Welcome back to 2024: A Star Wars Event. Hey, remember at the beginning of the month when I mentioned that I was eventually going to do some synergy crossposting over on my comic blog, Chwineka Reads? Well, that time has arrived! You can check out the first post about Star Wars #1 (1977) now and expect more to come. I absolutely am going to get sick of Star Wars well before this event is done… And with that positivity, let’s get Revenge of the Sith over with.
Oh no! Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has been kidnapped by the Separatist General Grievous (voiced by Mr. Matthew Wood) and Count Dooku! See Star Wars: Clone Wars Volume Two for more information on this. Anyway, Obi-Wan gets knocked out of the fight very quickly, leaving Anakin to face Dooku himself. After disarming the Sith–literally cutting his hands off–Palpatine convinces Ani to kill the Count. The look of betrayal on Dooku’s face is priceless, really. That’s right! It’s finally time for Anakin to turn evil, and man does he turn evil faster than you would think. Skywalker is hailed as a hero and promoted to the Jedi Council by Palpatine, something the Jedi do not like. They go with it because they want info on the Chancellor–something’s off about him–but don’t promote Anakin to the rank of Master, and of course he gets very upset about. They’ve never snubbed someone like that? Anakin, there’s never been someone as young as you put on the council, so take the win, man. But he can’t, in part because he’s having constant nightmares of Padmé dying while in labor. That’s right! She’s preggers! I bet she has twins. Just a hunch.
We of course know Palpatine is evil, but he lets his mask slip around Anakin, telling him about Darth Plagueis the Wise, a Sith Lord who had the power to not only create life–see the Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones post for me confirming that Palpatine created Anakin–but could prevent those he loved from dying. Plagueis was killed by his apprentice, but that guy learned all his secrets! The apprentice is of course Palpatine, finally clueing Anakin in that the Chancellor is the Sith Lord they’ve been looking for. Skywalker tells Mace Windu (Samuel L Jackson, who has been in all the prequels but hasn’t done anything worth mentioning until now) who immediately confronts Palpatine. It goes… not well. Palpatine’s Force lightning is reflected back on him and deforms the villain, but Anakin interrupts and cuts off Windu’s hand to save Palpatine so he can learn how to save Padmé. Windu is thrown out the window, and Palpatine rechristens Anakin as Darth Vader. While all this is happening, Obi-Wan kills General Grievous with help from the Republic’s clone army. But Palpatine orders all the clones to execute Order 66, which sees them turn on their Jedi masters. It’s a total slaughter, killing such recognizable figures as Ki-Adi-Mundi, Aayla Secura, and Plo Koon. And our boy Kit Fisto was killed by Palpatine, so all hope is lost.
Obi-Wan survives his clones turning against him and rushes back to Coruscant. He hears the supposed story: the Jedi tried to overthrow the Republic and had to be put down. Eventually he, Yoda, Senator Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits), and Padmé learn the truth that Palpatine is Darth Sidious and Anakin is evil now, having killed the Jedi younglings in cold blood. Padmé rushes to Mustafar hoping Anakin will deny everything, but instead he gets jealous when he sees Obi-Wan sneaked onto her ship, thinking they were plotting against him. As Palpatine reforms the Republic into a Galactic Empire with himself as the Emperor, Obi-Wan and Anakin fight while Padmé goes into labor. It’d be a decent fight if they didn’t talk, but I’ll get more into that later. Due to an amazing miscalculation, Anakin gets his legs and hand cut off by Obi-Wan, who leaves his former friend to die in a fire. But obviously he doesn’t die as Palpatine finds his charred body and puts him into the iconic Darth Vader suit to keep him alive. As Palpatine tells Vader that Padmé died before giving birth–causing the Sith to let out a hilariously long “Nooooooo!!!”, she actually gives birth to twins–Luke and Leia–before dying of a broken heart. Seriously, she’s perfectly healthy but just… gives up. Bail Organa takes Leia as his daughter while Obi-Wan travels to Tatooine to give Luke to his sorta family, Owen Lars. The movie ends with Palpatine, Vader, and a CG Tarkin observing the construction of the Death Star.
Do people really think this is the best of the prequel movies? With this dialogue? I could almost forgive how cringe Padmé and Anakin’s sweet talk is to each other–let he or she who has never been excessively mushy throw the first stone–but this movie delivered one of the best stupid lines of the entire franchise: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” It’s honestly art, Obi-Wan, only surpassed in my mind by Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker‘s “Somehow, Palpatine returned.”
The whole movie just didn’t do it for me. I get Anakin’s drive to do anything to save the ones he loves, but usually that doesn’t involve killing children with no remorse. Oh, sorry, he sheds a single tear, so it’s all better! It’s dumb that he tried to flip over Obi-Wan–resulting in getting his legs fuckin’ chopped off–when just a normal jump onto the rocks near his former master should’ve been the obvious answer. The whole movie just felt like an exercise in wrapping up all the threads in a way that connects it to the original trilogy, even if giant leaps of logic are required to get there. It actually kind of reminds me of the finale of Game of Thrones in that way, which is one of the meanest things I could say, really.
The prequels are done with a wet fart of an ending. Now it’s time to dig my talons into JJ Abrams! Or it will be soon enough. One last interruption before I finish these main films.
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Next: Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
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