Rate "Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith"

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I thought Harvey/Two Face would form some sort of temporary alliance on the fly with the Joker. Joker would sell out all the mob leaders in Gotham. Dent would in turn take his vendetta to the streets and the law into his own hands. Dent would find himself becoming exactly what he waged war against. It almost seemed like that was how it was going to be when he started going around killing guys.

[Arpy 4,145]

Didn't know where to put this so found this old thread convenient:

 

Just rewatched this film after finishing Clone Wars - which is great considering the series retroactively gave this film a greater meaning and contextualizes a lot of motivations and characters the film never had time to explore. Revenge of the Sith has always been one of my favorite films in the franchise and rewatching it with the fuller scope of the spin-offs really made me accept some of its shortcomings (writing and some line delivery) and get over the Prequel-itis that plagued the internet and civil discourse for the last twenty something years. It was also an opportunity to hear the score in context once more and it never disappoints. The variety and ease at which Wiliams is able to shift, in mood and tone is downright masterful and adds a dimension to the film everything else can't conjure without. You feel Anakin's conflict, Obi-Wan and Padmé's grief, Palpatine's snake-like seduction and eventual triumph - it's all so delicately woven together that it all feels inevitable and integral to the story. It's probably my favorite Williams score joint with Prisoner of Azkaban.

 

What stands out fifteen years later is what I consider top-notch CGI that holds up relatively well considering the software and technology has come so far in such a short time; there's depth and spatial awareness to the animation that rivals many of today's CGI-heavy films. There's not one CG sequence that looks hastily slapped together and that leads me to the point that for all of Attack of the Clones' clearly heavy-handed use of CG, Revenge of the Sith makes that CG work in the film's favor without looking like it was trying too hard to work miracles. Yoda has a surprisingly realistic presence that I think was always chided around the time of the film's release but is really well done for the time - ILM were really raising the bar here. The film's art direction and design of the sets, planets, props, costumes etc. are stunning; it's not garish or out of place or silly. It works wonders with the CGI and the lighting which 90% of the time is CG.

 

I really feel that Lucas and all the artists did a fine job in closing the saga here and my appreciation for the film in a post-Plinkett review era has returned in a nostalgic way. Yes, some of Christensen's line delivery is wooden, yes there are some (very few instances) of dated CG. Yes, there's some very wafer thin storytelling going on, but damn, I still love this film, not despite its flaws, but as one piece of jumbled giant narrative puzzle that's a part of my youth and my life as fan of the series.

[Chen G. 3,949]

I’m between ***1/2 and **** on the film. It’s deeply flawed, but I do find it entertaining, confident as a piece of storytelling, and at one point even a bit moving. Better than Return of the Jedi, and shows that the failings of the prequel trilogy aren’t down to Lucas being a supposedly bad filmmaker.

 

Great score. I’m a sucker for the sort of choral writing we have here.

[Edmilson 7,457]

Is it true that Lucas liked the LOTR scores, and asked Williams to bring more of that powerful choral writing to his own movie? I've heard this rumour somewhere here, and if that's true, it was a wise decision. I love the score and the epic choir that comes with it.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

As the true experts acknowledge, the prequels have no real flaws. Just some challenging cinematic craft that those who aren't true artists will fall into a lethal coma watching. Similar to when Brahms fell asleep to Liszt showcasing his Sonata in B Minor.

[crocodile 8,017]

Having watched the prequels recently, I have to agree with @Arpy for the most part. ROTS especially felt better than I remember. It's not really "good good" but I really like many ideas in it and the opening battle still looks very good. I get what Lucas was trying to achieve with these films and most of it makes some sense - both as a grand story and from visual perspective. It also does help the UHD Blu-ray transfer is almost flawless. It's just a shame he didn't have a very good writer to tidy up his ideas and present them in their best light.

 

Karol

[Romão 2,274]

It never was a good film, but ROTS had far better acting and it's a far worse film

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I enjoyed the prequels but I'm at the point again where I have no desire to rewatch them. Star Wars is best left in childhood or occasionally revisited, not obsessively watched and disected. They're Saturday matinee space popcorn movies for adolescents. 

 

Revenge of the Sith was ambitious in that it told a slightly more complicated story told at an increasingly rapid pace with high stakes and tragedy. It balances elements of the two trilogies rather well. 

