I still can't get over a franchise called Star Wars - "war" being right there in the title - thinks that war is so egregious and abnormal that it has to highlight the fact that the galaxy is at war in the very first sentence of the opening crawl.
The Republic is "crumbling." No, George, it's not. "Crumble" means "to break into small pieces." Bits of the Republic are not breaking off and joining other splinter factions, are they? So I guess the opening crawl is lying to us again. I think what George means to say is that the institutions - civil society, the rule of law, crap like that - have fallen into decay and disregard. This would be more effective if we saw some destitute people - nonhumans, most likely - being carted off by faceless Space Gestapo agents for questioning. But, given the foundation we have to build on, what would be the point? That the Republic has morphed from an apathetic, impotent smorgasbord of bureaucratic red tape into an inefficient quasi-fascist oligarchy? Feh.
This is the core problem with the Prequel Trilogy, by the way. It's meant to be a grand tragedy, how the great Old Republic and the noble hero Anakin Skywalker were both corrupted by Space Nixon. But the Old Republic was never great, and Anakin was never noble. At no point in the Prequel Trilogy does the Republic justify its own existence. Indeed, on our brief sojourns outside Republic space, we're hard pressed to see much of a difference. In Episode I, we saw on Tatooine the strong oppressing the weak... and we saw the Republic stand by and do nothing while the Space Japanese oppressed the Space Byzantines. In Episode II, we got a glimpse of the luxury lived by the upper class on Coruscant... and outside Republic space, on Kimono, we saw technology beyond the Republic's wildest imagination.
My point is that just as the core problem with Anakin's arc is that he never really ascended any great height to fall from, the Republic is likewise a fetid, rotting corpse by the time the series starts. And I get that what it's based on was no picnic either, but this isn't a history lesson. Lucas would be justified in showing us a glorious Republic in Episode I, a Republic wracked by tragedy and trauma in Episode II, and a nascent Empire due to the public's wish for a strongman in Episode III. Instead, when Palpatine buries the Republic in this film's second-best scene, there's no-one to mourn it. Except Senator Padme, who has literally not been seen in the Senate building as a Senator until that very scene.
Anyway, the Separatists are now led by two guys, Count Sudoku and General Grievous. General Grievous has "swept into the Republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine." That seems like a massive security breach. Contra Daily Kos, we don't live in a fascist utopia (joke) here, and we take the Chief of State's security rather seriously. I'm going to come back to this later, but just consider how this looks to someone who doesn't know that Palpatine likely kidnapped himself in order to provoke a confrontation between Anakin and Sudoku.
Okay, but now Grievous is stuck in orbit, somehow, instead of just hypering out? What? Huh? There are reasons that Grievous might not be able to hyper out, but the movie doesn't give us any. He's just sitting there, waiting for the Jedi to come rescue Palpatine. At one point, when the Space Samurai are running around inside his ship, he goes "Just as Count Dooku predicted!" Is this a trap? Is his ship just hanging out in space, hoping it doesn't get shot to smithereens, so that he can lure the Jedi to him? If so, why doesn't he hyper out as soon as the Jedi are aboard? It seems obvious that Grievous (who is part robot, and could probably run voice-recognition software if he wanted) does not know that Sidious is Palpatine, so Dooku must be directing this whole charade. But then how come Grievous doesn't break orbit the moment Dooku is killed? How come Grievous doesn't say "screw this" and blow a hole in Dooku's observation chamber, venting Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Palpatine out into space? Guys, I'm really starting to think that the one George wrote by himself made the least amount of anti-sense.
Okay, so we have this battle over Coruscant and, well, it took Star Wars 23 years to finally decide to one-up Wrath of Khan as far as being "Hornblower in Space." I mean, gun ports? Broadsides? I mean, okay, the only other capital ship fight we've seen was in Jedi, so maybe we just didn't see gun ports then because Lucas didn't have the time/money to build those sets/miniatures.
I'm going to cut away to my seventeen-year-old self at this point. The Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover is pretty decent, trimming some Lucas fat, adding meat and explanation where it can. I read all three of the prequel novelizations before I saw the movies, and each of the first two novelizations starts with a scene that isn't in the film. Episode I opens with Anakin podracing, and Episode II opens with Anakin dreaming about his mommy. So when the Episode III novelization starts with an action sequence detailing the final act of the Age of Heroes, my first reaction was "oh, this is probably the last episode of The Clone Wars" and my second reaction was "wow, how long is this going to drag on before the movie actually begins?"
