Originally written December 4, 2015

Revenge of the Sith closes out the prequel trilogy of Star Wars, which has been notoriously considered a disappointment among fans of the original Star Wars trilogy. While I also hate Episode I and justified my reasons toward feeling that way in my review of it, I have always found mild entertainment in Episode II despite its inherent flaws and justified my reasons for that in my review of that. However, while it definitely receives the least hate among the prequels, I feel that it’s entirely unfair to categorize Episode III along with its two predecessors. When people call the prequel trilogy a “disappointment,” what they’re saying is that all three movies aren’t good. While I can understand why people might not like the first two prequels (especially Episode I), I genuinely find Episode III to not just be a good movie, but an amazing movie, and I think it deserves more recognition for being as awesome as it is.

Episode III picks up a few years after Episode II, in the midst of the clone wars. The movie opens with Anakin and Obi-Wan on a mission to rescue Chancellor Palpatine, who has been kidnapped and is being held hostage by Count Dooku. After this, Obi-Wan is sent on a mission to battle the leader of the droid army, General Grievous. Meanwhile, Anakin must battle his own personal demons. His secret marriage with Padme has continued, and now she finds herself pregnant. Anakin starts having nightmares about Padme dying in childbirth. These are the same kinds of nightmares he had about his mother being in peril right before she died, so Anakin is determined to make sure these new nightmares about Padme don’t come true. He confides his fears to his friend Chancellor Palpatine, who begins to tempt Anakin with promises of being able to save Padme by learning to use powers from the Dark Side of the Force.

Before I get into why I love Revenge of the Sith so much, I do need to acknowledge its flaws, because it does have a few. There’s not nearly as much to complain about here as there was with the first two prequels, but some things don’t work. For starters, while I feel these aspects have improved over the course of the prequel trilogy, there are still some traces of ugly CGI and bad dialogue. Again, it isn’t as bad in Episode III as it was in the first two movies, but it’s still there at times.

This brings me to my next point: the opening scene. I seem to remember finding this a bit more exciting 10 years ago, but the scene just hasn’t aged well and it feels like it goes on for too long. After being built up as such a great villain at the end of Episode II, Count Dooku is utilized in a disappointing way here that provides an unsatisfying conclusion to his arc. Speaking of villains, I do need to acknowledge that General Grievous simply isn’t that great either. I remember loving him when the movie came out, but I’m starting to realize that the reason I loved him is because he WAS really cool in the Clone Wars cartoon series that was airing around the same time Episode III came out, so I already loved him when I saw the movie. However, if you’re viewing the movie without having seen that series, General Grievous isn’t all that great. It’s interesting to note that in Episode II Obi-Wan’s mission was far more interesting to watch than Anakin’s, but in Episode III his search for Grievous is one of the least interesting parts about the movie.

Now that the bad is out of the way, let’s get to the good. For starters, there’s a lot that has improved in Episode III. One of the biggest things to note is Hayden Christensen’s acting as Anakin Skywalker. His acting was so terrible in Attack of the Clones that he felt like a huge miscast and was unable to portray a character that would eventually become Darth Vader. However, in Revenge of the Sith he’s a lot better. He’s able to deliver his lines without it sounding so forced. More importantly, he does an awesome job with his facial expressions. The most important part of Anakin’s arc in the movie is him turning to the use of evil powers out of fear of losing Padme, and the subsequent anger and hatred that he begins to feel for the Jedi that completes his quest to the Dark Side. These critical emotions are seen perfectly in Christensen’s facial expressions alone. I’m not going to say that the guy is an amazing actor or anything, but he definitely stepped his game up a lot here.

Revenge of the Sith is also heavily improved in its use of storytelling and connections to the larger universe. Perhaps the biggest thing the first two prequels messed up is that they sacrificed a good story for special effects and big action scenes. Episode III is much more story-driven and grows the seeds of Anakin’s descent into darkness that the first two movies planted in a very well-crafted way. Putting any connections to the Star Wars universe at large aside, this is simply good storytelling. The choices Anakin has to choose to make to save the woman he loves is presented in such a way that it’s almost heartbreaking when we know what inevitably is going to happen because of it. Even as far as this being a Star Wars movie, Episode III truly feels like a prequel to the original trilogy, so much so that as a singular experience it establishes more elements of the original trilogy than the first two prequels combined. It does this really well, and by the end of the movie we see just how everything began in A New Hope.

