OK... if you haven't seen "Star Wars Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith" and don't want any of the surprises spoiled for you, skip this entry.

If you're a HUGE George Lucas fan, this entry contains some unflattering opinions of Mr. Lucas' recent body of work, so you might want to skip it.

If you ARE George Lucas, everything in this entry is my opinion... and, uh... can I have a job?

If you're Hayden Christensen, suck my left nut you no talent hack.

OK... last warning... SPOILERS FOLLOW...

















Here we go...

The best thing I can say about 'Revenge of the Sith' is that it was better than either of the last 2 'Matrix' films. Then again, video of my last colon exam would be better than those pieces of crap.

Where do I start?

OK... how about at the beginning.

Lucas wastes no time, Sith starts sucking in the prologue. General who?!? Once again Lucas invents a bad guy we're supposed to feel heat from for the sole purpose of killing him off so he doesn't have to kill a significant member of the cast.

Next... it's nice to see Christopher Lee treated like a worthless piece of meat. Nice job George. Count Dooku (has there ever been a lamer name for a bad guy - I guess it could have been worse, he could have gotten stuck with Darth Plagus) dead in the first 5 minutes. But perhaps it was a mercy killing.

For his death spared him having to recite any more of Lucas' stilted dialog. George... little piece of advice. Go to a mall, there must be dozens of them in Marin County... pick one. Sit in the food court and listen. Just listen to how people talk. If you ever hear someone utter the line "You're breaking my heart," either they're being sarcastic or they're reading your lame-ass script. And I can only hope you didn't make a great actor like James Earl Jones actually howl that corny "Nooooooooooo" that Vader cuts loose with. Holy tap-dancing Christ, that script could have been written by a 5th grader.

And what the hell was that thing Obi-wan was riding while chasing General Goofus... I mean Grievous? If there's ever been a more blantant placement of an item in a movie for the sole purpose of selling a toy tie-in, I've never seen it. In the original Star Wars movie, the toys were driven by the movie, now it's the other way around.

By the way, nice job turning Amidala into a whimpering piece of scenery. That is not the same character who fought in the arena in "Attack of the Clones."

And where'd you get the idea for the transformation of Aniken into Vader? "Hey kid, I'm a Sith Lord, want to be my apprentice?" Seriously, I had to stifle a guffaw. Even Ian McDiarmid seemed to be craking a smile through what was supposed to be a serious scene. You could almost hear this thoughts: "God, I can't believe I'm getting paid for this. This is like a middle school drama production."

But you know what the biggest problem with Sith is? In fact, the biggest problem with the whole triology (episodes 1-3)? It abandons or flat out contradicts so much of the original trilogy.

For example, in "A New Hope," Luke is clearly supposed to be 2-3 years older than Leia (the novelization - written by Lucas himself - even says so). So how can they be twins?!? Is that another 'miracle' of the mitachlorians?

And in Jedi, Leia says she remembers her mother (barely) who "died when I was very young." Yeah... like 45 seconds old. Let me guess... the force is so strong in the Skywalker family that Leia can remember her mother, who she describes as "very beautiful," despite the fact that cognitive memory doesn't begin for children until they're about 2 years old. And note that in Jedi, even when it's revealed that Luke and Leia are siblings, it never says they're twins.

And since I'm now picking nits with the original trilogy, how about the fact that Vader's hand is on Leia's shoulder when Alderaan is destroyed and yet Vader never senses the Force in her (not to mention never realizes it's his daughter). And the big bad Sith lord also never thinks it's too big of a coincidence that the droids take the plans for the Death Star to Tatooine... which just happens to be his home planet!!! And on the Death Star, when Luke and Leia are no more than a couple of dozen yards away when Vader kills Obi-wan, Vader never senses Luke is his son?!? And why does the Emperor refer to Luke as the "son of Skywalker" instead of "your son?"

But back to the 'second' trilogy.

I'm glad that the wisdom of Yoda led him to decide to send Luke to Tatooine. What an idea. Let's hide the kid on Darth Vader's home planet. Wow... great plan. Oh, that's right. Vader thinks Leia died before giving birth. But then how does he figure out that Luke is his son in Empire? Hmmm...

And Mace Windu suddenly abandoning all his Jedi principles in a fit of rage? Wasn't he supposed to be the baddest of the bad-ass, detached, Jedi? Guess not.

And did you notice the Death Star being built at the end of Episode 3? Man, considering that Episode 4 takes place something like 17 years later... that sucker took a long time to build. Yet they built a second one to near completion in only a couple of years (between Ep. 4 and Ep. 6).

And if you were Luke, and you found out that due to a simple quirk, your sister got to live a life of luxury on the utopian world of Alderaan while you were stuck farming sweat for 17 years on Grit World, wouldn't you be a little bitter?

Ah well... that's another 2.5 hours of my life I'll never get back.

And let me be clear. The reason I'm so hard on Lucas for the abominations that are Episodes 1-3 is that Episode 4 was so GOOOOOODDDDD! Unfortunately, he caught lightning in a bottle and spent 30 years trying to do it again.

There's no doubt George Lucas is a competent writer (even though it got terrible reviews, Radioland Murders was a very entertaining film) and director (American Graphitti is one of my all-time faves), success went to his head with Star Wars. There's little doubt that the reasons Episode 4 and 5 were better than 1-3 is the work of Lawrence Kasdan and Richard Marquand.

I may go see The Longest Yard on Friday just to wash the taste of Revenge of the Sith out of my mouth. Let that sink in for a moment... I'm going to go see an Adam Sandler film to make the pain of a George Lucas film go away.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go into Toschi's Station to pick up some power converters.

Peace. Out.