Originally published April 2016

Many people who have seen the Star Wars movies feel that this is the best of the prequel trilogy, by default. If you read my review of The Phantom Menace, you already know that I disagree. If you read my review of Attack of the Clones, you already know that I don't think this is the worst of the trilogy either. So, the question in this case is, does Revenge of the Sith sit closer to the top or the bottom of a crappy trilogy quagmire?

We'll still do a Fair or Foul to figure that out. In fact, no movie in the franchise skirts that "shit or not-shit" line closer than Revenge of the Sith, in my opinion. I wholeheartedly dislike certain parts of this film, but there are things here that entertain me, even if it's unintentional.

Objectively, Revenge of the Sith is another flop of a movie. There's cheesy dialogue, poor acting, dumb fanservice, and unrealistically convenient plot devices used to move the story along. The action scenes are better than the last film, but they are still CGI-fests and end up boring in some regards. Attack of the Clones may have been so bad, bland, and boring that it couldn't even entertain me from an ironic perspective, but Revenge of the Sith tilts further into the realm of over-the-top cheese that, though cringe-worthy in many regards, manages to entertain me some of the time. You cannot hope to enjoy this film much if you watch it with a mature and objective point of view. The only way I could get through it was by viewing it as a cheesy homage to ‘60s B-movies with fancy special effects. With that in mind, here is the Fair/Foul breakdown. I'd say Spoilers Ahead, but this movie is a decade old at this point, so who cares?

Fair: Action

While it's mostly a fancy light show of pixels coming through a computer rendering program, I will say that the action is a step up from Attack of the Clones. The camera angles are more effective and the action itself seems more choreographed and focused than before. As much as filmmakers and crowds think they enjoy the massive battles with hundreds and thousands of soldiers fighting on-screen at once, we are actually better off if they focus the action on just a couple of people at a time, which is what is done here, for the most part.

Sometimes, during the lightsaber battles, it looks like a ballet more than a fight with the amount of twirling, spinning, and posing that takes place. There are even some laughable moments that are probably meant to be serious and cool, but kind of miss the mark. Nonetheless, there's still enough action sprinkled amidst the stilted dialogue that takes too long to end. It can feel like it takes a while to get to the action, but at least it's more tolerable than waiting for something to happen for hours and only getting to see a bland, CGI fest of pixels smashing into each other like the last time around.

Foul: Writing

This is the area that requires you to be watching Revenge of the Sith ironically to even tolerate it, let alone enjoy it. If you are not entertained by corny, poorly-written dialogue, then you are in for a rough ride. Episode III is probably the most quoted of the trilogy for one reason or another, but it usually isn't in a positive way. There are several moments in the film where I just felt sorry for the actor having to deliver such a line, not least of which is Natalie Portman's "Anakin, you're breaking my heart."

Scene after scene is loaded with cheesy dialogue and poorly-written, circumstantial schlock. As we crawl closer to the original trilogy timeline, there are various scenes that seem rushed for the sake of convenience in trying to connect the two trilogies. For example, there's a scene at the end of the film with Padme delivering her babies while on her deathbed, dying from a broken heart (rolls eyes). Obi-Wan holds them up to her as if asking her to give them names because no one else could possibly do it. She quickly, bluntly, names them, then immediately dies. Considering the fact that she was dying because she "no longer had the will to live," then she obviously didn't have the will to give a fuck about her children's names to make them up on the spot. This unnatural behavior could have been avoided by simply having her say in an earlier scene that she wanted to name the baby Luke if it was a boy and Leia if it was a girl, so that when the twin revelation came about, it didn't matter and we could have removed the naming scene altogether. Besides, if we've seen the other movies, or are going to see the other ones, no one needs to tell us their names right here and now. It's obvious who the kids are.

The things characters say and do is inconsistent and unbelievable but it is all for the sake of moving the plot along. The whole time I was watching, I felt myself asking questions about the situation and why characters were acting a certain way. Why does Mace Windu decide that he should execute the senator without going through the "good-guy" method when he's been a stickler the whole time in this trilogy? Why does Anakin constantly make a fuss about what the Jedi code is throughout the movie like he knows anything, yet he does stuff like kill Count Dookie in the very beginning of the movie and violates that code all the way up to his evil transition? Moreover, why does it take multiple dialogues with Palpatine, where he clearly is talking about things a regular citizen shouldn't know, like the dark side of the force, or Sith legends, for dumbass-Anakin to ask this question:

It's lazy, sloppy, and unbelievable when a character asks an obvious question they should have asked ages ago but are only doing it now for the sake of plot progression. It just makes the characters seem dumb when they ask the wrong questions, or the right questions at the wrong time. There are even some contradictory statements made by characters that are inconsistent, or just plain wrong. For example, Obi-Wan is arguing with Anakin before their big fight and Anakin says, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Obi-Wan's rebuttal is, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes," which is a statement that is itself an absolute, per use of the word "only." There is a continuous theme throughout the film about the perspectives of good and evil, but it never quite accomplishes that Heart of Darkness duality it's aiming for because it stumbles its way through the theme with lines like that.

