk ass kid in a Darth Vader helmet and an oversized green hoodie. And that was it. It was a very subdued theatre, filled with mostly 20-somethings who all know they'll pay for not going to bed on time.

Regardless of the let downs, I exited rather pleased that this saga has finally come to a close. The wrap-up of the dark-light cycle of Vader's life was very satisfying, and I felt like I could go and watch the next trilogy happily. As I've been telling everyone, the best way to end an epic is to begin it, and Lucas achieved just that with ROTS.

And despite the horrible, horrible writing, I will go to see it again, out of sheer tradition. Star Wars is one of the only films we see as a family, and I don't want to spoil it for us. Besides, I think I'll try to jot down some of the worse lines, just for kicks.

When I think of more to say about the film, I will write more. In the meantime, go watch it.

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