Star Wars Episode 3

Mild Spoiler Alert!

I went to see Episode 3 last night at midnight. My boyfriend, Stick, says the spaceships looked fake, but this didn’t bug me too much. I don’t know if this is because my eyes aren’t so great or because I’ve, uh, never seen a real space battle for comparison purposes. Ditto for the lavaflow.

I was happy to see C-3PO and R2-D2 popping up so much in this movie, but it does raise some continuity glitches. Darth Vader and Obi-Wan both see the droids in this film, but fail to recognize them in later episodes. Obi-Wan does ask to have have C3PO’s mind wiped, which is why he doesn’t recognize his homeplanet of Tatoonine in the later movie. Maybe Obi-Wan’s mind is also wiped? And maybe Darth Vader’s too busy grieving, learning Sith ways, killing innocents and becoming still more evil to remember every droid in his path. But here, R2-D2 is a Swiss army knife of ‘bot superpowers, while in the next three movies, he’s confined to beeping clever unmentionables at C3PO.

Plotwise, young Anakin is torn between his beloved mentor Obi-Wan and his growing friendship with Palpatine, between his role as unemotional, unattached Jedi and his secret marraige to Padme, between his duty to the Jedis and his duty to the republic, between Coke and Pepsi, etc. You get the picture.

Palpatine has these temporary-crisis dictator powers over the senate, but he wants to keep them so he gives a speech about saving the republic by creating an empire, there is thunderous applause by his now-puppet senate. Very Roman. Then he proscribes the entire Jedi Order and tells his secret minions to murder their former allies. I’m not sure why it needed to be “order 66″ instead of just “I’m taking over, kill everyone who’s not us,” but it sounds sinister.

This leads to a cool Yoda Vs. Palpatine fight in the senate room, in which Palpatine literally tries to crush the Jedi muppet with the seat of democracy. Brilliant.

Later, newly-Sith Anakin tells pregnant Padme that he turned evil for her! And he wants to off Palpatine and rule the galaxy with her! (Note to Stick: If the situation arises, I’d like “Galactic Empress” for my title) Padme and Anakin’s great love story is stilted at best. If you’re not an English major, “stilted” can be defined as “like watching a Vulcan and a Barbie doll in a Lifetime TV movie.” Usually when we see Padme, she’s wearing a pillow and waiting for Anakin to come home. In her defense, she does not ask him if he forgot the pickles and ice cream.

Then the climactic battle. I didn’t think that molten lava as far as the eye could see really made it more dramatic than fighting in a corridor, although my Star Wars-geek housemate tells me that that’s always been the reason for Vader’s cyborg-ity. The lavaflow fight was worth it for the moment where a burned and mutilated Anakin tells ex-mentor Kenobi that he hates him. (Hayden Christenson can act! Why didn’t anyone tell me this?)

But Anakin, sorry, I mean Vader, surives, because Palpatine puts him in a medical pod sized for legless men, takes him back and gives Vader cyberlimbs, a heavy-breathing mask and James Earl Jones’ voice. Meanwhile, the twins are born and Padme kicks it, in a scene that should be dramatic and moving but somehow falls flat. Senator Organa mentions that his wife wants to adopt a baby girl, and Obi-wan takes the boy to Anakin’s relatives, because Darth Vader will never think to look for him there. Or something. There’s a great nod to the later story when baby Luke is held by his aunt against the Tatoonine double-sunset.

Anyway, I was expecting a trainwreck and I got a decent movie. Not life-changing or brilliant, but a fun night and worth seven bucks. But the best part was in the line to get in when a lightsaber duel broke out between an overweight Darth Vader and some Jedi knights.

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