May 222005
The new Star Wars film is worth seeing. It doesn’t completely redeem the previous two episodes, but it does offer a satisfying conclusion to the story of Anakin’s fall. Everything is neatly set up for Episode IV; it’s difficult not to admire Lucas’ ultimate vision, whatever you think of his execution. There are some visual sequences that are simply stunning, particularly in the beginning. And this movie surpasses all other episodes in terms of lightsaber-dueling goodness. And this probably makes me as something of a sentimental geek, but I was actually disturbed when the Jedi were executed one by one. :sniffle:
(spoiler alert!) My only complaint was that Lucas had Yoda say, “Hey, I just talked to the ghost of Qui-Gon and he said to try this!” instead of actually having, you know, Qui-Gon himself show up. It just seemed like we could have gotten that information firsthand rather than secondhand. Otherwise, pretty sweet movie!
Saw it again over the weekend, and I could provide a further examination of it, but I just don’t feel like it right now. Surprisingly, I felt it was better the second time around. Usually, and especially with regards to Episode 2, what impresses me about a film is less impressive the second time around, while the flaws are amplified, but not this time. This isn’t to say that I didn’t find the dialogue in all-too-frequent parts cringeworthy.
That said, what visual sequences at the beginning did you find all that impressive? With the exception of the star cruiser crash landing, I thought most of the impressive panoramas and visual compositions occurred around the midpoint or later.