This made Speilburg cry? All I could think was: How on earth did this sticky treacle make that man cry. It just wasn't that good or that moving. There was too much to mock and frankly, the script was so awful, direction so juvenile and the plot, wait, there was a plot? It was hard not to start mocking out loud, but I truly was afraid the star wars believers there would shoot me with their laser guns.
There were too many silly things to be believed, and before you blast me, I know this is fiction, it's just BAD fiction. Good fiction transports you away to new worlds and makes you believe that they could exist. In George Lucas' Star Wars world there is a vast emptiness of nothing to draw you in and make you believe it could have happened. Star Trek was silly, but somehow made me believe long enough to just enjoy the entertainment. RotS just makes me mad I wasted my time.
There were some little things, like Padme's night gown, it's lovely, really beautiful. In fact, I had no idea it was a night gown until I saw her in bed with it still on. The problem? Beads, lots of them, strings of them across her arms. She's pregnant and sleeping on her side wearing a dress more suited to meeting the Queen of England than catching some shuteye. All I could think was: My arm would be asleep in that, it looks uncomfortable. But often it's the stupid little things that lend believability to unbelievable stories. Lucas fails miserably to bring his audience, me, in to the plot to care at all what happens. It's just a series of cool but meaningless special effects that are just mildly interesting in the way that watching grass grow is mildly interesting.
Anakin's final transformation into Darth Vader was laughable. Obi Wan and Anakin have a lightsaber duel floating on lava on a volcanic planet without any sort of heat protection and absolutely no breathing apparatus. First of all, he lost me at hello. Volcanic planet? It's one big lava flow, and lava being notoriously treacherous for humans or anything else slightly alive, between the intense heat and toxic gases, I can't believe that even Jedi powers can overcome the physical difficulties of dueling inches away from toxic flowing lava. So already I'm laughing. Then Anakin loses his limbs, then he catches on fire, but hey, he's still alive enough to curse Obi Wan who just walks away. (Has no one learned that you don't just walk away from an evil person, you must actually KILL THEM DEAD. Dang, do I have to do everything?)
The emperor shows up and collects the crispy cripple and shuttles him off to the hospital where he gets turned into the Lord Vader we all know. Now, in the hospital HE'S STILL SMOKING when they lock him into the Vader suit. What, people in that world don't need to heal from third degree burns? How about stripping all that melted cloth off him before you attach his prosthesis? How about some skin grafts? Maybe give him a little advil? Why not just put him out first! Just pour some water on him. I'm sure Sith Lords are powerful, but still, do they not suffer from infection because of badly cleaned, or in this case uncleaned, wounds? At least put some cream on those burns, that suit will chafe.
As I watched the "battle" between the Emperor and Yoda all I could think was "They got the wrong muppet to kill this guy, give Animal a lightsaber and he would have offed him quicker than you please. That would be a fight I'd be happy to pay to see."
And what was all the excitement about going to the Wookie homeworld. It's not like anything happened there that was slightly interesting. All you find out is that Chewbacca is an old dog. That's it. Whatever.
All in all, I give it an F. Lucas wasted four movies and some incredible actors to pile up 8 hours of trash. How do you make Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor look like no-talent high school actors? How in the world do you take the edge out of Samuel L. Jackson? The dialog was so weird, stodgy, stilted and silly, just plain old silly, as to render it laughable. The original Star Wars (ANH) was fun and incredible and a blast, the Empire Strikes Back (TESB) was equally fun. Then it all fell apart into sappy stupid vacuous nothingness, like the emptiness of space. TESB was, by the way, the only one of the movies that Lucas did not direct, and that only one he had help in writing, it is by far the best of the lot. That's very telling, and very interesting. George Lucas has a vision, and it could have been a fun one, but he let his navel gazing pride get in the way of making great movies. He should have gotten help, outside eyes to assist him, someone unafraid of saying "Midiclorians? That's stupid and doesn't flow with what came before." and "Another Senate scene? Gimme action, fast and furious! Common, let the Wookies really fight!" I wanted to shout "The Empire has no clothes!!" It started with the Ewoks. Stupid teddy bears, just too cute.
This movie, and the previous junk, Episodes 1, 2 and 6, all lacked the kind of character development that draws an audience in to want to come back. The plot, writing and direction were ponderous in the way that a legless hippo trying to wriggle it's way ashore in wet season mud is ponderous, and trite. I didn't care at all about any of them. Frankly I missed the Death Star blowing up planets willy nilly, that was fun stuff. I wanted to Emperor to win, he at least was interesting to watch. Just like at the tedious end of Titanic, I wanted to shout "DIE, please, just die!!!" Thankfully, this franchise will die and be resurrected no more. I think it could only have been worse if Ben Affleck had played Obi Wan. (Now, if I could just convince the Rolling Stones to stop touring, my work here will be finished.)
There is one consolation, and it is a small one, M&M's came out with dark chocolate M&M's. Wait, see, the Emperor did win. SWEET!
*At the theater were some Star Wars geeks, people dressed up like the characters. The best part of the whole experience was getting an ironic chuckle because the guy in the vader suit was shorter than everyone else. I mean like 5'2", shorter than me. Oh, and the other guy in the vader suit was using his lightsaber as a tapstick for a blind person. I nearly snotted soda out my nose. That was funny.
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