I do want it to be known that while the first two prequels sacrificed a good story for great action, Episode III doesn’t do the opposite. While it has an awesome story, it also retains the great kind of action scenes that made for some of the most entertaining moments in the first two prequels. While I bashed the opening scene a little earlier, it does have some really cool moments of action in it still, such as the fight with Count Dooku. The same applies to Obi-Wan’s fight with General Grievous. There’s also a great action scene involving Wookies. However, the most obvious choice for most memorable action scene of the movie (and probably of the whole trilogy) is the fight at the end of the movie on the lava planet of Mustafar. I don’t want to spoil it, but this fight was the culmination of a relationship that was destined to fall apart, and so the stakes couldn’t have been higher. I still get chills every time I watch it, because it’s so epic and exciting.

I feel I’ve made my case for why Revenge of the Sith could be considered a great movie through its improvements to aspects that brought the first two prequels down, its fine-tuned craftsmanship of its storytelling, and its ability to retain the thrilling action sequences that its predecessors excelled at. However, while I think I’ve shown that Episode III is a great movie, I don’t feel like I’ve said why it’s amazing yet. See, there’s something about Revenge of the Sith that makes it so good that I actually never even realized about it until my most recent viewing of the movie before writing this review. What I’m referring to is how philosophical the movie manages to become at times.

That’s right, if you listen to what’s being said in conversations during the movie, you’ll find that it can get surprisingly deep. I won’t go fully in-depth with this since I feel it could be a whole other discussion, but I’ll say that the topics I found most impressive that the movies touches upon so well revolve around politics, religion, and the morality of man. As far as politics go, Episode III has the job of explaining how the Star Wars universe went from being a democracy to being a dictatorship ruled by the Empire in the original trilogy. It does this by planting ideas in the minds of people that an empire is what the people need to be “safe” and “secure.” These topics can get really interesting when the movie talks about what kind of government is the “best” one.

As far as religion goes, I always considered it a joke when people would say their religion was “Jedi,” but Revenge of the Sith actually establishes both Jedi and Sith as different schools of thought that could be considered ways of life (aka religions). I found this particularly poignant in a moment where Palpatine asks Anakin what the difference between Jedi and Sith is, and Anakin describes how the Sith are selfish and motivated by desire and passion, while the Jedi are selfless and are motivated by providing peace to others. I also found it interesting the parallels Jedi seems to have with Christianity.

Finally, the movie touches on morality a lot more heavy-handed and in-your-face than a lot of other topics, since the movie centers almost entirely around Anakin’s transition to the Dark Side. However, what’s so interesting about it is that Anakin finds his motives for learning his dark powers to be just, as his intention is to save the woman that he loves from dying. This raises the interesting question of if Anakin can be considered truly evil here since his reasons for doing the things he’s doing are for a good cause. Also, there’s a particular conversation between Anakin and Obi-Wan towards the end of the movie where Obi-Wan confronts Anakin about becoming a Sith, saying how the Sith are evil. Anakin responds by saying from his point of view the Jedi are the evil ones. This raises the interesting question of if good and evil is simply a matter of perspective.

With all of that being said, I feel like Revenge of the Sith is simply an amazing movie. I feel like anyone that criticizes it without good reason is simply taking cheap shots at it and generalizing it with its two predecessors that weren’t as good. The only reason I can see Star Wars fans still being disappointed by it is because it’s still a very different kind of movie than the original trilogy. In my mind, this isn’t a bad thing though. It’s hard to compare Revenge of the Sith to movies in the original trilogy because a lot of times it feels totally different from them. However, in this case different is not bad, and I think Revenge of the Sith deserves to be considered as good as the movies that started this series.

4.5/5