Director Kevin Smith Reviews Episode 3
Star Wars Mega-Fan and uber-director in his own right, Kevin Smith,
attended a sneak preview of the final installment in the Star Wars film
series, Revenge of the Sith. So moved by what he saw, Smith wrote a
review of the film and placed it on his site ViewAskew.com.
Smith has been among the die hards that have had issues with the
previous two films, including a seething hatred of Jar Jar Binks and
lack of an actual plot, but takes it all back.
Take a look at his glowering review below, edited by yours truly to leave out the glaring spoilers. Visit ViewAskew.com for the unedited version.
You’ve been warned…
– “Revenge of the
Sith” is, quite simply, {expletive} awesome. This is the “Star Wars”
prequel the haters have been {expletive}ing for since “Menace” came out, and
if they don’t cop to that when they finally see it, they’re lying. As
dark as “Empire” was, this movie goes a thousand times darker – from
the {giant spoiler}, to the jaw-dropping Anakin/Obi Wan fight on
Mustafar {nuther big ole spoiler}, this flick is so
satisfyingly tragic, you’ll think you’re watching “Othello” or
“Hamlet”.
I saw a gorgeous
digitally projected version of the flick, and lemme tell ya’: this is a
beautiful looking film. The opening space battle sequence is the best
in any of the six “Star Wars” movies. {Two feature characters’} lightsaber
duel is bad-ass, with {one of the characters} rocking four sabers. {Big spoiler paragraph removed}..
Perfect example of
how dark {expletive} gets: {Had to remove just about the entire paragraph here}.
Yes, it’s just that
dark – and rightfully so. This is the birth of Darth Vader we’re
talking about. The only comic moments in the flick are given to R2D2,
and while good, they’re all pretty few and far between; the order of
the day is dark, dark, dark.
Ian McDiarmid and
Ewan McGregor steal the show, but Hayden Christensen silences any
naysayers who wrote him off as too whiney in “Clones”. This is the
flick that feels closest to Episodes 4, 5, and 6, because – for the
first time since “Return of the Jedi” – there is a clear villain. And
for all the shadow-play Palpatine has been upto in the last two flicks,
his treachery is about as subtle as John Williams’ score in “Sith.”
Whether he’s slowly {doing something really sneaky}, or he’s engaged in a {total-butt whooping}, this is the Emperor’s movie.
The last fifteen
minutes dovetail nicely into Episode 4 (or just plain “Star Wars” for
you non-geeks), and the movie is full of link-up moments as well.
– {End of the movie moment}
– {More cool end of the movie stuff}.
– {Something I wasn’t even aware of}.
– {Creepy foreshadowing, end of the movie thing}.
– {Gotta take this one away too}.
– {This spoiler is particular cool to me}.
Look, this is a
movie I was genetically predisposed to love. I remember being eight
years old, and reading in “Starlog” that Darth Vader became the
half-man/half-machine he was following a duel with Ben Kenobi that
climaxed with Vader falling into molten lava. Now, twenty six years
later, I finally got to see that long-promised battled – and it lived
up to any expectation I still held. I was sad to see the flick end, but
happy to know it’s not the end of the “Star Wars” universe entirely
(I’ve read stuff about a TV show…).
“Sith” doesn’t happen; “Sith” rules.
That last part from him about a TV show is a bit of a joke, seeing as
how Smith himself has been chosen to direct several episodes in the
near future. Stay tuned for that. Otherwise for the full gory details
(and I do mean gory), read the review in it’s entirety, just know that he gives everything away.
