The Official Episode III Reaction thread!!! [Spoilers]

[Halbarad of the Dunedain]

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Well the ending to an era has come to pass, Star Wars is no more. at 12:01 am on Thursday May 19th I was one of the firts witness' to the dark and dramatic climax of the Star Wars Saga, and so I open this thread to all those who have seen the film and have something to say...

Personally I felt the film was a little rushed and a little short! I guess thats just because we have never witnessed a Star Wars film in the center of a true War! Other than that I loved this film... it was so incredible to see so much work destroyed in only a few moments! The deaths of so many Jedi, the fall of a hero, everything about this film is so extreamly dark! I am planning on beating my film going record with this film by going 9 times or more, it is a great film and a great end to the saga... my only hope is that in time Lucas will give us a much longer, slower, extended edition. At 3:30 in the AM I am a little weary to write anymore but perhaps tomorrow once the initial shock has left me and the tiredness is remedied i will write much, much more!

[Falagar]

So was I! There was a really cool show before the viewing, with Stormtroopers parading and jedis meeting up with Vader and Palpatine.

The movie: it was a bit rough and badly cut some places, especially at the beginning. And of course, there were the usual clichés ("You are so beautiful" "Maybe love has blinded you?"), though not as many as I feared. But all in all I thought it a good movie (the acting had for example improved much, even Portman did a good job ) and a worthy end. Ian McDiarmid was brilliant as Palpatine. Loved the scene where Mace kicks the bucket, the troopers start attacking jedis (though dragged a bit too far) and the fight-scenes at the end (especially the part where Obi takes care of Anakin). Also, the battle-scenes were nicely executed, and the effects excellent as always.

[Pytt]

Me too!

It was terrific. I liked it, and I enjoyed so much I didn't look for 'bad' things. Very good 'ending' of the whole thing. Maybe I need to go see it once more...

[azalea]

The preceding posts have to have been made by guys. They're so clinical and matter of fact!

I could not stop crying during the movie!! It was a true tragedy, absolutely brilliant! It is the first time that I truly wanted to go back up to the box office, buy another ticket, and go back in to watch it again immediately.

TRAGIC: Anikin's inablility to see the truth. So frustrating!

TRAGIC: The slaughter of all of the beautiful Jedi. A very, very sad sequence. And the younglings, too. VERY sad.

TRAGIC: Obi-Wan's realization that Anikin has turned to the Dark Side. Beautiful.

TRAGIC: Padme's futile attempt to reach her husband through love, to find that he has none left. Bitter, bitter stuff.

TRAGIC: Obi-Wan's reluctant defeat of Anikin, after Anikin's arrogance gets the better of him. Obi-Wan's breakdown as his beloved padawan lies burning, his confusion at how wrong they could all have been. "You were supposed to have been the Chosen One!"

TRAGIC: Anikin's eyes as the mechanical mask that will help him control his new body is placed over his face. The last view his "own eyes" will see until they look upon his son so far in the future. The dramatic pause as the helmet comes down, just before we hear the sound from him that we know so well.

TRAGIC: The little bit of Anikin that still remains asking after the one his love for whom brought him to this very place. We see his desparation as he asks Sidious if she is alright, his utter pain as he hears her fate.

TRAGIC: Padme's funeral procession, Yoda's forced exile, Obi-Wan's disappearance into the Tatooine desert, the final shot of Veru and Owen holding baby Luke, looking into the suns' setting that we see the grown-up Luke looking at from the same spot.

I do have some minor criticisms that I will detail once the initial glow has worn off, but overall this is indeed the strongest of the prequils by far, helped along by the fact that it has a strong, central Bad Guy(s), absent in the two preceding movies.

Not only that, but it has shaken the foundations of my Star Wars philosophies. Once a staunch "release order viewing" proponent, I now think that a chronological viewing may be the best. One simply cannot end on this note. There must be the satisfying redemption of Anikin in Return of the Jedi. Secondly, I have been a hardliner concerning the Original Trilogy. I now see the merit in the altered versions, to the point that I might actually buy them! This movie deserves the tinkering that might needed to have been done to align it with the story laid down so long ago.

Enough for now. Hope I haven't been too gushy. But what a movie.

[HOBBIT]

Great movie!

Still brings the question - Leia says in RotJ that she remembers he mother (her face, that she was sad and beautiful, etc), how could she have since padme died in childbirth?


Hardly the end of Star Wars though, Lucas wants to make the original trilogy in 3D.

There will be 2 new Star Wars tv shows within a year or two - 1 live action one, and 1 cartoon one (like the star wars clone wars series). These would follow some of the minor characters from the movies.

I'd say expect something by 2007 - the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.

[Halbarad of the Dunedain]

Originally Posted by HOBBIT

Still brings the question - Leia says in RotJ that she remembers he mother (her face, that she was sad and beautiful, etc), how could she have since padme died in childbirth?

Leia never says that she remembers her mother "Padmee"'s face, she says her mother... and who is her surogate mother? Thats right Bail Organa's wife. Perhaps Bail Organa's wife dies early on and Leia is speaking of her. I dount that the Organas would let Leia know about her past just the same as Owen never told the truth to Luke. Perhaps in these upcomming television shows invloving peripheral characters will shed some light on this mystery. I for one think that it is just the idea of Miss Organa.

Although it could be that Lei had a gift of Precognition just like her father Anakin. Perhaps her images of her mother were based on some kind of "psychic" ability!? It's a theory...

