I’m no fanboy, yet yesterday, opening day, I found myself watching Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith on the big screen — the really big IMAX screen — and I ate it up. I rolled my eyes all through Episode I, and I only enjoyed bits and pieces of Episode II, but Episode III really worked for me.
The movie has its flaws though:
- The Spiderman Effect: When human actors get replaced by overly acrobatic CG actors, it really jumps out. And Obi-Wan’s giant-iguana mount doesn’t move quite right.
- Not So Grievous: General Grievous was much more impressive in the animated Clone Wars shorts leading up to the movie.
- It’s Frankensteen Now: When young Vader gets maimed: excellent. When maimed Vader gets rebuilt: excellent. When rebuilt Vader gets masked: excellent. When masked Vader breaks his restraints and stumbles forward: way, way too 1931-Frankenstein.
- Padwho?: Padmé does very, very little. Her scenes with Anakin are better than in the previous two movies though — not that that’s saying much.
- As Long as I’m Evil Now…: Anakin’s descent goes a little too quickly.
- Epilogue: The entire epilogue should go — especially because it becomes very, very obvious that they’re trying to shore up as many plot holes as quickly as possible.
What I really enjoyed was Tyler Cowen’s “Straussian reading” of The public choice economics of Star Wars. The core point is that the Jedi are not to be trusted:
Aren’t they a kind of out-of-control Supreme Court, not even requiring Senate approval (with or without filibuster), and heavily armed at that? As I understand it, they vote each other into the office, have license to kill, and seek to control galactic affairs. Talk about unaccountable power used toward secret and mysterious ends.