[Chen G. 3,949]

19 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Is it true that Lucas liked the LOTR scores, and asked Williams to bring more of that powerful choral writing to his own movie? I've heard this rumour somewhere here, and if that's true, it was a wise decision.

I know Lucas liked the films. As for the music, there’s at least one cue where the Lord of the Rings cries out of the depths of the temp track: the opening of Anakin’s Dark Deeds.

 

But then, he also has the moaning woman straight of Gladiator, and of course Attack of the Clones had that arena match...

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

PG-13

[Edmilson 7,457]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

I know Lucas liked the films. As for the music, there’s at least one cue where the Lord of the Rings cries out of the depths of the temp track: the opening of Anakin’s Dark Deeds.

 

 

I think everyone back then was trying the epic choir. Williams had the prequels and The Dementors Converge from Prisoner of Azkaban, Shore had LOTR, Horner tried with Troy and Avatar, HGW had Kingdom of Heaven and Narnia, Zimmer on King Arthur, Silvestri on The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing, Don Davis on The Matrix Revolutions... Have I forgot anyone?

 

These days, save for rare occasions (Powell on the Dragons trilogy and Call of the Wild; Giacchino on Jupiter Ascending and the Jurassic scores), everyone forgot that choir exists and you can use it. 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

Remember the good days when it was more about more cowbell?

[Tom 4,658]

12 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Is it true that Lucas liked the LOTR scores, and asked Williams to bring more of that powerful choral writing to his own movie? I've heard this rumour somewhere here, and if that's true, it was a wise decision. I love the score and the epic choir that comes with it.

Lucas was in love with DotF and even claimed Williams had score the key scene from what would be ROTS during interviews for TPM.  All of this predated LotR, so I think its effect was secondary at best--not to mention Lucas went with another TPM choir piece for Padme's death/Vader's birth.  

 

As an aside, I remember an idiot friend claiming the music from Vader's birth was Williams ripping off Shore.  

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

I remember when Kingdom Hearts ripped off DotF. Not quite the pinnacle of great jazz music, but it was pretty atmospheric for a PS2 game.

[Chen G. 3,949]

6 hours ago, Tom said:

Lucas was in love with DotF and even claimed Williams had score the key scene from what would be ROTS during interviews for TPM.  All of this predated LotR, so I think its effect was secondary at best--not to mention Lucas went with another TPM choir piece for Padme's death/Vader's birth.  

 

Lucas thought Duel of the Fates could work for the inevitable duel of Anakin and Obi Wan. That's it. If Lucas were so enamored with Williams' choral writing, we would have had a lot more of it in Attack of the Clones than what we got. 

 

To me, its obvious that The Lord of the Rings inspired the expanse of choral writing in Revenge of the Sith.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

I voted Attack of the Clones as favourite prequel score - sue me!

[crocodile 8,017]

18 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

I voted Attack of the Clones as favourite prequel score - sue me!

It definitely has the best album. I mean, yes, it sounds the worst but the programme is really good. In fact you don't really need much beyond what is already on disc.

 

Karol

[Chen G. 3,949]

Thinking about it, the album is nowhere near as Across the Stars-heavy as the actual film score. It is a shame the Separatists material isn't as good as it should have been, though...

[crocodile 8,017]

26 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

To me, its obvious that The Lord of the Rings inspired the expanse of choral writing in Revenge of the Sith.

You even hear the Ring seduction theme in it! 

 

Karol

[Chen G. 3,949]

An impression of it, down to the bass drum underneath the boy's choir, yes.

 

Copying great music still results in great music, though, so no harm done.

[crocodile 8,017]

1 minute ago, Chen G. said:

An impression of it, down to the bass drum underneath the boy's choir, yes.

It's interesting how Clones came out not long after Crouching Tiger and Sith after final Rings film...

 

Karol

[Chen G. 3,949]

15 minutes ago, crocodile said:

It's interesting how Clones came out not long after Crouching Tiger

 

You mean the oriental flourishes of the chase sequence? Sure.

