thomas4cinema

I saw that one when it hit the screens some years ago, and seem to remember … very little apart from some lava-dominated finale. Watching it again now reminded me of many scenes of incredibly dumb and plump dialogues and direction. Most strikingly when Jedi Windu got engaged in his final battle – I had to skip back and watch it again because I could not believe how terribly amateurish that scene was “mis en scene” – wrong timing, wrong moves, everything wrong. Also the CGI is far from cutting edge – I could not help but laugh at the dragon-lizard thing Kenobi kept riding, it looked like a very sophisticated paint-over job from the 1960s, slightly more dynamic, but with equally little connection to the texture of the environment is was supposed to move in. Or the poor animation of Yoda’s movements… crazily low standard!

Then I wondered what it was that attracted people to watch it, and the only result I came up with was “landscaping” – the backdrops are beautiful and impressive, there are large canvasses you can spend a long time investigating for details, if you are inclined to do so. But then you get dragged out of any kind of fascination by the world’s most moronic pieces of dialogue delivered by poor (Anakin Skywalker) or misguided (Obiwan, Windu) actors.
It remains an unanswerable question what would have happened had the idea-spinner Lucas handed over the artisitic interpretation and execution of the story to somebody with the necessary skills. As it is, Star Wars is probably the Great Unfilfilled Promise among Science Fiction movies.

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith 2005 – IMDb.