My Review of Revenge of the Sith, By Mr. Zarquon, Age 22
Well, I'll start with the good points:
Jar-Jar Doesn't Talk. At All. Ever.
Yoda does some cool fighting.
ObiWan is good, great acting from McGregor. Good dry humor, living up to Sir Alec Guinness's character.
Some of the fight scenes are cool. Grievious is neat, if he didn't look like a cg character, but his character is so surreal, its hard for it not to look cg and out of place.
Palpatine/anakin dialogues are good.
Some bad things:
Lucas apparently has not learned that blue screens aren't the answer to everything. Most of the acting lacks depth, as if they walked in off the street and read their lines, it feels like there is a lack of action in general. Its as if lucas is trying to so off all the digital effects, lots of establishing shots, with very complicated settings going on, but at points you don't even KNOW what you are supposed to be looking at.
Also, and this got really fucking annoying, it is as if lucas found the transition button in imovie when he was editing this, and decided to throw in EVERY FUCKING WIPE EFFECT HE COULD FIND. We got the circle fade, the windsheild wiper wipe, the 8 squares sliding away to reveal a scene beneath it, 4 squares doing the same. The scenes would go like this:
wipe(type(rand))
Establishing shot of large building with birds, droids, things flying around
wipe(type(rand))
Interior of building, but you don't really know where you are, since the establishing shot was so huge, you could be in anyone of the thousands of ledges that was shown.
wipe(type(rand))
New Establishing shot, different planet
wipe(type(rand))
Surface of planet
wipe(type(rand))
Someone getting out of their ship. Now some fast cuts for dialogue.
wipe(type(rand))
Now establishing shot of building we saw 5 wipes ago, so we know that YES, the room that the jedi council is meeting in is STILL IN THE JEDI HALL, in case anyone needed to be reminded.
wipe(type(rand))
Now the jedi council meeting
etc. etc. etc.
Maybe if the cuts were faster, and they didn't use 30 different wipes I wouldn't have noticed. Also, if they just realized that you only have to show us the establishing shot of building once, and unless its on fire or extremely different OR crucial to the plot of the film, YOU DON'T NEED TO SHOW IT AGAIN.
Even in return of the king, which had massive multiple establishing shots, they were done fast, and with a pace that while drawn out, is not tedious. It also helps when the actors are actually into their roles and excited about what they are doing.
Maybe in 15 years lucas will "revisit" his masterpiece again and update it from his retirement home, and through a hazy mist of gold bond medicated powder, sterno, and whiskey, some how manage to recut the film into something that actually works. Of course, by then he could edit some emotion into some of the characters. Which i guess is why i think yoda did the best job, because his digital puppet was easier to emote than the poor souls who had to work on those sets.
The light saber fights are cool thou.
Well, I'll start with the good points:
Jar-Jar Doesn't Talk. At All. Ever.
Yoda does some cool fighting.
ObiWan is good, great acting from McGregor. Good dry humor, living up to Sir Alec Guinness's character.
Some of the fight scenes are cool. Grievious is neat, if he didn't look like a cg character, but his character is so surreal, its hard for it not to look cg and out of place.
Palpatine/anakin dialogues are good.
Some bad things:
Lucas apparently has not learned that blue screens aren't the answer to everything. Most of the acting lacks depth, as if they walked in off the street and read their lines, it feels like there is a lack of action in general. Its as if lucas is trying to so off all the digital effects, lots of establishing shots, with very complicated settings going on, but at points you don't even KNOW what you are supposed to be looking at.
Also, and this got really fucking annoying, it is as if lucas found the transition button in imovie when he was editing this, and decided to throw in EVERY FUCKING WIPE EFFECT HE COULD FIND. We got the circle fade, the windsheild wiper wipe, the 8 squares sliding away to reveal a scene beneath it, 4 squares doing the same. The scenes would go like this:
wipe(type(rand))
Establishing shot of large building with birds, droids, things flying around
wipe(type(rand))
Interior of building, but you don't really know where you are, since the establishing shot was so huge, you could be in anyone of the thousands of ledges that was shown.
wipe(type(rand))
New Establishing shot, different planet
wipe(type(rand))
Surface of planet
wipe(type(rand))
Someone getting out of their ship. Now some fast cuts for dialogue.
wipe(type(rand))
Now establishing shot of building we saw 5 wipes ago, so we know that YES, the room that the jedi council is meeting in is STILL IN THE JEDI HALL, in case anyone needed to be reminded.
wipe(type(rand))
Now the jedi council meeting
etc. etc. etc.
Maybe if the cuts were faster, and they didn't use 30 different wipes I wouldn't have noticed. Also, if they just realized that you only have to show us the establishing shot of building once, and unless its on fire or extremely different OR crucial to the plot of the film, YOU DON'T NEED TO SHOW IT AGAIN.
Even in return of the king, which had massive multiple establishing shots, they were done fast, and with a pace that while drawn out, is not tedious. It also helps when the actors are actually into their roles and excited about what they are doing.
Maybe in 15 years lucas will "revisit" his masterpiece again and update it from his retirement home, and through a hazy mist of gold bond medicated powder, sterno, and whiskey, some how manage to recut the film into something that actually works. Of course, by then he could edit some emotion into some of the characters. Which i guess is why i think yoda did the best job, because his digital puppet was easier to emote than the poor souls who had to work on those sets.
The light saber fights are cool thou.