Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Written and Directed by George Lucas

Starring:
– Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
– Natalie Portman as PadmÃ©
– Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker
– Ian McDiarmid as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine
– Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu
– Jimmy Smits as Senator Bail Organa

Over-rendered tripe. What a ghastly piece of filmmaking. And yes, they spelled “shit” wrong. I watched the latest Star Wars
movie less than two hours ago and I’ve just got nothing to say. It was
just SO LAME! Supremely dull and George Lucas is a turd, etc. Hang on a
minute–

Rage: On
Indignation: Check

Disgust: Overflowing

The entire fucking “prequel” trilogy could have been the final seven awful minutes of this one. Darth “Frankenstein” Vader is resurrected and is too skinny and short. Yoda and Ben and the guy from NYPD Blue split up the babies and oh look, there’s the shell of the Death Star. End of fucking story. Seriously, the inhabitants of earth have spent $1.4 billion dollars waiting for that shit, and it sucked! Immensely. Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was such a gigantic failure on all fronts that I can’t even nitpick it properly. The only good part of the film was that I saw it at the Arclight in Hollywood and before all their movies they make one of the ushers come out and announce the film you’re about to watch.

Seriously, they make some poor, underpaid kid get up in front of five hundred strangers and announce, “You’re about to watch Blah Blah Blah. Directed by Some Hack and starring Overpaid Jack Ass and Talentless but Fun to Jerk Off To So and So.” At the end of their speech, the ushers let us know that if we have any problems with the sound or picture or anything else, to let them know. One from the throngs of deep geekdom that was with me in the theater yelled out, “where do we put our light sabers?” To which my friend answered, loudly, “Up your asses.”

That was by far the most enjoyable part of the film. By far. Stealing a cue from Matt Cale, I need to mention that aside from the dorks, the usual collection of jabbering babies, fuckers who talk amongst themselves and Cock slobberers on cell phones were of course present. “Blockbusters” always manage to bring out the very worst of the movie-going public, even in a normally upscale joint like the Arclight. Only, it didn’t fucking matter, because there is no human on planet earth that would have been able to discern the needy screams of a child from the cacophony of bullshit loudly blasting out of the speakers and the screen. Was that a Tie-Fighter bleating or a Nokia? Really, what’s the fucking difference.

I was able to somehow go into great detail point by point with exactly what was wrong with The Phantom Dumbass. Not so this time. I just don’t have the strength, as the humiliation of having even more money stolen from me by mister George Lucas has nearly beaten me into submission. I should have learned–I did not–and I am doomed to repeat mistakes. Basically every scene was an exercise in patience and misery. On top of which 99% of the scenes were poorly acted, worse written and always BEEPING AND FUCKING BLINKING!

It was horrible, really. And here is why it sucked so much cock balls deep; for the entire seven and a half-hour runtime that was the last three films, there wasn’t a single character who wasn’t in the first three films that anybody gave a fuck about. Not one. Emperor? OG. Vader? Ditto. Kenobi, Yoda, Boba Fett and Chewbacca? You guessed it. R2 and C3PO were in the prequels, but honestly, they were rotten. Every single new character from Mace Windu down to Jar-Jar to the big screeching Jar-Jar lizard that Ben rode around in this one was empty, lifeless and dull as fuck. Pointless, insulting and stupid, too. Talk about cashing in on your past success… What’s that? You liked General Grievous and Qui-Gon? Grow up, twat. Darth Maul scared or intrigued you? You are a retard. And a dork. And scum.

Shall I go on? Should I go on? As fate would have it, immediately before watching this depressing eyesore, my friend and I happened to watch Little Deiter Needs to Fly, a sobering and fantastic documentary by Werner Herzog. Both of us were in awe and in tears. Splendid moviemaking. More than once, my friend had me back up a scene so he/we could rewatch it for a beautiful moment of truth. Sure, maybe it wasn’t the best thing to watch before the intergalactic nonsense that is Revenge of the Sith. However, maybe it was the best possible film to watch, for it severely drove home for me just how childish, devoid of meaning and ultimately pitiful Lucas’s magnum opus truly was. Scum and villainy, indeed. Seriously, I can’t even advocate that Lucas be dragged down the street and hanged, for that should have happened twenty-five-years ago immediately following The Empire Strikes Back! Oh, my mind. My poor fucking mind. How many beers will I require to cleanse me of this vomit? And speaking of which…

There were several points in Sith where I was audibly gagging. Sometimes I was cringing, others snickering, but most times I was trying not let loose the bile that was building in my gullet. At one point, when the pathetic General Grievous pulled out not two but FOUR lightsabers and began spinning them about propeller style, I pulled my shirt over my mouth, lest I get sued for destroying the asshole’s Palm Pilot in front of me. With puke! Come fucking Poochie on! I mean, like, what the… why am I even reviewing this crap? To what end? You’re going to fucking see it anyhow.

And if you like it, you deserve a bolt through the head. If you don’t like it, then you are with the other 0.04% of the population with a functioning noodle, but so what? Oh, I feel so helpless in front of the tower of nonsense that was this film. Like when the eternal query, “We’ve yet to see the answer to why the droids and Vader seem to have memory lapses” is finally, partially answered (C3PO gets his memory wiped), it is nothing more than monumental hubris on Lucas’s part. I’m sure he only forgot to mention that it was all a dream, too.

