So finally the second trilogy ends in a full circle and we meet ourselves back as we once were in 1978 (or 1977 if you lived in America).
The first thing to say about Episode III, as we must call it, is that it’s much better than both Episodes I and II. Overall, Lucas has improved on his work over the course of the three films, but it’s still not brilliant.
The film opens with the traditional scroll, and I’d hate to be an 8 year old trying to make head or tail of the political intrigues. When I saw the first Star Wars (I refuse to call it A New Hope, since it certainly wasn’t called that at the Odeon Barnet where I saw it), it was an 8th birthday present and for a long time to come, rebels were always to be the good guys. I think confustion set in when some terrorist activities reported on the news were said to have been committed by rebels. But I digress.
We’re fortunate that Lucas flings us into an elongated action sequence taking in space fights and the works. We quickly encouter General Grievous, and battles ensue. When the action is moving along like this the film is at its best.
It’s almost an unfortunate necessity that we have to keep letting the “story” get in the way as Anakin must become more and more besotted by the dark side. The problem is that we all know what’s going to happen to him – we have done for the past two films. Everything else is just eating up screen time.
Some of the problems of the earlier film remain. Aside from the political nature of the story, the dialogue remains clunky. Now I know that when I saw the first film I was 8, and what I regarded as the best thing in the world ever at that age, might not be the same now. But that first trilogy still stand up. There was more slapdash about. Certainly the effects are far superior now, and everything’s that much more polished, but sometimes too much. The rawness of the snow battle on Hoth at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back felt real. That’s because they did do it in a real snowy landscape (of course they also had models and stopmotion), but you knew that snow was going everywhere when explosions happened. Now it’s just CGI bits and pieces that fly everywhere.
OK – now this all seems terribly negative, but it’s not meant to be. The emergence of the Emporer is powerful, and seeing Vader “rise” is a genuinely chilling moment as he takes his first respirator breath.
Some parts owe a little debt to Peter Jackson – particularly the scenes set on a vulcanic planet surface. And there was a lack of space flight time. Everyone could get everywhere pretty much instantaneously. Indeed given the presumed timeframe of the film taking several months, you could be mistaken for believing that it all happens in the course of a long weekend.
But at the end of the film, you’re handsomely paid off. The spacecraft have been subltly getting closer to what we recall from the earlier films. Uniforms are slowly becoming close to those amazing stormtrooper outfits. And it’s great to see things settle down to be setup for the earlier trilogy. So overall, a good ending to an underwhelming trilogy.