I mention all this because the tone is kind of jarring with the rest of the film. I get what George is going for - again, the final act of the Age of Heroes - and so it can be more lighthearted and slapstick-y than the rest of the film, but this kind of pushes the boundaries.
Just briefly: you should read the novelization if you "kinda sorta" like this movie. Or you're a Star Wars fan in general. Stover took the shooting script and fixed it, while meanwhile the executives apparently butchered the film in re-shoots. (Anakin's fall to the Dark Side has a more political/philosophical bent to it compared to the sole "I must save Padme" motivation he has in the film, for example.) My one complaint is that Vader gets horribly pun-tastic in one scene (and you'll know what scene I'm talking about when you get to it), but then again q.v. Rogue One.
Anyway, Count Sudoku shows up. Anakin and Obi-Wan are really, really glib about facing the guy who kicked their asses three years ago. Dooku Force Lifts Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan does not respond with Force Mary Poppins, Rian.
So then the Skywalker kid taps into his anger and cuts off the Sith Lord's hand, and Palpatine urges him to finish him off. It's just like Return of the Jedi!
Anakin kills Count Sudoku and immediately regrets it. "It's not the Jedi way." Palpatine doesn't care: "He was too dangerous to be left alive." Remember this exchange for later, okay?
They're all captured and taken to General Grievous, and, look. If you've never seen these films and are reading my summaries of them as though they're Gospel, you might be thinking that "General Grievous" is a name I've made up in the vein of Queen Amygdala, Jar Jar Abrams, Kimono, Geo-Knossos, Darth Stuntman, and Count Sudoku. No. That's actually his name.
He and Anakin trade insults, because that's what "tone" is these days. Anakin says he's a bit short for a general. Like father, like daughter, I guess. Okay enough of that, time for fighting. Anakin and Obi-Wan fight their way out of his clutches, laying waste to the bridge in the meantime. I want you to notice that Obi-Wan cuts off the head of a centurion (I don't know what they're actually called, the robots with the cloaks and electro-staffs) but that doesn't kill it. Remember that for later.
General Garrulous demonstrates his strategic genius by running away, but like a dummy, the "fiendish droid leader" has left his ship in orbit above Coronet for too long and now it's full of holes and sinking, like the Titanic if the Titanic was a giant warship in space. It even breaks in half! Despite the half with the engine breaking off, Anakin manages to land the thing. This is probably because he's the protagonist and cannot die, and the only other option is Force Mary Poppins, which is not a thing, Rian.
This sequence is stonkingly dumb. In order for this to work, the ship - Grievous's flagship, Grievous being the "kill this guy and end the war" McGuffin of this film - has to hang about in space and not sustain critical damage until the Jedi reach the bridge. The Jedi are there, I remind you, to rescue the Chancellor. So did the Republic Navy have orders to fire on Grievous's ship and potentially kill the Chancellor? Did one of Palpatine's political lackeys decide to make a power grab? And, if so, how come it took so long to damage the flagship? We saw in that impressive opening shot a bunch of other ships getting blown to hell. Remember: Kill Grievous, end the war. So either they're not going to shoot at the ship, because Palpatine's aboard, or they're going to pour everything they have into that one ship and blow it out of space. Those are the only two logical choices. Instead, George wants to do a dramatic crash-landing for some reason.
Next, I guess Grievous has to escape, right? How's he going to do that? By venting himself into space (Force Mary Poppins is not a thing, Rian), climbing across the hull of his flagship, getting in an escape pod, and running away to another ship. Okay, how come nobody shoots him down? Remember: Kill Grievous and end the war. Also, why in the Force Hell does Grievous's flagship's bridge have glass windows? I get that this is a Star Wars conceit, but ...oh, I get it. In Episode VI we had something crash through a bridge window, so we have to do the same thing here.
Next problem: the ship just happens to run out of life pods. So I guess it really is the Starship Titanic. Like, okay, the ship is mostly crewed by robots, and nobody cares about them. But come on. If the ship was really in danger of being destroyed one second before the script demanded that it be, the Jedi could have easily Force Ran to the escape pods.
