Star Wars Ep III
Jun. 2nd, 2005 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calic0catWent with my brother and his wife to see Star Wars Episode III last night. Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed it. A few observations, however, on things I think could have been better...
Character development was a bit weak overall. I'll be curious to see whether the longer version that will inevitably be on the DVD release addresses some of the issues; I'm hoping that it will. For example: Kenobi refers to Palpatine as "your friend Palpatine" when talking to Anakin but there's been very little indication of a close relationship between Palpatine and Anakin at that point. In particular, there should have been some indication of closeness between Palpatine and Anakin during the "rescue" at the beginning of the movie. It really isn't there. Palpatine also refers to Anakin as "son" very casually at one point, but that degree of familiarity pretty much appears out of the blue. I know that a lot of things have to be squeezed into a short time in the movie, but Anakin's conflicted loyalties really get short-shrift here. It makes the ease with which he believes Palpatine's version of events over the Jedi Council's pretty hard to swallow. Yes, there's almost certainly supposed to be some Sith "voodoo" going on here, but someone who hasn't read any of the books (or seen Episodes IV-VI, for that matter), is probably not going to pick up on that. Plus, Anakin must have at least some resistance thanks to his training. If not, then that's yet another way in which the Jedi Council failed him. His anger over being given a seat on the Council yet not being made a Master seems to come out of nowhere; the movie needed an earlier scene to establish his desire for Master status, or to illustrate an ongoing tension between him and the Council.
The Jedi Council. Y'know, I really find that bunch hard to like. They come across as *so* damn arrogant and holier-than-thou. I do like the fact that the movie shows that they carry their own share of responsibility for Anakin's downfall, but frankly Kenobi's the only one who really seems to *recognize* that fact (he admits to Anakin that he's "failed" him). For a bunch of folks who've been training "younglings" for so long, they really don't seem to know how to deal with the impulsiveness and strong emotions of youth, which seems rather - odd. If they treated most young Jedi the way that they treated Anakin, I think they'd have an awfully high drop-out rate. Yoda's rather glib "you must give up what you fear losing" speech to Anakin, for example. Maybe it made sense in context of other, previous conversations between them, but without that context, it just comes across as unfeeling, dismissive, and totally unhelpful. And *none* of the Council ever figures out that Anakin *did* actually "restore the balance" in the Force - by turning to the Dark Side. Balance requires both light and dark, and the Jedi were conveniently ignoring that fact.
Dialogue: Lucas needs to hire a new script editor to fix up the dialogue. :P Mainly, the "romantic" stuff that Anakin spouts. Some of it is just *so* corny. And as for Vader standing and screaming "No-o-o-o"... well, let's just not go there, okay? :P
Timeline: There's something seriously wrong with the timeline. First of all, Padme's growing "bulge" is the only real indication of how much time passes between scenes in the first 2/3 of the movie. The passage of time is really, really vague, and that hurts character development as well as confusing the plotline. Then, in the last third of the movie, everything gets compressed into a matter of a couple of days. For example: Anakin leaves Padme to go "take care of" the separatist leaders. He kills them. Kenobi shows up to talk to Padme; she says Anakin left "yesterday". She goes after him, catches up with him while he's still standing around brooding in a room full of dead bodies. Obviously, it only takes a few short hours to travel from Coruscant, at the heart of the Republic, to a remote world on the Outer Rim. *blink-blink* Uh, okay... Guess ship technology takes a huge backward leap between Episode III and Episode IV...
Overall, Anakin's fall happens awfully rapidly and isn't developed enough to make it entirely believable. Killing the younglings seems to be a decision made much too easily; we don't get to see inside Anakin's head enough for me to buy into his choice. Movie length limitations aside, *brief* flashbacks or references to past events could have tied things together better. And there's still an awful lot of loose threads left over (hints at the mentor of Palpatine/Sidious being responsible for Anakin's creation/birth, for one). As-is, Episodes I-III can't really stand alone; they *need* IV-VI and possibly some of the books in order to fill in the gaps. So, while Episode III *is* a pretty good movie, I think it could have been better.
Anybody else want to chip in their two cents on the subject?
Character development was a bit weak overall. I'll be curious to see whether the longer version that will inevitably be on the DVD release addresses some of the issues; I'm hoping that it will. For example: Kenobi refers to Palpatine as "your friend Palpatine" when talking to Anakin but there's been very little indication of a close relationship between Palpatine and Anakin at that point. In particular, there should have been some indication of closeness between Palpatine and Anakin during the "rescue" at the beginning of the movie. It really isn't there. Palpatine also refers to Anakin as "son" very casually at one point, but that degree of familiarity pretty much appears out of the blue. I know that a lot of things have to be squeezed into a short time in the movie, but Anakin's conflicted loyalties really get short-shrift here. It makes the ease with which he believes Palpatine's version of events over the Jedi Council's pretty hard to swallow. Yes, there's almost certainly supposed to be some Sith "voodoo" going on here, but someone who hasn't read any of the books (or seen Episodes IV-VI, for that matter), is probably not going to pick up on that. Plus, Anakin must have at least some resistance thanks to his training. If not, then that's yet another way in which the Jedi Council failed him. His anger over being given a seat on the Council yet not being made a Master seems to come out of nowhere; the movie needed an earlier scene to establish his desire for Master status, or to illustrate an ongoing tension between him and the Council.
