Friday, July 6, 2012

Two Scenes that Nearly Ruin Revenge of the Sith For Me

I was thinking about going down to Detroit to catch some pictures of ships as there were a few coming down.  That lasted about as long as it took me to get from the office to the car because it is pretty hot here.  I almost wasn't going to post anything but I realize it's been a couple days so I decided to pull out my action figures.

Huge swaths of the Internet are devoted to a multitude of reasons why people don't like the Star Wars prequels.  For the most part I like them.  Do they have cheesy dialogue?  Yes.  Do they have cheesy scenes at points?  Yes.  But then again, so did the first three Star Wars.    There are a number of reasons why Lucas should have left the back story alone but I'm not going to delve into that here since there are a number of other sites that do that very thing.

For the most part, I enjoyed Revenge of the Sith.  It tied up a number of loose ends and provided a good transition to the first three Star Wars movies.   I enjoyed the lightsaber battles and some of the other scenes.  But two scenes came pretty close to ruining it for me. 

I think one of my biggest issues with the Prequels was the fact that Lucas didn't have anyone to say No to him.  He is an awesome idea man but Star Wars to a little extent and the prequels show that he's not as good as putting those ideas to film.  Compare Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back to the other movies sometime.  He had other directors and screenwriters for those.

As for the two scenes....I tried to capture them with my camera as best as possible.....
 Now, you would think the above scene would be Number 1.  It is supposed to be the moment where Darth Vader becomes the figure we all know and love.  First we have a bad impression of Frankenstein awakening and then we have a "Nooooo" that sounds like it comes out Principal Skinner's mouth on the Simpsons.   These turn what is supposed to be a climatic scene into comedy gold.  But no...that scene doesn't come close to the next scene.
So we are treated to the coolest lightsaber battle in the series.  Both Jedi are jumping all over the place, beating each other up, choking each other, etc.  And what happens before the final act?  Obiwan jumps up on a hill makes the above pose and announces, "Don't do it Anakin....I have the high ground".  Now, just a second ago, we see Anakin making leaps that make this one look like a high jumper trying to jump over one of those lines at the gas station.  If that wasn't bad enough, Anakin's answer is, "You underestimate my power" said in a pretty whiny voice.  Again, pure comedy gold.

I'm just glad there were enough good scenes to counterbalance those.

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