Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Just a quick review, and there may be spoilers ahead, arrr!

1. Yes, this makes up for all the disappointment you felt at the end of Episode 1.

2. Yes, it is a good movie. Not just a good Star Wars movie, but a good movie.

3. No, it is not perfect.

I find myself wishing that Lucas had cut episode 1 entirely and just stretched 2 and 3 in to 3 movies. This film covers a whole lot of ground, really really fast and is still 2:26 long.

All of the action sequences are great, and they are hands down the best sci fi scense ever filmed from an effects and visuals and layout perspective. But... They lack the character of the action sequences in the original trilogy, or even really the spectacular reel 6 of AOTC. You just never seem to really get sucked into them.

Here is why:

In ANH or ROTJ, remember, you had a nice little signpost telling you what was about to happen. Mon Mothma or Akbar laid it out (like dat). You got a brief introduction to the other characters that would be around the action (Biggs, Wedge, that Sullustan dude), and those became drivers for the depth of the movies. In ROTS, however, there isn't time for such niceties. That action has to go now now now. Even in the opening, which has more ships, a huge battle and all kinds of stuff going on, you never get a sense of what is going on, what the tactics at play are, or even the personalities of anyone involved except the facelessness of the Clones and Droids. Even the clones, though, seem to get a raw deal. Temura actually has what could be some really cool stuff he could do as a "clone character", but never gets a chance. The ground combat sequences, however, do give you a little taste of the "Republic Commando" flavor of the clone army.

All in all the skies over Coruscant sequence was fabulous, but it just missed having a heart.

The Kenobi-Skywalker battle is beautiful, and pretty cool all in all. It, however, didn't seem to have the soul that the Kenobi-Jin-Maul sequence did. Part of that is there was a lack of multiple personality types on the screen at the time -- no young-punk Obi and rebellious academic Qui-Gon to offset each other. Mostly, though, I suspect that (what little) dissatisfaction I have with it has to do with the fact we were up front in the theater and it is hard to take in the whole screen from there. Lots of "across the whole screen flies the lightsaber" action was a little hard to follow.

Love scenes: Let me tell you, Lucas needed to hire a screenwriter for all these things, and this one most of all. If the movie wasn't GO GO GO action, it would be horrible. While there are fewer and shorter bad love scenes with Amidala and Skywalker in this one than in AOTC -- a welcome change, mind you -- the dialog is actuall WORSE. If there was more than 7 minutes or so of it, you would be ready to barf, but it goes by pretty quick.

Strange, but Anthony Daniels (C3PO) seems like he only gets 4 lines though this whole film. R2 on the otherhand, really gets spotlighted and comes off as perhaps second to McGreggor's Kenboi as the coolest character in the film. McDirmid's Palpatine is flawless, and when you hear James Earl Jones again, it is quite a moment. There is also the whole recreation of the Tantive -- the ship Leia was on at the opening of ANH -- that is beautiful and as heartwarming as a stark white plastic covered hallway can be.

If you don't know already, this is NOT a kids movie. I tend to take those warnings pretty lightly, but seriously, if your kids aren't ready for light horror, take a pass on this for a couple years.

All in all, 4.8 penguin heads on our scale of 5.2.