It's been over a decade since release and hopefully the seething anger and disappointment towards the prequels has died down a bit and people can view Revenge of the Sith separately from the other two disappointing prequel films.
It wasn't a heat of the moment thing. This movie continues to be awful years later. My enjoyment of it actually diminished with repeat viewings when it was new.
I'm not a fan of Phantom Menace personally (I think it's probably the worst SW movie), but I do enjoy Attack of the Clones as a flawed film even if it has some major issues. However Revenge of the Sith is a legit fantastic movie imo and deserves to be considered one of the good Star Wars films (my personal top 3 are Force Awakens, Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith).
I like TFA, really, but how can it be consider one of the good ones and not ANH when TFA basically apes it throughout? RotS has enormous problems that keep it from being one of the best. If you haven't seen Plinkett's review, then go ahead. I only saw it this year and perfectly encapsulated my problems with it.
-ROTS CG has aged fairly well, at least after revisiting the blu-ray (maybe on a theater screen it would look worse)
The CG wasn't great for starters, it's excessive and it has aged poorly.
-It's
certified fresh on rottentomatoes (I still think the score would be higher if it wasn't saddled with being attached to the lower quality Episode 1 & 2
Bad movies and movies that aged horribly have been rated fresh before too.
-It has one of the best acting performances of the series, with Ewan Mcgregor's Obi-Wan. I honestly think he did a better job with the role than Alec Guinness (who always looked a bit bored).
Portman, McGregor and Jackson were wasted in these movies and came out looking really bad despite their acting chops. Hayden was a decent young actor and stood no chance against the awful directing and script.
-All of the major battles are fun/clever/intense and some of the best in the SW films: the opening space battle, Obi-Wan vs. General Grievous, Yoda vs. Sheev, Anakin vs. Obi-Wan.
the opening space battle was neat for 15 seconds before devolving into corny dialogue and slapstick humor with R2D2. What a shitshow. Clones vs droids blowing each other up in CG... boring. Grievous fight was a messy greenscreen pile of junk, the Anakin/Obi fight was too long and over the top "epic" for the sake of being over the top epic. The lightsaber circus acrobatics are loathsome.
-Visually, I think it's one of the better looking SW films, even with its reliance on CG. The art direction is nice and everything is framed well (the previous 2 films looked a bit tacky at times and had poor cinematography, even ANH looks a bit bland).
They are most certainly not framed or directed well. To borrow from Plinkett's: lots of sitting on couches, shot/reverse shot, everyone walking slowly and linearly from point A to B because it's all green screen stages. It's shot like a crappy soap opera. The art direction is more goofy CG aliens and fake looking backdrops that don't feel like they are THERE.
-I really love the creature and droid design in ROTS, my fave has to be that lizard thing Obi-Wan rides on during his battle with Grievous (Grievous himself is a fantastic design, when he pulls out those 4 light sabers, whew).
Really? That dumb lizard? Grievous is terrible.
-The story actually flows and makes sense this time around (compared to the other prequels), and is faster paced than A New Hope and less goofy than Return of the Jedi's awful second half so I'd place ROTS higher than both of those, I find it much easier to revisit.
Yeah besides the huge plot holes and the ridiculous contrivance of how Anakin fell to the Dark side, yeah it all makes sense. How about the god awful love "story" between Anakin and Paste? Or the nonexistent teacher-student friendship between Anakin and Obi? Could Palpatine have been any more obvious? Nothing in this shit works, we're told it does, but it doesn't.
-Order 66 is such a cool scene. The films has a lot of really cool scenes. Darth Vader & Palpatine at the end is another one.
No. "Execute order 66" is cheese of the highest order.
-The darker tone works in the film's favor, though I wish they'd gone a bit further in really selling Anakin's turn to the dark side (Padme's fate was pretty lame though).
Kidding? Nothing about his turn to the Dark was convincing. Oh wow he's killing kids, he's sooo bad. Being "dark" isn't a mark of quality.
I didn't grow up with these movies, I only caught them all once the blu-rays came out so I'm not some lifelong diehard.
Neither am I. I caught onto SW very late in my teens. Its not childhood nostalgia that makes me dislike the prequel trilogy.
It would be interesting to see if lifelong fans and more recent fans have different opinions on ROTS vs. the rest of the movies. What do you think? ROTS is a good movie, AND a good Star Wars film, right?
No, it is not. Horrible script, directing, CG, acting, actor chemistry, pacing, framing, action scenes and so on.
I give the movie a thumbs up.
I give it a middle finger.
