Sith is a keeper

Well, the final and last Star Wars film forever (at least for now) has been seen and digested. I liked Revenge of the Sith. A lot. It's grim and dramatic, with something real and emotional at stake--an element lacking in the previous three films of the series. Lucas finally remember the whole Storytelling 101 mantra to "show, don't tell." I rank it third in the series overall, behind Empire and Star Wars, but ahead of Clones, Jedi and Menace.

It's not a perfect film by any means, and folks who are raving it's the best of the series are probably suffering from sensory overload. I won't go into my problems with the film right now, but will share what I thought worked well.

The opening battle is spectacular. Dazzling. And more importantly, well-plotted. The space fight in Jedi was impressive, yes, but it was chaotic. There was no direction to the fighting and it was hard to get any idea of the ebb and flow of combat. Not so, here. Sticking with Obi-Wan and Anakin gave the film an excellent and exciting anchor that put all the flash and bang into context. Good stuff.

Mace Windu is a baaad mo-fo. His death was the best of any Star Wars character, ever. He was no slouch. He was tough. He is a Jedi warrior supreme. Watching his battle with Sidious, it struck me how tenuous the Sith Lord's hold on power was, how risky his gambit was. There were multiple occasions throughout this final film where he almost--and should have--lost everything, but survived through chance or a longshot gamble paying off. But Jedi Master Windu did not go out like some punk, that's for sure.

Wookies at war! There was not enough of this, but it did make up a little for the travesty of ewoks in Jedi. What I really wanted to see was wookies ripping droid arms out of their sockets, as was graphically described in the original film. Sadly, there's no arm-ripping to be had.

The slaughter of the Jedi is powerful and effective. It's sad. It's galaxy-sweeping and epic. It played out exactly how it needed to, hitting all the right notes. The only misstep I could make a case for is that Yoda and Obi-Wan seem to be the only ones to survive the initial purge. I've always had the impression that there were several others that escaped but didn't survive for long because of Obi-Wan's remark that Vader helped "Hunt down and kill" the Jedi. Doesn't make the sequence any less arresting, but a less cut-and-dried conclusion would've been nice.

Yoda and Sidious' duel is one for the ages. Lots of power thrown around. It's no secret that Yoda loses, but it's interesting how the conflict winds down. Sidious isn't more powerful than Yoda--they're evenly matched, at least, and Windu got the best of the Sith Lord, more or less, during the earlier battle--but Yoda suffers from a bad tactical situation, bad luck and a steady erosion of his position.

The showpiece battle, however, is Obi-Wan and Vader on the volcano world. That is the single most intense combat of any of the movies. It's harsh. It's violent. It's got molten lava spewing everywhere--heck, it's got a giant lava version of Niagra freakin' Falls. That confrontation plays out very well indeed, and really lives up to the expectations of all of us fans who went ga-ga over Ralph McQuarrie's paintings all those years ago. It's epic and intimate all at once. I love it, and even if Lucas never returns to film the final "Future Trilogy" he once talked about when the series was to be nine films long, well, this is a fitting capstone to the franchise.

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