Also, guys... there are runways in Star Wars now? I don't think so. I think this was added just for this sequence so that Anakin doesn't kill anybody except those poor saps in the tower. And yes, Anakin definitely kills those saps in the tower. Here is your grand hero, at the height of his heroicness, killing innocents. And note that the only people he'll kill later are stooges and obnoxious child actors. So what's so bad about the Dark Side again?
And finally, the idea of having a runway is so that Anakin doesn't kill anybody when he crashes, right? I mean, yeah, the movie came out four years after 9/11, so we sure weren't going to watch a spaceship plow into umpteen bazillion buildings. But hang on, what happened to the half of the ship that broke off? Remember, the half with the engines? It fell on part of the planet we don't care about, I guess. Out of sight, out of mind.
Okay, so Palpatine is safe and sound. Hey, an attempted kidnapping sounds like just the thing Palps needs to seize more power for himself, right? Nah brah. It's completely brushed over and forgotten about. Jar Jar Abrams gets one line here - sorry to ruin it for those of you who think he doesn't. Also during this scene, we see the Millennium Falcon in its real design, not the crappy thing the upcoming Weekend at Solo's is going to give us.
Padme appears, and she's preggers. Actually, she has to tell Anakin - a Jedi who can sense the life-force of others - that she is preggers. And I am reminded that the sum total of all of this will be a guy who thinks he's Voldemort but is actually Draco Malfoy. There's a thought that makes me vomit more than the dialogue does. They decide to have their clandestine reunion in the entryway of a government building (look, I don't want to hear one word about the outrageous expense of the Death Star while the Republic has columns straight out of Moria) immediately after Anakin heroically rescues Palpatine. Obi-Wan even specifically tells him to go bask in the spotlight. Anakin apparently takes this to mean "snog my clandestine wife twenty feet away from the Chancellor's entourage and pray I don't end up plastered all over the holonet tonight."
John Williams recycles his Harry Potter music as General Grievous lands on Utopia. He then confers with Sidious via hologram. Hey, did he not have a holo-phone thing on his shuttle? Sidious says the loss of Count Sudoku was no big thing. I'll come back to this later, but do the Separatists actually think they're winning the war? Their leadership is being shuffled from planet to planet, trying to stay one step ahead of the
Anakin is lurking around Padme's apartment, out on her balcony. I guess the paparazzi just does not exist in Star Wars, which is honestly the first point the Old Republic has in its favor. But seriously, though, this is supposed to be a super-secret marriage thing, so secret that it (obviously) wasn't recorded in the Jedi Library, which Episode II established unintentionally or not as the sole repository of all knowledge in the universe. And they're just hanging out in public and on her balcony. Also, has nobody noticed that Padme is pregnant? What, wearing frumpy clothing all of a sudden isn't a gigantic giveaway?
Anyway, Anakin has a nightmare about Padme dying in childbirth, and because Anakin is part of a horrific baby-snatching cult, he is a superstitious idiot who thinks the dream will come true unless he does something. He cannot tell the difference between dreaming that his mother was in trouble on some backwater and Padme dying in childbirth in the frickin galactic capital. This is the impetus for his character arc in this film. This is the reason why he turns to the Dark Side. Has he never had a dream that didn't come true?
Padme asks if Obi-Wan can help and Anakin says no. Then in the very next scene he goes to Yoda. Really? Obi-Wan just spent the last half-hour demonstrating that the stick up his butt from the first two movies has been removed. I don't think Yoda and Anakin shared any screentime in Episode II, so as far as we know, from Anakin's perspective, Yoda is just the frog-faced muppet who taunted him about his fears ten-plus years ago. And Yoda's advice is just "dude, let it go." Not helpful. This scene exists so that Anakin has to turn to Palpatine in order to save Padme, but it makes zero sense that he would go to Yoda instead of to Obi-Wan. Unless he's actually mentally deficient, he has to know Obi-Wan has some inkling of what's going on between him and Padme. So this is an example of someone doing something completely illogical in order to follow the story.
Then Anakin talks to Obi-Wan, who says that the Senate is set to vote to give more executive powers to Palpatine. More? More did you spake? What kind? What will happen now? (Apparently these executive powers make Palpatine Commander in Chief of the clone army, which enables Order 66. So wait, the chief executive of the Republic normally isn't the C-in-C? In a film made for American audiences? What?) Anyway, Anakin learns that Palpatine wants to speak to him.
