Reviews Film / Revenge Of The Sith

Anakin "Anticlimax" Skywalker

The main issue with ROTS, I think, is that the move doesn't want Darth Vader to be too evil. It happens to every popular villain eventually. They become "humanized" and retconned into an antihero (if not outright hero) like Spike on Buffy, or The Master on Doctor Who, or Revolver Ocelot from Metal Gear. People crave characters with tough exteriors and soft centers. Following in that spirit, Anakin is implied to be destined to fall and become Darth Vader. This reflects a little poorly on The Force, unless Palpatine really was Anakin's father (WHAAA—?), making Luke some sort of cosmic countermeasure. And while a good writer can make the transition believable, Anakin never seems to change or be in control or his own destiny. It's a kiss of death to drama.

I do think Anakin is the weakest character of the prequels. I mean, how can you defend him? Well, on second thought, you can find subtext in any movie to fit one's fanon. Just going by what I see on the screen, however, a series of contrivances made Vader paint himself into a wall. His fabled hunting down of the Jedi turns out to have been — you guessed it — motivated by good intentions. The part I liked best was actually his first force-choking, because it was a flicker of the Darth Vader we all love and fear.

This was the least enjoyable of the prequels. The opening scenes above Coruscant are dizzying to the point of boredom: once it became clear that Anakin and Obi-Wan were invulnerable (elevator,anyone?) and R2-D2 was some kind of killer Decepticon, Grievous and his men folded like a cheap lawn chair. The rest of the film was pretty lackluster, too, just mindless action sequences with no real goals. The Jedi extermination, which we've been building to since A New Hope, was basically an afterthought.

I really can't see any merit to the film, unless you can be entertained by nice CGI.