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Notes -
It has been 20 years since Revenge of the Sith came out. The entire Star Wars series was formational in my childhood and teenage years, and Revenge of the Sith was one of the few movies I saw in theaters as a teenager. When it was released, it was widely considered a step above the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. The story was darker and more mature; and Jar Jar was essentially non-existent.
I just rewatched it as a 35 year old. So how well has it held up over the last twenty years?
First, the good:
Now for the bad:
Other notes:
The scripting flaws of Episode III reveal just how bad Episode I and II were. Episode I was almost entirely a waste: it introduces Padme and Anakin, and shows Palpatine gaining power. Nothing else in that movie was important for later films. Episode I should have started in Coruscant, where Anakin was in training to be a Jedi and Padme was a senator's assistant. This would have revealed the tension and interplay between the various factions and let their love grow in a far more believable setting. The Clone Wars would have started during Episode I, possibly with the destruction of a large portion of the Senate, which would have helped accelerate Anakin's and Padme's careers. Episode II would have been focused mainly on the Clone Wars, possibly showing how destructive it was even to the core of the Republic. It would also show the growing distrust between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and Anakin's budding desire for power. A risky move would have been to make Obi-Wan the twin's father, but it would have made the journey to the Dark Side far more believable. Episode III would then have been entirely about the Anakin's fall, and the destruction of the Jedi.
I maintain that Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars movie. While the execution is certainly flawed (in the ways which you already noted), I think the story it tries to tell is a wonderful idea. The slow corruption of a paragon into a villain is a great story, and far more interesting than the standard hero's journey stuff the original trilogy is about. I do wish that the execution was better, but I give it a lot of credit for unevenly executing a great story idea (as compared to the original trilogy which successfully executes a boring story).
He was never a paragon though. He's a whiny arrogant prick in AotC who basically abandons his Jedi training as soon as he's alone with Padme and then commits mass murder. He isn't even really seduced by the dark side, he's tricked because Palpatine just lies about how he can save his wife from death by pregnancy, and then immediately goes into kill-children mode.
The OT is definitely kind of a mess because of how many massive changes they made on the fly. The first movie was intended to be a standalone of course, so it's a very generic hero's journey tale, and Vader and Anakin were two different people. Even in Empire Leia wasn't supposed to be Luke's sister (hence the kiss at the beginning) and Yoda saying "There is another" was referring to his real twin sister secretly being trained somewhere else, but Lucas realized it was going to be an even more complicated mess. RotJ is a pretty wacky movie overall but the throne room scene is peak.
Sure, but those are flaws in the execution. The story tells us that Anakin is a paragon (in Obi-Wan's dialogue in episode 4, with the prophecy about him being the chosen one, etc). So yeah, the execution is flawed but the idea is very much there.
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