Palpatine and Anakin pace around the room. This scene is really weird because they obviously did not start walking just there. I assume they were having their monthly book club discussion, and given Anakin's political attitude in the previous scene, I assume the book was The Turner Diaries. (By the way, don't Google that if you don't already know what it is, because you'll probably get the FBI sicced on you. I mean, our chief executive is the C-in-C of the armed forces...) Palpatine is going to make Anakin his personal representative on the Jedi Council. Oh, I guess that's the new executive power he got.
Yoda correctly (for once) observes that this is an alarming move on Palpatine's part. The Council then decides to accept the appointment, but does not grant Anakin the rank of Master. So you're concerned about the relationship between Anakin and Palpatine, but you're going to drive him further into the Chancellor's clutches by spiting him?
Yoda's going to bugger off to Ka-shriek to help the Space Dogs. Great for exposition we didn't need in the middle of this. So we've established that the Jedi Council are a giant bag of dicks, and then Obi-Wan tells Anakin that he's only on the Council because he's close to Palpatine, and the Council wants him to spy on the Chancellor. So, first you're going to piss Anakin off by not giving him the title that comes with the job, and second you're going to send him to spy on one of his friends. Whose brilliant idea was this? How did Yoda get to be so stupid?
Anakin thinks that spying on the Chancellor constitutes treason, and Obi-Wan's only response is "this is war." Dude what. What. What. Does not compute. Error. Are you at war with the Chancellor? "War" justifies committing treason against the Republic? Sieg Heil, dude. Obi-Wan also lamely points out that Palpatine has exceeded his term of office, but why should Anakin care about that? Anakin says this is against the Jedi Code, and all Obi-Wan can say is that the Council wants him to do it. For those of you keeping score at home, this is the second time Anakin has said something was against the Jedi code and was overruled. This time it's by Obi-Wan, his mentor and friend. This is a better motivation for his fall than "I had a bad dream," but the movie doesn't really seem to care about this.
Anakin then visits Padme, and tells her that he thinks the war is destroying the principles of the Republic, but it's really hard to hear him over the audiobook of Mein Kampf that he left on. Dude, you don't believe in "the principles of the Republic." What he obviously meant was "the principles of the Jedi." Padme asks if he thinks they're on the wrong side and he's abruptly all "No. Sieg Heil." She asks him to tell the Chancellor to resume peace negotiations, and Anakin says "nah." Like, you just said the war was destroying the principles of the Republic, you twerp. This seems to be all that remains of a subplot where Padme was organizing formal resistance to Trumpatine.
And now, the best scene in the film: Anakin runs up a staircase past an orange alien babe who looks like she's on the verge of a wardrobe malfunction. Then he goes and watches opera with Palpatine. Palpatine tells him that they know where General Gregarious is and that Anakin is the logical choice to go kill him. I like this scene, it's the best scene in the film, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the reason I used to think Episode III was the best prequel was because it had the most Ian McDiarmid in it.
Anakin relays this to the Council, who tell him "LOL no." Specifically it's Mace Windu, again. I swear this guy is the dumbest person in the film. You're concerned about Palpatine's influence over Anakin? SEND HIM OFF THE PLANET. Do it. No, we're going to send Obi-Wan instead. The novelization justifies this by pointing out that Obi-Wan's lightsaber style is super-defense, which he'll need when he goes up against a guy with four arms. But I don't think the audience is supposed to know that General Geriatric has four arms yet. So there's no explanation in the film. They say they need a "master" with "more experience." ANAKIN KILLED COUNT DOOKU, YOU IDIOTS.
Look, this is happening because Lucas needs to separate Anakin and Obi-Wan, with Anakin remaining on the planet so that he can be turned to the Dark Side by Palpatine. If the story had been better set up - i.e., if the previous two films had actually established friendship, trust, and camaraderie between Anakin and Obi-Wan - I would suggest grievously (sorry) wounding Obi-Wan when the flagship crashes at the beginning of the movie, and having Anakin feel lost because his best friend and mentor is in a coma for most of the film. That seems like a more plausible way of separating the two, without resorting to the plot hole of "we need to get Anakin away from Palpatine, so let's not send him off the planet." Instead, we're forced to watch Anakin and Obi-Wan on the landing platform, reminiscing about their friendship, which is so great that Anakin never bothered telling Obi-Wan that he's married with a kid on the way. Woohoo.