We're supposed to be sympathetic to Anakin being manipulated into seeing things a different way because the Jedi are, supposedly, just as corrupt. That's pretty difficult to accomplish, however, if the proverbial line is and has always been so clearly drawn on what is good and what is evil in your franchise. The dark side is evil. It's passionate, blind, hateful negativity and it always has been. There's no difference here. Suddenly suggesting to the audience that the heroes' side is just as evil in their own regard is a pointless endeavor. I'm honestly not sure what could have been done in a single movie to make me believe that Yoda could be just as malevolent as Vader or Palpatine. The Jedi may be the lesser of two evils, but it makes it very difficult to side with Anakin when the only people calling the Jedi evil are the evil ones.

So what about Obi-Wan's line and other similar statements? Is it an intentional mistake for the sake of the theme? If it is supposed to be a meta-commentary on the Jedi and how they might be wrong, we are given little else in the film to contribute to this theory other than lies delivered by the villain. If there had actually been some legitimate moral comparison going on in the movie, the line would have reinforced the argument against the Jedi in a specific and brief way that might have made things interesting. However, I think it was just a script mistake like so many others in this film.

Fair: Emperor Palpitine

Let's be honest here, this character is over-the-top, ridiculous. The lines and the delivery by Ian McDiarmid are stupid and hilariously unhinged. If you want a serious villain, look elsewhere. If you're entertained by cheesy schlock though, this guy is great. I always laugh at the over-acting and nonsensical behavior on-screen. For one reason or another, he steals the show, much like he did as the emperor in The Return of the Jedi.

If I were to judge this movie objectively, the emperor would be on the foul side of things, but I will make an argument in his defense. When it comes to poor acting, there are varying degrees and details to keep in mind, but you can usually sum it up quickly as a case of either underacting or overacting. Jake Lloyd from Episode I is an example of bland underacting, and it's clear which one is occurring with Emperor Palpistachios. So, which would you prefer? I'd go for the emperor because even in his most ridiculous moments I didn't feel embarrassed or uncomfortable as it can sometimes be when an actor overdoes it. He's just comically evil and insane and it's great.

Fair: Political Commentary

I think probably the best thing about this movie, in an objective manner, is the political commentary that Lucas managed to inject into his film. This trilogy has always been much more politically charged than his previous films, but it feels like there's a bit of a payoff to it all in Revenge of the Sith.

The way in which Emperor Palpattack is able to become the emperor is simple enough for a kid to follow, but still believably complicated in terms of how a skilled politician would work. Looking at the trilogy as a whole, we've watched the friendly Senator Palpinator work his way up the political system through false benevolence and fear-mongering. He manages to become more powerful in each film as conflict increases to war and the people of the Galactic Republic look for someone strong-willed to lead them through it. This is a common occurrence in modern politics around the world, and I'll bet that Lucas took some inspiration from this through how a country's leader usually sees an increase in popularity during the early parts of a war. In a moment of surprising clarity in Star Wars writing, Natalie Portman delivers the best line of the movie: "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause."

I could just be reading into it more than he ever intended, but I feel that this is where there is some actual thought and intelligence to the film. When Emperor Palpsmear executes his Order 66, it not only demonstrates that everything is in his control, but that he's been planning this from the start. It's a moment that moves the plot along and presents something to the audience so that they can see how things have progressed over the course of the last three movies and have finally come to a head. It shows that Lucas is still capable of showing the details necessary for the audience to put everything together.

So, why then is Anakin's story still so terrible?

Foul: Anakin

This is the biggest problem I have with the film, and the trilogy for that matter, for numerous reasons. Somehow this character is supposed to become one of the most ruthless, strategically brilliant, intimidating villains of cinema. Yet, nothing in the prequel trilogy, from his introduction, to the end of this film, indicates that this is the same character as Darth Vader. It is physically painful for me to believe that they are supposed to be the same person, because the behavior is just so drastically different, and not in a good vs evil sort of way.

It was a little more acceptable in the previous films. It wasn't good, but we could accept his behavior because he was supposed to be a naive child and then a shit-head teenager. Episode II could have been a lot better if he was not such a bratty twerp, but we could still forgive him for his assumed age. In Episode III, he's supposed to be an adult on his way to becoming the right hand of the Empire. Yet, he behaves like he did in the previous film, petty, arrogant, and foolish. There are lines that he has where we're meant to believe he's matured, like when he praises Obi-Wan in the beginning or apologizes to Obi-Wan about not listening to him for all these years, but the praise comes across as fake or even cynical, so I never buy it. It's superficial. This is the movie attempting to show the audience that he's matured, but we still get numerous instances that show he's just as pathetic and selfish as ever.

