My ROTS Impressions

[General Brock]

Well, I finally got the chance to see ROTS, which means I can more freely browse these forums without fear of further spoilers. This is an excellent film, and it has only a few minor nitpicks, which are nothing much.

The opening credits had me worried; it was brief and lacked the epic feel of the other preambles.

The opening battle scene dragged a bit; "There's the flagship' needed only be said once, have Anakin say, "And here's company!' and let the guided missiles fly. Lucas does not have Speilberg's feel for a chase scene, and it came off as showboating SW FX in a forced buddy scene.

The premise of rescuing Palpatine confirms a pattern of behavior seen in TPM; Darth Sidious is more clever than wise, a wasteful gambler who's ego can't resist putting him in danger to realize a plan that, although well set up, always needs improvisation to be concluded. Dooku's strike force would have been devastated by Coruscant's defenders, and the flagship was too damaged to land safely, let alone escape into lightspeed even if it wasn't in his plan to be rescued and Dooku killed. Palpatine was nervous about the crash-landing, indicating he did not wholly forsee or plan for it.

Palpatine/Sidious also risked his life to lure Anakin to the Dark Side; he could have easily defeated Windu, but held back, and Windu did more damage to him than he probably would have liked. Unless he wants sympathy point for being disfigured. (Like the new Ukraine PM!?) He also seemed to goad Windu into joining the dark side as well, by compelling him to kill, instead of just arresting him, Windu's initial plan. Windu was initially certain the Jedi could control the Senate, then at the last minute, seemed to realize Palpatine controlled the Senate and Judiciary and was too dangerous to let live. That, and Palpatine's obviously contrived (to the audiance) begging for his life, seemed to turn Anakin once and for all. Those sort of subtle touches are nice work.

Darth Sidious dispatched the first three Jedi too unskillfully; I would have expected two attacks with disengages, finishing with a lightning thrust, with no little windup pump on the final thrust, to demonstrate how well he owned the Jedi.

I don't know if Palpatine is a human mutant, or if that is what happens to Sith who use the dark side too quickly.

Part of me wonders of Mace Windu could still be alive; it's not like Jedi don't survive long falls, and it's not like he exploded or anything. He just disappeared into the city screaming and trailing force lightning.

Obi-Wan seems a little soft; he gets knocked about and out pretty easy.

His General Greivous subplot was well done; Greivous was needed as the last effective Separatist leader. I don't know why the preamble described him as a droid, when he was a cyborg; droids don't cough and wheeze. It also showed the bonds that seemed to have formed between the clonetroopers and their Jedi generals; Cody rescued Obi-Wan's lightsaber, and they were on friendly terms. Otherwise, Order 66 and the unnaturalness of the clones would have been less believable.

The Separatists, at least the Neimodian leaders, seemed to have been in on the Palpatine/Sideous connection from the beginning; the last one said as much, that Sidious promised peace after he gained power, right before Darth Vader killed him.

Padme's death was sad. It would have been nice if she could have at least held her children once. A Sith attack with deadly intent must poison mitochondrians; no big deal to a Jedi, but obviously fatal for an ordinary human. The poisoning didn't affect the twins, since they lived; or perhaps it did in some way; Luke and Leia were exceptionally strong in the force. Another sad but interesting touch; Padme's last words were that Anakin still had some good in him.

Her death might explain why Vader never seized power in the intervening years between ROTS and ANH. He was never able to fully embrace his anger and weild fully the power of the Dark Side after it had killed Padme. Sidious knows it, too, standing smugly to one side as Darth Vader is howling in anguish, he knows Vader will never realize his potential and become strong enough to overcome him. Vader's ambitions do not find new purpose until he realizes he has a son in TESB.

If one were to sit down and watch the entire prequel trilogy, the first two movies wouldn't seem as bad.... nah.

I would credit ROTS to the roar of the fans making it past Lucas' yes-men to his ears, as much as he would deny it. He seems to have been getting bad advice ever since he decided Ewoks would sell better than Wookies, but at least Kashyyk is not killed off by death star debris. Not that it could have been, being a modern planet with all the trimmings.

It is good that the series ends on such a powerful note, and hopefully I'll see it one more time on a quality screen before it hits the cheap theatre. Personally, I think Lucas might still have it in him to do three more. He's not that old yet.

[Mr Bean]

There is already a very long thread for ROTS impressions, another one for thoughts and whatnot, post there