Anakin and Obi-Wan say their goodbyes, then Anakin goes to Padme's and realizes Obi-Wan has been there. "He was worried about you," Padme says. So when Obi-Wan was worried about Anakin, he went to... Padme. OBI-WAN KNOWS SOMETHING IS UP BETWEEN YOU, YOU TWERP! YOU SHOULD HAVE TALKED TO HIM!
So General Gangrenous has been hanging out in a sinkhole the whole time. Oh, and the natives are all his prisoners. This is stupid for a few reasons.
Okay one, hiding inside a sinkhole is dumb, because if you are found, there is nowhere for you to run.
Two, the natives are all his prisoners? All of them? They were all living on the planet when he came and conquered it? Not one of them was off-world? Not one of them returned home, saw the droid ships, and was like "well shit, better tell the Senate?"
We never see how Obi-Wan manages to get out of his fighter before it takes off, which is I guess a call-forward to A New Hope where we never see how Obi-Wan and Luke get out of the cantina. That's one of the less offensive omissions in the film, I guess. Then he buys a pet dinosaur to ride.
General Gluttonous tells the Separatists that he is sending them to a volcanic planet, where they will be safe. Dear General: these are Space Toads, not Space Orcs. They're not those Space Orks either. But hang on - Obi-Wan is there right now. The Space Toads are at the bottom of a big hole in the ground. In a minute, clone troopers are going to be flying in through the top of the hole. How exactly do the Space Toads escape and get to Mordor from here?
Kenobi shows up and memes. General Guacamole memes right back at him. Four of his centurions approach. Kenobi drops a 16-ton weight on them. This fails to kill one of the centurions, so Obi-Wan cuts its head off. Only hang on! At the beginning of the film, Obi-Wan fought a centurion on the bridge of Grievous's flagship, and cutting its head off did not kill it. This film fails at even basic levels of consistency.
Then Kenobi fights Grievous. Despite the fact that General Glycogen has four arms and four lightsabers, he never manages to get past Obi-Wan's guard. The fight is filmed entirely in close-up so that we do not see just the extent of the awfulness of General Globular's style. After Obi-Wan cuts off two of General Gigolo's hands, the clones arrive and General Glissando runs away.
Obi-wan chases him on his dinosaur. Eventually they end up on a platform with a starship on it. How convenient for later. Obi-Wan tries to kick a robot in the leg. Moron. Then he kills Grievous with a blaster, while snarking about how "uncivilized" it is. Oh, sorry good chap. Spot of tea while you fail to kill him with a lightsaber? In the shadows, Grievous's lieutenant, Captain Carnage, thinks to himself that his time has come.
Back on Coruscant, Palpatine lets the mask slip. Anakin wigs out and says he's going to tell the Jedi Council, and Palpatine says okay. Anakin tells Mace Jackson that Palpatine is a Sith, and Jackson says "If what you say is true, you will have earned my trust." Dude. Dude. How are you on the Council when you are stupid enough to tell The Chose One that you don't trust him? (Is he a diversity hire? I wouldn't ask that question if it wasn't stonkingly obvious that Samuel L. Jackson himself was added to the cast in order to, ah, diversify Star Wars's audience.) Anakin and Padme stare out windows and this scene is fairly good, although at one point it looks like Hayden is done doing "mournful expression 1" and wants to switch to "mournful expression 2" and George hasn't told him to do so yet.
Palpatine spends the next several hours chilling at his office (it's daytime when he tells Anakin he's a Sith and nighttime by the time the Jedi arrive), meaning that he's waiting for the Jedi to show up and try to kill him. Did he deliberately take a dive in this fight in order to make Anakin throw in with him? Cuz that's the only reasoning that makes sense to me. But then he tells Mace Windy that he (Mace) got here (to Palpatine's office) sooner than he (Palpatine) expected. I don't understand that line. In the book, he's acting scared and helpless because he's recording the conversation to prove to the Senate later on that the Jedi attacked him. There's no evidence of this in the film.