Anakin in Episode III is the culmination of disappointment in this trilogy. It's as though all the wasted potential of this film saga is summarized and epitomized by his character in Revenge of the Sith. As he becomes "more evil" he just gets dumber and his lines devolve into single-syllable words, i.e. "I hate you." Lucas wanted to make him a tragic, conflicted character who saw the dark side as his only option for saving his love. This is a solid, believable motivation for why a great hero—which Anakin is not and never has been in these movies—would betray his friends, the Jedi teachings, and his better judgment. Do it all for love, bro! It should have worked, except there are some problems:

1. I don't like Anakin and he's never given me a reason to like him.

2. His transition to evil isn't really gradual enough to be interesting or drastic enough to make sense; it just sort of happens.

From the very start, I did not like Anakin. His Jake Lloyd portrayal was unfortunate, but even looking past that, his origin was unnecessarily complicated. He was a prodigy who was conceived and born in a way that was similar to the story of Jesus. Instead of just making him a kid with some unusual talents of being able to construct robots and speeders, he had to have a mythological origin as well. This places unnecessary importance on him as a character, making it difficult for him to ever meet the expectations of an audience. Vader was important in the original trilogy for a while, but even then, not that special. It would have been just as interesting if he started off normal and happened to make his way to the top through luck and skill, leaving us to determine that maybe this guy really is special. There was no need to ever call him "the chosen one." The fact that he had an abundance of microbacteria that measure someone's force powers like a Dragonball Z character, and the fact that he was created like the child of a deity, play practically no role in the character's story.

We're left then to deal with his personality, which is a big letdown in Episode II and continues to III. Obi-Wan mentioned in the original films that Anakin was a good friend. If that's true, then it's no wonder the Republic fell because I would never, ever, be friends with someone like Anakin. I had once imagined, before Episode II came out, something similar to a buddy-cop scenario where a mature Anakin and his best friend Obi-Wan fought across the galaxy as both wise and powerful warriors who respected each other. Anakin, the selfless but still weaker-willed hero of the two would eventually be deceived and forced down a path of corruption and sociopathic justifications for evil; like how a friendship between Boromir and Aragorn from Lord of the Rings might have gone if that were given more room to grow. Maybe that's was George Lucas thought he was doing, but all I saw was a confused petulant man-child who hates his patronizing asshole teacher who would never legitimately respect him.

Once again, I found myself asking numerous questions. Why would you ever consider this disobedient, self-centered brat, a friend? Are we to assume that just because he was too old when he joined the Jedis he was always going to be immature and childish? Is that a side effect of the force, you just become a smug asshole if you're young enough, and an immature idiot when you're too old? It's stupid.

Would it have been so hard to just make him a normal person with some inner demons? He could have behaved as calm and wise as Obi-Wan a majority of the time and just occasionally lose his cool or be a little too quiet at the wrong moment to let the audience know that there's something wrong with him. We already know he's destined to become Vader, so why further undermine his heroics with a childish attitude? That attitude only makes him less relatable when I hear him trying to rationalize his behavior like an adult sociopath. He does nothing to make himself seem like a hero at any point, and certainly not a person I would want to hang out with like Obi-Wan had originally alluded to.

So, what of his inevitable "transition" to evil in Revenge of the Sith? Lucas' attempts to make him seem conflicted only left me conflicted about what actually happened. When Anakin goes to the dark side, I do not see him going over due to much temptation or even misconception. He doesn't just scream out "I'm evil!" either. It just seems like he joins the dark side because he saved Emperor Palpitating Heart from a violent death. He thought he was doing the morally right thing, then he's told to go kill some kids and he just does it like that's logically the next thing he should do. When he joins the dark side, it doesn't even feel directly connected to his original motivations, it feels more like it's just for the sake of convenience. Besides, with all his shitty behavior, it's like he was already there anyway.

After all that, Anakin is just sort of evil now with weird contact lenses and a bunch of Jedi kids on his to-kill list—the other Jedi would have been too tough for him I bet. Then he starts boasting about how much stronger he's become, yet we've seen nothing to actually prove this transition; all we've seen him do is go around killing unarmed weaklings. I have trouble accepting his claims of new-found power, just as I have trouble accepting his transition to evil because it all just sort of happens and we're expected to go along with it.

Most of what Anakin says in the movie is whiny bitching, false boasts of power, 5th-grade debate arguments, or sappy proclamations of love to Padme. A lot of people hate on Hayden Christiansen for "ruining" this character, but I wouldn't put the blame entirely on him. I never thought his acting was great, and his stiff portrayal never did the character any favors, but it's really just the fault of the writing that made Anakin such a lame character. He had the potential of being interesting, complex, and conflicted, but failed to live up to it.

Verdict: Foul

Revenge of the Sith sits closer to the bottom than the top. It's definitely more watchable than its predecessor since it isn't so easily divided in half between the "okay" and the "awful." Nonetheless, it still has amateurish dialogue, inconsistent character behavior, and a lame protagonist to drag this movie down. I'd much rather watch Episode I before watching this so-called "best of the prequel trilogy" movie again.