Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

i saw it on thursday, opening night, a whole fifteen hours after my little brother and sister saw it at the midnight premere in las cruces, the lucky little brats. my brother took his lightsaber. he's such a dork, and i'm so jealous.

so... it's a little premature, since i've only seen it once, but, umm.... can i dare say that i LOVED it?

i was sitting next to my friend alex, who was the only other star wars geek in our party of eight, and there were several times where he and i turned to each other and whispered "that was so cool!" sure, there were the physical impossibilities and a few character descisions that made little sense, but i was wowed, and that was the point, right? to wow the audience?

i'll list the bad things first. by the way, i'm not making any effort to leave you the surprizes, so if you don't want to know, quit reading!
1. they killed count duku in the first maybe fifteen minutes, and it was not a big deal to anyone. okay... he was virtually undefeatable in the last film. alex suggested that he was out of practice from being a war big-wig.
2. i really thought anakin would freak out a little more when he was turning to the dark side.
as far as i could tell, he said, "what have i done," and shed a single tear, which was powerful, but that was it! he never seemed to think about it after that. his character was a little hard to believe. why didn't he see that the emperor was lying to him? it should have been obvious after he killed mace windu. why didn't he step back and see the big picture?
3. pastor coleman pointed this one out... why does general greivous have his human heart? the heart is one of the least reliable organs AND one of the easiest to replace... holding onto your human brain makes sense... but why your heart?
4. darth vader's "nnnnoooooooooooooo!" at the very end was even more painful than luke's in episode V. and what was up with his voice? alex and i agreed that it sounded different... and lame.

now the good things! or at least the big ones.
1. the psychic connection that anakin and padme had goin on when she was at her house and he was in the jedi temple was totally cool! my brother didn't recognize what it was, he thought it was just kind of a slow boring romantic part (he's such a guy), but it's the same thing that luke and darth vader have later, where they can talk across the voids and all. it was so intense, too! i was holding my breath.
2. anakin getting almost dead was wicked intense. it was so good! why weren't they all rated pg13? it was actaully believable and emotional, and, even on other director's standards, powerful.
3. the emperor was cool! he was deceptive and really evil, much more so than his Episode VI counterpart. i didn't get the wrinkle thing... but wow.
4. the special effects, while a little show-offish, were great. thankfully, there were only a few times the IL&M ego took over at the expence of the story (that flower-covered planet that was only shown for a minute comes to mind), but the visuals were never boring.
5. the last montage of sceens showing leia and luke in their respective new homes with their respective musical themes was awesome. this was one of the times alex and i were slightly hyperventelating.

of course, there were others. i can't remember/can't do justice to some of the other good and bad moments, and then there were just shocking moments that can't really be considered "good" because they were morally scandalizing, but were very well-done and really involved the viewer in the story. examples? cute little jedi kids looking to anakin for help, him activating his lightsaber to kill them. obi wan's shouted goodbye speech to a burning-alive anakin. clone leaders across the galaxy carrying out "order 66" and slaughtering jedi.

i'm not sure what i think about the suggestions that this is the best of the entire star wars film saga. like i said, i've only seen it once (which doesn't hold true for my geeky little brother who may have actually seen it twice before i even saw it once), but i'll keep you posted. i was definitely not dissapointed. go see it!