Also, it's daytime when Mace Jackson leaves the Jedi Temple to go confront Palpatine, and nighttime when Anakin goes. And yet Anakin is able to arrive within minutes of Mace Jackson. Did Mace stop for donuts on the way?
Anyway, Palpatine dispatches three of the Jedi with ease, only for Mace to defeat him. Anakin walks quickly in and says don't kill him. Mace says no, he's too dangerous to be left alive. Anakin reiterates that it's not the Jedi way, and Mace doesn't care. Hey, remember at the beginning of the film when Palpatine was saying Dooku was too dangerous to be left alive and Anakin was protesting that cold-blooded murder wasn't the Jedi way?
Palpatine zaps Mace, but Mace deflects the lightning and turns Palpatine into Monster Mash. Why does Palpatine's Monster Mash face look nothing like his Emperor face in Return of the Jedi? His Sidious face is a much closer approximation, but no, this is just way off. I get that Ian McDiarmid is old now, but it's not even close.
Anakin cuts off Mace Jackson's hand. It falls through a hole in time and ends up landing on Laura Dern's shoulder in 1993. Monster Mash memes and Mace Jackson goes flying to his death. He does not use Force Mary Poppins because that is not a thing, Rian.
Anakin realizes that he has irrevocably thrown in with the Sith and thus pledges himself to Monster Mash. Monster Mash gets constipated and pronounces that henceforth Anakin shall be Darth Vader. Hayden delivers some lines as though he is now under mind control. Monster Mash explains that it is time to kill all the Jedi. Vader goes along with this, so I guess maybe he is under mind control. I mean, he could still just kill Monster Mash and go back to the Jedi Temple and be like "yeah, I got there too late to save Mace Jackson and the others." What, are they going to do lightsaber forensics?
Then we get the Order 66 scene, which is one of the better scenes in the film, if only because there's very minimal amounts of Lucas's patently awful dialogue. But how come all the Jedi go down like chumps? Like, the five-year-old kid who gets killed in front of Senator Jimmy Smits manages to kill more clone troopers than Master Penis-Head, Knight-Paladin Fanservice, Jedi Face-mask-crab-skull-thing, and Jedi Random Biker Lady combined. The Force couldn't alert them to the fact that they were in super-duper immediate danger? These are the previously invincible demigods of the Star Wars universe, where it took top-tier fighters like Jango Fett or Darth Maul to take them down - and don't say that the clones can take down Jedi because they're clones of Jango Fett. I went over this in the last review, but all that gives them is strength and reflexes, maybe. Jango spent his entire life training himself to be the ultimate badass. The clones, who age twice as fast, were (one presumes) trained in squad tactics and the like. And if the clones are literally every bit as competent as Jango, how the fuck did the Clone Wars last as long as they did? I mean, we know the robots they're fighting aren't worth the cost of their raw materials. And we know that Jedi go through the robots like tissue paper. So how is it that clones, who apparently have some trouble fighting robots, can easily shoot up things that go through robots like tissue paper? Is this galactic rock-paper-scissors?
Vader, formerly played by an atrocious child actor, kills a room full of atrocious child actors. It's like poetry, they rhyme.
Yoda, alone of all the Jedi, manages to sense the ambush and kill two clones right behind him. Man, it's a really good thing those clones didn't try to shoot him from outside of lightsaber range. Or bring a crap-ton of backup. Or shoot Yoda with an artillery piece, the way Commander Cody tried to kill Obi-Wan. No, two guys are going to walk right up behind Yoda and try to shoot him in the back.
Yoda grabs a ride from Hey Kids It's Chewbacca, who takes him to an escape pod. Hey Kids It's Chewbacca watches as Yoda leaves the Space Dog planet in a Yoda-sized escape pod. (Bangs head against wall.) Why does Hey Kids It's Chewbacca have a Yoda-sized escape pod? We hear clone troopers talking about rounding up Space Dogs and putting them in camps; how come Hey Kids It's Chewbacca doesn't ask Yoda to stay and help his people?
Obi-Wan manages to make his way back to Grievous's starship and uses that to fly out of the sinkhole. The clones know that Obi-Wan is still alive at this point, but do they bother putting a huge air patrol around the rim of the sinkhole? No. Of course not. Kenobi sends a distress signal and is contacted by Senator Jimmy Smits. Good thing Senator Jimmy Smits happens to be around, and he's already found Yoda. That's convenient. Good thing Senator Jimmy Smits happens to have General Grievous's ship's phone number. That's convenient. Good thing no clone troopers are monitoring the Jedi distress frequencies. That's convenient.
