Revenge Of The Sith... Damnit?

[Stofsk]

What the christ, are you guys for real?

http://images.google.com.au/images?q=Ca ... =en&tab=wi

Two seconds it takes to put the name into a google-images search.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ah the wonderous world of Google, the aid to every lazy wanker in the world. Anyway, back to the point

I would have to say (expanding on my earlier point) that this movie was not all that bad from a Star Wars perspective. Certainly it was the best of the PT, but that doesnt say much.

Apart from nit-picking at odd bits of dialogue and the damn scenes were people just TALK (this is a star WARS film after all) and the Anakin-Padme scenes, its pretty good.

Cool space battles, the big fight on Utapau, the sight of the Clones marching on the Jedi Temple to the sound of the Imperial March, the final battles in the Senate and on Mustafar...... etc

The action scenes were brilliant, pretty much what we would expect from a Star Wars film. They could have done with a little more action and a little less talking though, but oh well you cant have everything being gunfights and destruction

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that great action scenes aren't enough. To make a really good movie you need strong characterization- the dogfights and explosions and lightsaber duels have to serve a purpose, have to add to the plot. Episode III had great fights and decent characterization and plotting, so it went fairly well. By contrast, Episodes I and II had pretty damn good fights, but the characterization was weak and the plotting was sub-par. So the ended up being not so good, even though the fights were still awesome.

[Channel72]

Cool space battles, the big fight on Utapau, the sight of the Clones marching on the Jedi Temple to the sound of the Imperial March, the final battles in the Senate and on Mustafar...... etc

Revenge of the Sith had ONE space battle, at the very beginning. It was visually stunning and depicted a battle on a grander scale than any previous Star Wars movie. It also served as a great way to plunge the audience directly into the thick of the Clone Wars. The opening shot of the Star Destroyer slowing moving across the screen to the sound of drum beats was simply awesome; really, it rivals the opening to A New Hope for sheer coolness factor.

But that battle still failed to generate even half the excitement of the relatively simpler Battle of Endor or even the attack on the Death Star in A New Hope. Why? Simply because the battle was emotionally empty. There was no setup or dramatic build-up, other than the opening crawl. There was no pre-battle discussion of objectives or strategy. There was no sense of who was winning or losing, or any particular events which turned the tide of the battle one way or another. It was a sweeping, special-effects extravaganza - but CGI visual spectacle doesn't hold up well on repeat viewings, not when computer graphics have advanced to the point where the next Star Wars video-game may very well have cooler battle sequences than the movies themselves. You need build-up, you need drama, you need suspense, or the battles become nothing more than glorified CGI demo reels.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I concede that point sir. In retrospect you are indeed correct. Battles need some preamble at least to make sense of it all.

Perhaps a better opening would have been Obi-Wan and Anakin running to their fighters, Anakin asking something like "wtf is going on?"

[The Romulan Republic]

Apart from nit-picking at odd bits of dialogue and the damn scenes were people just TALK (this is a star WARS film after all) and the Anakin-Padme scenes, its pretty good.

Well, the Original Trilogy had a lot of all-talking scenes. Just because its Star Wars does not mean that every scene has to be action; indeed an overdose of action can wreck even an action movie.

The action scenes were brilliant, pretty much what we would expect from a Star Wars film. They could have done with a little more action and a little less talking though, but oh well you cant have everything being gunfights and destruction

I actually had a very different reaction. I remember I was a little overwhelmed by some of the CGI action scenes, and would have liked a few more pauses in between the action to give me time to absorb what I'd just watched before the next big action sequence started.

Well, I guess we all react to movies differently.

[Havok]

Uh, you do realize that ANH hope opens with a battle right? The preamble is the opening crawl.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ok, fair enough. Some of the CGI was a little OTT and too close together. And I know you cant have just space battles and sabre fights.

I still maintain that apart from some nit picking at dialogue etc, its a good film

[The Romulan Republic]

Uh, you do realize that ANH hope opens with a battle right? The preamble is the opening crawl.

As does Revenge of the Sith. But thank you for posting that irrelevant fact. I will now post a list of talking scenes in A New Hope for your conveniance:


1. C3P0 and R2D2 bickering as they cross Tatooine.

2. Luke and Owen buying the droids.

3. Luke and C3PO talking, Luke finding out about the message.

4. Luke and Obi-wan talking (probably the most important dialog scene in the trilogy plot and exposition-wise).

5. Obi-wan hiring the Falcon.

6. Han talking with Jabba (Extended Edition only).

7. The Imperials arguing on the Death Star (contains a bit of action with the first Force Choke, so borderline example).

8. Han and Leia, then Han and Luke talking on the Falcon on the way to Endor.

9. The Yaving briefing room scene.

Shall I continue with the other films, or is the point sufficiently clear now?

Edit:

Ok, fair enough. Some of the CGI was a little OTT and too close together. And I know you cant have just space battles and sabre fights.

I still maintain that apart from some nit picking at dialogue etc, its a good film

I agree, more or less. However, my main problem with the dialog was probably not in the romance scenes or whatever, but in the fight scenes themselves. In particular, Anakin and Obi-wan in the opening battle and Palpating during his duel with Yoda. The former, as I recall, involved a lot of bad puns, and the latter was just kind of over-the-top cartoonish villainry. It detracted from the tension and drama of the fight scenes. In fact, I remember thinking back then that Revenge of the Sith felt like it was trying to be two different film- a dark, serious film and a silly film. I liked the dark part. I did not like the silly part.

[Srelex]

We did have some pre-battle chat, like Kenobi's chat with Cody before Utapau...but that lasted all of two seconds, to be fair.

[Havok]

Uh, you do realize that ANH hope opens with a battle right? The preamble is the opening crawl.

As does Revenge of the Sith. But thank you for posting that irrelevant fact. I will now post a list of talking scenes in A New Hope for your conveniance:


1. C3P0 and R2D2 bickering as they cross Tatooine.

2. Luke and Owen buying the droids.

3. Luke and C3PO talking, Luke finding out about the message.

4. Luke and Obi-wan talking (probably the most important dialog scene in the trilogy plot and exposition-wise).

5. Obi-wan hiring the Falcon.

6. Han talking with Jabba (Extended Edition only).

7. The Imperials arguing on the Death Star (contains a bit of action with the first Force Choke, so borderline example).

8. Han and Leia, then Han and Luke talking on the Falcon on the way to Endor.

9. The Yaving briefing room scene.

Shall I continue with the other films, or is the point sufficiently clear now?

What point? That there is conversation in A New Hope?

[The Romulan Republic]

What point? That there is conversation in A New Hope?

You got it. My point, more or less, is that criticizing Revenge of the Sith for having too many talking scenes is absurd, and that there was a lot of talking in the OT as well.

[Havok]

OK, we must be having some sort of... Ah. I wasn't responding to you in that post, you just got yours in before I did. I was just responding to Eternal_Freedom's complaining about the movie jumping into the opening battle without telling the audience.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oops i've gone and started an argument again. Sorry Havok and the Romular Republic.

I'd still like more battles. Or if not more battles, more in depth, more interesting battles