The Jedi Council. Y'know, I really find that bunch hard to like. They come across as *so* damn arrogant and holier-than-thou. I do like the fact that the movie shows that they carry their own share of responsibility for Anakin's downfall, but frankly Kenobi's the only one who really seems to *recognize* that fact (he admits to Anakin that he's "failed" him). For a bunch of folks who've been training "younglings" for so long, they really don't seem to know how to deal with the impulsiveness and strong emotions of youth, which seems rather - odd. If they treated most young Jedi the way that they treated Anakin, I think they'd have an awfully high drop-out rate. Yoda's rather glib "you must give up what you fear losing" speech to Anakin, for example. Maybe it made sense in context of other, previous conversations between them, but without that context, it just comes across as unfeeling, dismissive, and totally unhelpful. And *none* of the Council ever figures out that Anakin *did* actually "restore the balance" in the Force - by turning to the Dark Side. Balance requires both light and dark, and the Jedi were conveniently ignoring that fact.
Dialogue: Lucas needs to hire a new script editor to fix up the dialogue. :P Mainly, the "romantic" stuff that Anakin spouts. Some of it is just *so* corny. And as for Vader standing and screaming "No-o-o-o"... well, let's just not go there, okay? :P
Timeline: There's something seriously wrong with the timeline. First of all, Padme's growing "bulge" is the only real indication of how much time passes between scenes in the first 2/3 of the movie. The passage of time is really, really vague, and that hurts character development as well as confusing the plotline. Then, in the last third of the movie, everything gets compressed into a matter of a couple of days. For example: Anakin leaves Padme to go "take care of" the separatist leaders. He kills them. Kenobi shows up to talk to Padme; she says Anakin left "yesterday". She goes after him, catches up with him while he's still standing around brooding in a room full of dead bodies. Obviously, it only takes a few short hours to travel from Coruscant, at the heart of the Republic, to a remote world on the Outer Rim. *blink-blink* Uh, okay... Guess ship technology takes a huge backward leap between Episode III and Episode IV...
Overall, Anakin's fall happens awfully rapidly and isn't developed enough to make it entirely believable. Killing the younglings seems to be a decision made much too easily; we don't get to see inside Anakin's head enough for me to buy into his choice. Movie length limitations aside, *brief* flashbacks or references to past events could have tied things together better. And there's still an awful lot of loose threads left over (hints at the mentor of Palpatine/Sidious being responsible for Anakin's creation/birth, for one). As-is, Episodes I-III can't really stand alone; they *need* IV-VI and possibly some of the books in order to fill in the gaps. So, while Episode III *is* a pretty good movie, I think it could have been better.
Anybody else want to chip in their two cents on the subject?
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 09:26 am (UTC)Yeah, they do have a lot of blame to shoulder which they don't seem to understand that they need to. But Anakin is a special case in that he was already like 9 when he was taken in by the Jedi. Children are supposed to be picked up by the Jedi when they're just babies. That way their entire lives are shaped by the Jedi and they don't have as many strong emotions relating to others. So the Jedi truly aren't prepared to deal with the strong, angsty emotions that Anakin is throwing at them. Obiwan tries, but he's still a Jedi, raised in their ways.
There is a whole lot of character development that just happens and we're expected to understand it. The pacing is too choppy and viewers have to make too many leaps of logic. For one thing, Palpatine didn't even say, "Go kill all the Jedi, even the Younglings." Anakin just jumped in and did that on his own. It makes sense in the overall scheme of things (only two Jedi survive to the beginning of Episode IV), but it's a huge leap for him to go from caring about the people around him (which he did, for the most part), to being willing to kill children who come to him for help.
Most of the positive reviews of the movie I've seen have started out with, "Well, it didn't suck," and that's pretty much my opinion. Jar-Jar could have died, but we can't hope for miracles :P.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 09:44 am (UTC)Exactly. This is why I'm hoping (admittedly probably in vain) that the DVD release will fill in some of the gaps. Like you, I find the leap involved in Anakin's decision to kill the children particularly difficult to believe based on what's actually shown. Anakin doesn't just "fall", he *plummets* into sheer evil.
As for the "only two Jedi survive" bit - have you seen the fan-produced "Revelations" movie that fits in between Episode III and IV? It's amazingly good, and an incredible example of a studio taking a positive approach to fandom (it has George Lucas's official blessing). So far, I've only seen the Quicktime version of it, but I've been downloading the DVDs through BitTorrent (at an agonizingly slow rate - only connected to two or three seeds most of the time) for a while now (disc 1, the movie itself, is almost done), and I'm hoping that it will look even better at a higher quality of resolution. I've got a Streamload account, so I'll be able to send people the files through there once I've got them. (Distribution is not only allowed but encouraged, as long as no money is made in the process.)
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 11:54 am (UTC)I think Lucas summed it up when he replied to a reporter who asked him what he thought, "I'm just glad it's over."
So are we, George, so are we.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 09:17 pm (UTC)Much as I loved the original series, I have to admit that I'm glad Lucas isn't planning to do the final three movies that were mentioned at one time. And frankly, I wish they were a little more discriminating about the books released in the SW universe. I was collecting them for a while, but I quit because the quality and continuity was rather - variable. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed the fan-produced "Revelations" movie, so... *shrugs* Maybe Lucas will allow more of that kind of thing and we'll get some good SW stories?