Padme and Vader chill on Padme's balcony/living room thing. Again, in the middle of the night, after "being a Jedi" has just been made a capital offense, a Jedi sneaks into Padme's private apartment tower. And no-one notices. Padme freaks out because Vader killed atrocious child actors. Vader's like "chill, I've got to go to Mordor and end the war."
Sidious contacts Hideki Gunray and tells him that he has done well and that the war is over. This makes no sense. Hideki Gunray has spent the last couple of years running from planet to planet, and now he's magically won the war? Did Sidious tell Gunray that the plan was to destroy the Republic and turn it into the Empire, whereupon Gunray would get lucrative trade contracts?
Obi-Wan and Yoda arrive on Coronet and go to the Jedi Temple, where Yoda hacks his way through a bunch of clones because wars not make one great. They see a security recording of "Anakin" kneeling before Monster Mash and being told to go wipe out the Separatist leadership. Wait, did Sidious come to the temple? If so, why? If not, how is there a recording of it in the Jedi Temple Security Room? In addition to holding the only map of the galaxy, I guess the Jedi also collected everyone's security recordings - but hang on, if they did that, they wouldn't need Anakin to spy on Palpatine. So I guess Sidious really did come to the Jedi temple, and that just seems like a really stupid thing for him to do.
Yoda says that he will deal with Sidious and sends Obi-Wan to confront Vader. Obi-Wan points out that this is stupid, because Jedi are supposed to be serene space monks, but now Obi-Wan is being sent to murder his friend and brother. Yoda is like "no, sorry, the lore dictates that you be the one to put Vader in the suit. So get with it." Wouldn't it make more sense for both Jedi to go kill the Sith Lord who's on the planet with them, and then worry about Vader? Because once again: kill Palpatine, most of your problems go away. But no, Yoda is almost as dumb as Mace Jackson. Almost.
Anyway, now we get Monster Mash inaugurating the Empire while Vader does the dirty work. This is George's Godfather baptism scene. But have you ever noticed that he starts off talking about an attempt on his life that left him scarred and deformed? Like, what was his story, exactly? "The Jedi - a heretofore unstoppable cadre of samurai monks in space - were not able to kill one old man?" And he says the Jedi will be hunted down and eliminated. So, wait, he just made being a Jedi, which the average citizen would understand as "being Force sensitive," illegal. So, his plan is to keep Darth Vader lurking in the shadows forever? At some point I assume the word will get out about Palpatine having a force-using hatchet-man. I presume there was an easy enough workaround for both problems, in that Palpatine says "Anakin" saved him - has the benefit of being true - and "Anakin" is the only Jedi he trusts. But then how do people not associate "Force-using hatchet man associated with Palpatine" with Anakin Skywalker when Armored!Vader shows up?
After the slaughter, Lucas does something so unlike him. Darth Vader stands on a tower on Mordor, alone, looking upset. Showing remorse for his actions. I am, amazingly, reminded of Timothy Dalton immediately after the climax of Licence to Kill. Not that they're comparable actors, because they're not, although now that I think of it, one way Disney could coax me back to their fetid franchise is by putting Dalton in it. This is a genuine human moment from a director I had written off as a hack. (I don't have a higher opinion of John Glen, so the same holds true for the scene in Licence to Kill.)
Obi-Wan visits Padme and tells her he knows Anakin's the father. Gee, it's almost like you two should have been talking all along. Padme runs off to find Annie and Obi-Wan stows away in her cupboard. Well that won't be awkward.
It's awkward. Vader flips out and murders Padme. Obi-Wan declares that "only a Sith deals in absolutes," which is itself an absolute, but that's perfectly in keeping with the unbelievably stupid actions and dogmas of the Jedi over the last three films. Fight!
I want to talk about this lightsaber fight. Most of that fight is Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor, not their stunt doubles, and not sped up. Is it choreographed up to eleven? Yes. Does that detract from the awesomeness? No.
Now we get to the single funniest part in the movie. Vader and Obi-Wan land on a really thin pipe, steady themselves, give each other a look that says "are we really going to do this?" and then resume their fight.