Also, I think that as compared to EPI and EPII this final Star Wars film is what Star Wars fans have been waiting for! The seriousness, the darkness, it is awsome! And the death of Mace Windu... incredible messed up! That was the most F'd death I have seen in a while! The other Jedi's deaths were tragic but Windus was F'd up! Sam Jackson should win an award for Best Death in a Film!

[mithrand1r]

Originally Posted by HOBBIT

Great movie!

Still brings the question - Leia says in RotJ that she remembers he mother (her face, that she was sad and beautiful, etc), how could she have since padme died in childbirth?

Perhaps she is refering to her adoptive mother from Alderann?

(It has been a while so I could be forgetting some key points.)

[Tessar]

To me 9/10ths of the dialogue was so aweful it completely threw me out of the moment. Don't get me wrong: he had a cast of brilliant actors, and all of them can really act VERY well (with the exception of Haden [anakin] whose acting skills are so-so).

The rest of it though... amazing. I was totally blown away by the fight scenes, which, in truth, are what Star Wars is all about . Lets be honest: the whole thing is a glorified B movie . Which isn't to say that I don't love it--I utterly embrace it with my whole heart and proudly call myself a total STAR WARS NERD, but lets be honest with ourselves .

For me, Anakin's turning to the darkside was so... sudden.

Anakin: "OMG! You are teh sithz!"

Palp: "Yes, I am. Join me?"

Anakin: "Nevah!"

Palp: "Plz?"

Anakin "Okay, okay... Heeeeey. I'll go kill some KIDS!"

And the dialogue between Anakin and Padme was so, so forced. It drives me nuts because Natali Portman is such an amazing actress, but her lines feel so flat and hollow.

Oh, and Mace Windu's death?... Gah. That was horrible. Can you say "Overacting"?

BUT the dialogue between Anakin and Obi Wan when they were fighting was so powerful and amazing--THAT was truely brilliant. And Yoda vs. Sidious? *faints*

HAH! I loved the part where Yoda walked into the room, and the two guards moved to attack him and he just slammed 'em both into the wall. PRICELESS!!! Everyone in the theater just burst out laughing .

[Bombadillo]

Yeah, it was a glorified B-movie. But everyone knows it could have been so much more. And there's probably no possibility that the movies can be remade.

I dismissed the Padme-Anikin love scenes because that wasn't what the movie was about anyway. It seemed like they finally realized that and actually stopped trying so hard to make their relationship captivating, and the result was a ton of emotionally neutral cliches, which worked just as well as all their attempts at acting in ep.2.

Did you also notice how everyone seemed to lose their unique style of fighting? I loved watching the Phantom Menace lightsaber battles because everyone fought so dramatically differently, and that was really cool. Then in ep.2 and even the Clone Wars that carried over a bit. Suddenly in ep.3 everyone is doing Tai Chi sword and pausing between each exaggerated and impractical overhead bash to pose in an exaggeratedly extended and wide-open stance. After a while that stops being badass, even for Mace Windu, who sort of fought like that in AotC and who you'd expect it from. Was there a new choreographer? Or any at all?

[Tessar]

Well, I did think they over did Obi-Wan's style JUST a tad. On the other hand, Obi Wan was a cocky kind of a guy, and he would've taught that style to Anakin. What I thought was odd was how timid Obi Wan seemed in ep. 2 and now he's all cocky and overconfident again.

I agree though that the way Palpatin killed those three jedi masters was pathetic. One didn't even TRY to block, the other swung his saber up and then killed over, and the third blocked ONCE and then was stabbed through. I guess, on the other hand, they were caught in tight quarters.


Did anyone else start giggling when Darth Vader did his little "Noooooooo!" at the end? That was so horrible. There was nothing behind it--it sounded ALMOST as if the actor was trying to be funny when he did it.

And I think they could've cleared up R2-D2's lack of rockets easily enough--R2 charges Anakin when he has Padme in a Force Choke, and Anakin slices them off, at which point R2 lands bumpily and runs for it.

[me9996]

I finely saw it and the start left me laph(liph? laf? lahf? I can't spell!!!)ing, the middle left me intent, and the end left my digestive sistem in a knot

P.S. It's been a while sence I posted in spoilers

[Coffeehouse]

I happen to think Revenge of the Sith is the best movie of all the six. The descent into darkness and the acting by Ewan McGregor coupled with the best fight scenes in all of the Star Wars movies makes it a clear winner for me And since the technology has just gotten better this movie portrays a Star Wars universe in the best possible light. I'm sorry but I just cringe when I watch the older Star Wars movies.. too low-tech and puppet-like. Some of the scenes from IV to VI remind me of 1980's C-movies.. *ducks for cover*

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

I happen to think Revenge of the Sith is the best movie of all the six. The descent into darkness and the acting by Ewan McGregor coupled with the best fight scenes in all of the Star Wars movies makes it a clear winner for me And since the technology has just gotten better this movie portrays a Star Wars universe in the best possible light. I'm sorry but I just cringe when I watch the older Star Wars movies.. too low-tech and puppet-like. Some of the scenes from IV to VI remind me of 1980's C-movies.. *ducks for cover*

Technology isn't everything, In fact, the technology in the new movies was too much. Besides, it didn't match the older ones in that respect.

You can probably guess: I thought the puppet Yoda was better .

As for Episode III, it was a lot of fun. It's one of those movies that doesn't give you the "usual scenes." Lots of great material in it. However its weakness is the Anakin/Padme storyline. Yes I know, SW isn't about great dialogue, but surely there are better ways to write, "Ani, you're breaking my heart!"

It's definitely not the best of the movies though, IMO . I actually like Episode I a lot more, in terms of the Star Wars "feel."