Fight Scenes of the Sith
Saw the new “Star Wars” movie today. It seems that there are two things that George Lucas does well — exotic/futuristic settings, and assorted aliens/robots. And battles and fight scenes. (OK, that’s three things.) These were all well done. Fortunately, the sorry excuse for characterization (and motives, and dialogue) were really just there to link up the fights, and didn’t take too much time away from those. ‘Cause all of the “normal” and “human” elements were truly vile. (Detailed discussions ahead in the full version.)
Maybe it was just because I never saw the first two of the “new” movies. I knew the basics of the plots for those, at least, so I wasn’t completely lost. But the whole issue of Anakin’s motivation to turn evil was just a complete wash — “I’ll do it, but only because I love Padme because I never learned the basic lesson that Jedi can’t get too attached to others because that disturbs their thoughts!” No no, it was “I’ll do it, so that I can have all the powers the other Jedi wouldn’t teach me! I’ll show them! Mwahahah!” No no, it was “I’ll do it, so that I can be powerful enough to defeat Palpatine and rule the empire justly!” Pick one and stick with it — the first one, preferably, since that would’ve been the most interesting.
Maybe it was just because the movie, without the fight scenes, battles, and assorted action-y bits, would only have been 20 minutes long. It’s hard to fit too much character into what’s basically a short story with light-saber padding. Come to think of it, that also describes the original movies. So… hurrah for light sabers! And R2-D2, the only being in the movie with whom I can find no fault.