 

Movie-wise, too, there are influences from contemporary movies. The original Star Wars homaged films which were, at the time, at least two decades removed (1950s Kurosawa Samurai epics) or more (1930s serials), but the prequel trilogy often seems to be pulling from films that have either come since the original Star Wars (I mean, Attack of the Clones' Curoscant sure does look like Blade Runner!) or quite recently prior to the prequels themselves, which makes for a slightly wierd experience.

 

Could it be that Lucas got the idea of having a big ground battle in The Phantom Menace after Braveheart re-popularized such battles a few years prior? Or that he had a Gladiatorial arena sequence not two years after Gladiator? A doomed love-affair after Titanic?

 

Not to muddle the waters by bringing the sequel trilogy into the discussion, but the same is true of those films. That the timeframes between the entries in that trilogy (an instant between VII and VIII and a year between that and IX) had been so short reeks of the influence of The Lord of the Rings, where each entry picks up immediately following the previous one. Star Wars was never like that before.

[Tom 4,658]

4 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

Lucas thought Duel of the Fates could work for the inevitable duel of Anakin and Obi Wan. That's it. If Lucas were so enamored with Williams' choral writing, we would have had a lot more of it in Attack of the Clones than what we got. 

 

To me, its obvious that The Lord of the Rings inspired the expanse of choral writing in Revenge of the Sith.

Wouldn't the argument have to be if Lucas was so enamored with LotR then AotC would have had expansive choral writing?  

[Edmilson 7,457]

39 minutes ago, Tom said:

Wouldn't the argument have to be if Lucas was so enamored with LotR then AotC would have had expansive choral writing?  

 

AotC's score was recorded in January 2002, right when Fellowship was still on theaters. Williams probably wrote it during the final months of 2001, on the weeks leading to the release of the first LOTR.

[Tom 4,658]

6 hours ago, Edmilson said:

 

AotC's score was recorded in January 2002, right when Fellowship was still on theaters. Williams probably wrote it during the final months of 2001, on the weeks leading to the release of the first LOTR.

I am not sure if any of this even matters, but Williams had done a choir conclusion to AotC.  Lucas wanted it done differently and so there was a late rewrite.  Either way, I am not sure of any of this. TPM (and RotJ) has a bunch of epic (and better, imo--Dark Side Beacons wipes the floor with any choir piece composed since) choir well before LotR. Why would the latter suddenly be the reason for a choir-heavy Rots?  Particularly when Lucas in 99 said he wanted an epic choir for III.  

[Edmilson 7,457]

Maybe he wanted the epic choir for the final lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan, but the extensive use of choir throughout LOTR made him ask for more choir during scenes such as General Grievous appearances and Anakin's Dark Deeds?

[Chen G. 3,949]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

Either way, I am not sure of any of this. TPM (and RotJ) has a bunch of epic (and better, imo--Dark Side Beacons wipes the floor with any choir piece composed since) choir well before LotR. Why would the latter suddenly be the reason for a choir-heavy Rots?  Particularly when Lucas in 99 said he wanted an epic choir for III.  

 

No one is sure of any of this: its our assesment given the evidence. The use of choir in The Phantom Menace and certainly in Return of the Jedi is noteworthy, but much more infrequent than it is in Revenge of the Sith, which to me (especially given some specific similarities) speaks to the influence of The Lord of the Rings.

 

The choral writing Lucas fancied for the film was that, upon hearing Duel of the Fates, he figured he could use it for the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel (which he ended up not doing). I don't believe he envisioned the whole back-half of the score as littered with raging choruses, which I think is a Rings influence.

[Arpy 4,145]

HP123 all featured choir in some fashion - I think RotS merely called for that large choir to underscore the drama and action.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

And General Grievous traveling.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Church music

[Edmilson 7,457]

3 hours ago, Arpy said:

HP123 all featured choir in some fashion - I think RotS merely called for that large choir to underscore the drama and action.

 

Yeah. but the choir on the first two scores was more to highlight Hogwarts' "spookiness" and the magic within the castle, like on this track:

 

 

The choir on Prisoner of Azkaban was to underscore the Dementors and the new dangers, so it was more similar to a horror score by Christopher Young, or Shore's music for the Ringwraiths. The Dementors Converge is an ancestor to Anakin's Dark Deeds:

 

 

In other words, the choir on HPPS is more magical, and on PoA is more horrifying and dark.