So, Yoda is attacking Palpatine in the Senate Rotunda, and they're throwing big hover-platforms at each other. (FORCE FLIGHT IS NOT A THING, RIAN!) That's cool and all, but how the hell is Palpatine going to explain this later? "Um, yeah, a Jedi was smashing up the Senate Rotunda. And once again failed to kill me. Because reasons. By the way I am appropriating nine quintillion Republic credits for an ore extractor."
Vader and Obi-Wan run out on a big spiky arm over a lava bed. Sure, that makes sense. Earlier in the fight, they accidentally destroyed the control panel that controlled the heat shields, so the heat shields are off-line. Because that's how technology works, right? So there's a lava eruption and the arm breaks off, but fortunately there are some cables for them to grab on to. These cables are attached to the middle of the arm, for reasons. This is convenient, because if the cables had been attached to the fins at the end of the arm, they wouldn't do the Jedi any good. The arm splashes into the lava and begins floating downstream on its fins. Sure, whatever. In reality, I suspect the arm would be too heavy and instantly sink, but I don't pretend to be a vulcanologist.
Anyway, because these cables happen to be affixed to what is now the top of a floating tower, Vader and Obi-Wan are able to swing on them like old swashbucklers. I guess Lucas wanted to reference old pirate movies. They then swing off the tower/arm/thing and land on some floating platforms. Vader jumps onto Obi-Wan's platform, and honestly this is the most interesting part of the fight because neither man can maneuver at all because the platform is too small, until suddenly Obi-Wan is able to jump away and meme.
Vader jumps after him but obligingly contorts himself so that Obi-Wan can cut off three of his limbs at once. Vader tumbles down towards the lava, and boy, Force Flight would really come in handy here. Guess it's not a thing, Rian. Obi-Wan leaves him to die rather than delivering a mercy kill, because that's how Jedi roll. Monster Mash shows up and is surprisingly not upset about how Obi-Wan burnt his popcorn.
Padme is taken to some asteroid somewhere, while Anakin is hauled back to Coronet. So the Separatist leadership was hanging out a stone's throw away from the galactic capital. Sure, that makes sense. I mean, Monster Mash needs Vader to live, so he's going to take him to the nearest medical facility. Which is on Coronet. Which means that Mordor is right next door to Coronet. Which I guess makes sense considering how quickly characters get from one to the other, but does not make sense as far as being a place the Separatist leadership can hide out on.
Anyway, if you listen carefully, you can actually hear Vader's heart stop for several seconds as the mask is put on. Padme names her children and then dies. Oh right, Padme was carrying twins. Nobody knew this. Padme apparently never had an ultrasound. Her Jedi husband never bothered detecting two life-forces inside her. Obi-Wan, who knew she was pregnant, never bothered doing that either. Anyway, now Padme is dead, and
Vader is raised up on a slab, and you can actually see that this scene was changed in post - originally his hands were fastened to the slab near his head, like they were in a W-shape. And you can actually see where the fasteners originally were, and when he breaks free, it's obvious that his hands abruptly change direction when the CGI stops and the original footage kicks in. And it's great to have James Earl Jones back to voice Vader for one scene and all, but Lucas used this occasion as an excuse to go back and butcher the Emperor scene in Empire, so minus several gajillion points.
Yoda says the children must be hidden. They decide that Luke will live with relatives Anakin has already met, under the surname "Skywalker," on the planet Anakin grew up on. Leia, meanwhile, will not go and live with the ancient and wise Jedi Master; she will instead be sent off with Senator Jimmy Smits. This is not the wisest course of action, but the script demands that they take it. So they do.
The end.
I used to think this was the best of the prequels by default, but having reached the end of this review, I'm forced to conclude that actually, this one was really, really bad. Lucas has to get from the end of Clones to the beginning of Hope, and does so in a fairly stupid, uninteresting way, probably because he also wanted to sell toys. This leads to things happening solely because the established history and lore of the Star Wars universe demands that they happen, not because they are logical things for the characters to do.
I need to get away from Star Wars now, because it's actually starting to harm my brain, so my next review will likely be Nolan's pretentious, over-praised The Dark Knight, because it's high time that twaddle got the scrutiny it deserves.
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