Big Dumb Object

First off, the film is fast paced. Really fast paced. One planet, then the next, then the next. Non stop. Fast. But never seeming rushed.

The opening panning shot was great, travelling around a big cruiser to reveal the massive space battle. Awesome stuff. The whole rescue of Palpatine was brilliant, a real chapter of jedi escapades, with plenty of humour and starring R2D2! This was the first time that I really liked Anakin, he seemed like a stroppy teenager in AOTC and just a kid in TPM, but here, him and Obi-Wan together, in battle, as friends, I liked him.

Obi-Wan and Anakin showed the height of jedi powers, doing crazy fighting moves and flying and jedi stuff. I laughed a lot when the buzz droids cut R4's head off. And somehow the droids had all turned into comedy stooges. Even the super battle droids. How did that happen?! Dunno but it was funny. Then taking out Dooku in the first lightsaber fight of the film. Nice moves. So long Dooku.

General Grievous seemed a little less deadly than in the cartoons. Didn't he take out 4 jedi at once in one episode? But to our man Obi-Wan he is nothing more than one more enemy, and takes him out relatively easily. Well, he almost dies and it's a massive fight but you get what I mean. Nicely ironic that a blaster kills Grievous in the end.

The battle on Kashyyk seemed a bit supefluous. We didn't really get to know any of the wookies, just saw them doing a few stunts of derring-do. It didn't distract, but the film would have been fine without it.

And all the time Palpatine is filling Anakin's head with thoughts, promising things that he'll never deliver. Ian McDiarmid is really superb, Palpatine is really, really nasty. Anakin so nearly saw off the threat. He told Mace Windu about Palpatine, resisted the first offer from the sith lord. Oh, I liked the transformation from elderly looking gent to nasty looking Emperor, nice morph. And then even when Anakin accepted the offer of being Palpatine's apprentice, you could see that he didn't really want to do it. But he had a choice, and in his mind the only way to save Padme was to sell his soul. Yet he had it in the back of his mind, learn what he needed to know, then defeat Palpatine. But save Padme first. Very touching. Very sad. The tears streaming down Anakin's face as he killed innocent people said it all. At that point he wasn't evil, he was just doing what he thought he had to do.

Mace Windu versus Palpatine. So Mace is the better swordsman, but that Palply is so devious. Mace hesitated. Funny that Anakin told Mace not to kill him, when Mace was prepared to. A jedi dilemma for Master Windu. Perhaps he should have just trusted his feelings, ha ha.

The clone's turning on the Jedi (order 66!) was a nice sequence too. Quite moving. Very well done. Quite sad seeing all those jedi killed. I also liked how this wasn't explained, leaving you to imagine how and when Sidious inserted his sleeper commands.

Yoda versus Palpatine was a good fight, although I thought Yoda bottled it a bit. I mean come on, get back in there, don't run away! The whole cinema laughed when Yoda flattened the Royal guard with a wave of his hand. I liked the banter between the two of them.

Anakin versus Obi-Wan. Fast, fast fight. A few too many close-ups for my liking, please provide an uncut long-shot of the whole thing for the DVD. Nice lava too. It was cool how in the end Obi-Wan was resolved to fight Anakin, he was clearly distressed when he found out what Anakin had done, but come the fight he was ready. And Obi-Wan held his own, even though Anakin is supposed to be the better swordsman. How did that happen? And the end seemed a little anti-climactic, although fitting, Obi-Wan telling Anakin not to do something, Anakin believing he can and doing it anyway. But paying the price. It was pretty nasty of Obi-Wan to leave Anakin burning besides the lava, not sure that is in the Jedi code?

And then Yoda and Obi-Wan run away!

The birth of Leia and Luke was handled okay, but the reason for Padme dying seemed a bit weak and weird. She just gave up living? errr?

At the end, in the blockade runner of course, Bail Organa tells Captain Antilles to wipe the protocol droids memory (nice reply by C3P0). But this means that R2D2 remembered everything! All through the OT he knew exactly what was going on. Clever little droid, although he somehow managed to lose his thrusters.

And Vader coming to in his suit, stumbling off the table, breaking his restraints and listening to one more lie from Palpatine. Although some could see the big "NOOOO" as cheesey it's so obviously a nod to Frankenstein, which is of course credited as the first Science Fiction novel.

And the final sequence, Leia going to Alderaan, Luke to Tatooine. Nice. Slow panning shots. Ending with Owen and Beru holding Luke and looking at the twin setting suns of Tatooine. Very moving.

I feel quite sad now. The end of Star Wars.

Nice ride though.