The Saga is Complete

In 1999 and 2002 respectively, my wife and I lined up from the early hours of premiere day to see each of the Star Wars prequels that were released in those years. I fondly remember the cheer of the crowd when John Williams' theme rang out across the theatre in The Phantom Menace for the first time since the Special Edition releases in 1997. I also remember the adrenaline that ran through the fans as they saw Yoda fight for the first time in Attack of The Clones.

It's been a fun ride for my wife and I as we've followed the prequels together over the years, and now it comes to a possible conclusion with Revenge of The Sith. The introduction of our daughter Elora into our lives complicated things to a degree in that we had to each see the film separately during its premiere; but we figure that we've already had our fandom time with prequels, and we were not so disappointed to not see it together for the first time. Now we just cross our fingers for a showing at the local Star and Strollers time at the Galaxy Cinema.

Anyhow, like the other prequels, I loved this latest installment. I have thoroughly enjoyed Lucas' unravelling of the background story to the original Star Wars trilogy. ROTS brought more compelling story elements to the Star Wars saga and it continued to push our visual imagination with its effects and cinematography.

Here were some of my favourite parts:

The character of General Grievous certainly earned his place in the Star Wars canon of bad guys. He had a good balance of cheesy bad guy dialogue with a cool aesthetic of danger to him. However, I do recommend seeing the Clone Wars cartoons if you want a full sense of the Grievous character.

I continued to enjoy the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I have always enjoyed this character and his sense of "always doing the good thing" even if the "good thing" doesn't always lead to good or blindly overlooks spontaneity.

The duel between Yoda and Palpatine was of course one of those "always wanted to see that in Star Wars" deals, and it clearly explains why Yoda went into hiding and why he didn't just take on Vader and Palpatine by himself in Episodes IV-VI.

The initial space fight over Coruscant was a great instance of the Star Wars convention of large battles in space.

There were many great examples of what Lucas calls artistic echoes of lines throughout the Star Wars films. These echoes serve to establish some continuity and poignance to the development of the story. For example, after Kenobi dispatches Grievous with a blaster, he says, " How uncivilized." Those of you who have seen Episode IV may recall Kenobi's description in that film of lightsabers as a more "elegant weapon for a more civilized time."

I absolutely loved the fall of Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force. It would have been tremendously difficult to buy a transition of Anakin to pure evil through just pure selfish and evil actions. It was far more compelling to make his story an example of how the road to Hell is often paved with good intentions. Again, Lucas sets up some great artistic echoes with this part of the story. Palpatine's murder of Mace Windu through Force lightning adds a degree of poignance to the moment when Palpatine nearly kills Luke with Force lightning in Episode VI. Now we learn that when Vader watches Palpatine killing Luke, Vader is remembering the moment when he contributed to the death of Mace Windu and truly began his dedication to the Dark Side. In Episode VI, Vader redeems his mistake and this time does what he should have done before: kill Palpatine.

If you have not yet seen this film, I apologize for the spoilers. Definitely go out to see this film. Don't expect Academy Award winning acting. This is Buck Rogers/Lone Ranger/1950's serial stuff; not Bridges Over Madison County. Just expect a fun film with an intriguing storyline and of course, ground-breaking special effects.