[BRIEF NOTE] Final Notes on Revenge of the Sith

[rfmcdonald]

I reposted my review of Revenge of the Sith on rec.arts.sf.written. An interesting discussion ensued, in the course of which one person pointed out that despite my skepticism, I did, after all, go to see the film in the first place. My reply to that poster, suitably cleaned up and hyperlinked.

Until now, I've thought of myself as a reasonably critical and selective consumer of popular culture, evaluating myself as quite competent to deal with science fiction since I'd exposed myself to so much of it. I only became familiar with the Star Wars Expanded Universe after I saw the movie and wanted to figure out what was going on, I refrained from seeing The Phantom Menace in theatres because the reviews were so uniformly bad, and I dropped Enterprise after the first season not because they didn't tell us whether Andor was orbiting Epsilon Indi or Procyon but rather because the writers too frequently neglected to compose good stories. And yes, in case you're wondering, I live a thousand kilometers from my parents' basement, and while it is true that I have not yet kissed a girl I do have, um, legitimate excuses.

Why did I go see it? I thought myself well-briefed on the plot of Revenge of the Sith, and I was excited. Love, betrayal, grand political drama: This, I thought excitedly, could bring Star Wars close(r) to the level of Greek tragedy. Although the first of the new films mainly made me marvel at its impressive number of offensive ethnic stereotypes and the second struck me as half-sketched, I thought that the third could be different. A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back were each good films for their time, and I think that they continue to stand up well now. The first two movies, I'd reasoned, were flawed because they were of necessity open-ended. Surely the third movie, which had to end with the situation we witnessed in the first trilogy, would be better? I underestimated George Lucas' talent for making bad movies.

You could say that seeing _Revenge of the Sith_ last Thursday was a waste of time, in the sense that I could have been doing something else for the two hours and change that I spent watching that film. I wouldn't want to say that, though. Whatever the film's cinematic failings, it ably served a variety of useful social roles. I got to do something other than poison my liver; I got to hang out to interesting friends; I got to partake on the final chapter of what is still a major cultural icon. _Star Wars_ might not be a very good collection of movies, after all, but it's certainly an important one. It's rather depressing that something better hasn't taken _Star Wars_' position in global popular culture, true. Does it really matter that much so long as we remain aware of this fact?

One thing that I will do in the future, mind, is find movie reviewers I trust. I've no idea what George Lucas paid or threatened to do to the reviewers who said the film was decent, but hopefully there are some critics out there who can't be bought.