Fuck you, George. Seriously, FUCK YOU. And why do I care? Why am I even so angry? Is it once again a case of shattered hopes? Thinking back a few hours from now, I really wasn’t expecting much, at least not consciously. But, as I was recounting to my friend as we drove back to my place in utter disgust (to pound some beer, yes), I really had had high hopes for Episode I. Obviously, the rage I am now experiencing as I deign to dignify this piece of shit with a review, is coming from a place deeply buried inside of me. I want to like Star Wars.

It hurts me, deeply, that the last three films have sucked so fucking badly. It is totally apparent to me that I need therapy/lobotomy. But, what is, is, and this film is just atrocious. A major disloyalty on the part of Lucas to the fans that made him richer than God.

I suppose that I have to discuss the supposed left-wing politics of Sith. Many have commented and bunched their panties over the fact that Lucas is supposedly bashing the Bush administrations post-9/11 posturing of “if you are not with us, you are against us.” Vader says something to the effect of “if you are not with me, then you are my enemy.” I must point out that I don’t find this to be true at all. Revenge of the Sith is much more a flattering homage to the reign of Ronald Reagan. Especially, as my friend pointed out, the last few years of Reagan’s rule when HIS BRAIN TURNED TO FUCKING MUSH BECAUSE OF THE ALZHEMIERS!!!!!! Arghhhh!!! Stem cell research for George Lucas? IT’S TOO FUCKING LATE!!!

Help! Help! Help! And to all the fan-boy cocksuckers who liked, or even loved this swill, especially Senor Speilbergo and Kevin Smith, fuck you behind the teeth. You are morons, useless fucking morons. For weeks now I’ve had to listen to and put up with one of two fucking opinions. The milder being, “well, the first forty minutes are pretty bad, but then it gets good once Anakin goes to the dark side.” Bullshit all over that! It was never good. Not for one bleeping blinking frame. OK, OK, OK–there were brief, scattered moments when I didn’t feel like using my knife on my throat. The best being when Yoda lovingly hops onto Chewbacca’s shoulder and the wookie scampers off. A moment that was only good because my poor brain was flooded with nostalgic memories of a time long ago when Star Wars was worth a squirt of piss. Also, Ian McDiarmid vamping as Dark Lord Sidious was fun occasionally. He menacing cackled and good.

But like, why is the Emperor such a fussy queen? Moaning, “Yeth, yeth! Good!” when Anakin dropped to his knees… Anyhow, the second opinion that’s been bandied about, and the one I find all the more infuriating, was the one that holds that not only is Sith a good movie, but a dark one too boot. Lies, damn lies! Dark? Dark? It’s not dark. For a film to be dark, two elements are necessary:

Tragedy and hardship must befall characters
The audience must have emotional stock in the characters to whom bad things are happening.

Number two up there essentially voids any chance Sith had of being “dark,” as painted rocks would be as, if not far more, compelling than the speak-by-numbers performances turned in by the principles. Sure, Mace Windu gets chucked out the window, but was there ever a single moment when you weren’t thinking, “Hey, that’s Sam Jackson! Sam Jackson just fell out a window”? Of course not. And as far as the other Jedis getting capped, could anything have been less compelling? I mean, you got the one guy who looks like Baron von Munchausen crossed with a conehead swinging his sword around like Don Quixote and like, I didn’t fucking care that he got killed.

And then the green Jedi chick who was uselessly frolicking around Fern Gully may have endured the least satisfying death in the history of the cinema. They could have just kicked over a chair for all I cared. Oh, and the big one that has the whole world ablaze because of it’s supposed cold-heartedness; Vader kills a bunch of kids. Boo-fucking-hoo. First of all, Lucas, how about instead of calling them “younglings,” calling them “children?” Seriously, at least you’d get a latent biologically programmed response out of people. But having to listen to Ben tell what’s her fucking face, “he killed all the younglings” produced nothing but a groan.

Besides, children should have left out of all three films entirely. The only tinge of anything that I felt was from the memory of Alec Guiness warmly and remorsefully recalling the extermination of the Jedi. What took place in Sith is essentially the same as spitting on the great man’s grave. And as far as Vader getting vivisected and dumped into lava, HE’S THE FUCKING BAD GUY! THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS TO BAD GUYS WHO KILL CHILDREN! And if a scene in film history is ever handled with as much clunk and unsatisfying pomp as Vader being reborn, I don’t want to know about it. That’s the fucking money shot, man. And you fucked it up!

In conclusion, Revenge of the Sith is “dark.” It is dark in the sense that as a film it confirms O’Brien’s proclamation that the future is “a boot stamping on a human face — for ever.” Abandon your hopes and your dreams. Childhood joy is but a salve socially produced and mandated to hide the horrors of the world; a world so harsh, so without empathy and so ultimately Ruthless that we would be best left unborn.

For a film to set off a worldwide tizzy that all three prequels managed to generate (not to mention the billions they raked in) is obvious proof that Lucas touched a nerve with his initial films. And for him to have the world rooting for him, pushing for him to succeed and then failing so utterly and entirely is just a reaffirmation of the endless fallibility of the human creature and the sheer pointlessness of life. Like all religions, the Star Wars universe promised nothing more than escapism from the everyday dread of our existence. And, like all religions, it fails, fails miserably as soon as it is called upon to deliver the goods. Only instead of raping little boys, Lucas is content to rape our minds (though I’m sure he would find either equally satisfying). In the end, they have your money and you are left with nothing save want.

Postscript:

I take back anything and everything nice I said about Episode Two: Attack of the Clones. I had obviously been sniffing glue that day.