"Luke, I am your ... "
Complete the sentence:
A. Cousin and I need $50.
B. Waiter.
C. Soul Brother, No. 1.
D. Father.
If you picked D, breathe easy.
Star Wars is awesome again.
In fact: Breathe in. Breathe out. Hissss. Shhhh. Hissss. Shhhh.
Clang. Clack. Snap. Hmmm.
Bzzzz. "Rise, Lord Vader."
Sorry, can't get it out of my head.
That moment.
The one everyone is waiting for. It does not disappoint. Neither does the film; here we have easily the best Star Wars since Empire Strikes Back, 25 years ago. It gives nothing away to tell you that in the final moments of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, which opens today, Anakin Skywalker, that petulant morose teen forever begging for the keys to the land speeder, breaks away from the learned Jedi order and undergoes a metamorphosis so iconic, only a scene in which a boy is outfitted with large ears, a high voice, and lederhosen, then transformed into Mickey Mouse, would deliver an equivalent cultural kick.
When I attended a screening of Revenge of the Sith about a month ago, the moment Anakin (Hayden Christensen) rises from his hospital slab and assumes the role of that black metallic hood ornament of evil, Darth Vader, the theater grew very quiet. It was filled with doubters, and yet we were experiencing a remarkable sensation of closure; unlike a lot of pop cultural landmarks - the Rolling Stones, Elvis - this was going out with a grand slam in the ninth inning. And I use "we" because Star Wars, when it's fun, is a mass experience, never a personal one.
Everyone knew dark stuff was brewing, of course; Revenge of the Sith tells the story of how the earnest Republic swelled into the dreaded Empire and how heroic Anakin turned into anti-heroic Darth and traded in his allegiances and developed asthma. It is not a film of secrets and twists. Because the events of the new trilogy precede events in the original, surprises are nonexistent; in fact, the picture is so self-contained and bridges the old and new series so satisfyingly, you have to wonder: What exactly was the purpose of those last two movies, anyway? Some perverse intentional lowering of expectations so the series could storm back at the last minute?
A cliffhanger to a cliffhanger?
But that's also one way of appreciating how soundly George Lucas has succeeded in restoring to his space saga the beloved grandeur and swashbuckling whiz-bang that went missing in the previous two Star Wars prequels, The Phantom Menace (1999) and Attack of the Clones (2002). To be sure, there are problems; tiny, insignificant piddling ones, like, oh, the acting and the writing. But despite the oppressive, impersonal crush of the last two, despite even knowing who survives to live on in the original series - at the end we're deposited where it began, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, called 1977 - Lucas not only exceeds expectations (which, again, were as diminutive as Yoda), he's given the inevitability of it all a fresh meaning, and a poignancy. It's also a measure of the durability of this universe that we still have anything invested decades later.
Jar Jar, you are forgiven.
Twinning like a double helix and then wrapping around itself, Revenge of the Sith opens with a lovely mirror image of the first thing we saw in the first Star Wars picture: an impossibly huge battle cruiser, going on and on until it fills the screen. In Star Wars (now Episode IV: A New Hope), Princess Leia and her blockade ship were outrunning Darth Vader and his Star Destroyer. It moved over our heads, literally casting the Empire's sinister shadow. Revenge of the Sith begins with barely any dialogue, just two Jedi hotshots, Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor, nicely aging into the face of Alec Guinness), zipping across the surface of another massive spaceship that goes on and on.
But this time we're peering down, and as Anakin and Obi-Wan reach the lip of the cruiser, the camera catches up and takes a roller-coaster dive into a vast cataclysmic battle below. For the next 20 minutes, the action does not let up; frankly, the scene is cluttered but it keeps us happily diverted. When Anakin shouts "This is where the fun begins," it's a self-conscious sigh of relief. But it's the sigh I'd been waiting for. Clearly Lucas has come to grips with the realization that he directs two things well: action and ideas. Not politics, not humans, not dialogue. Nothing intimate.
Obi-Wan and Anakin - sort of Butch Cassidy and the Sulking Kid - are leading an assault on Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), who has kidnapped the Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), the leader of the Republic. But really - who cares? Who can keep up with all the Dookus and Typhos and Bibbles? It's a marvelous sequence that begins huge and gradually reduces until you have two Jedi staring down one dark lord of the Sith. Smarter still, Lucas moves the story forward with very little dialogue and a lot of goofy whiplash. The linchpin of the assault is General Grievous, cyborg leader of the droid resistance. He has the face of a coyote and the reedy body of a slaying mantis. He's lethal but wheezes a lot - picture Robo-Abe Vigoda.
Which is another reason Revenge of the Sith works so well. Lucas is smoother about incorporating the self-deprecating wit lacking since the last Han Solo sighting in Return of the Jedi (1983). R2-D2 kicks major bolt.
What Lucas is utterly unable to do is write a believable scene between two lovers. The inevitable dreary moments with Anakin and his secret bride, Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), have not gotten easier. But it's hardly the fault of Christensen or Portman, a very fine actress with the right material. Lucas shows an indifference to dialogue and performance that's so laughable, the only comparison is the overcompensation often seen in silent film. Or, and this is possible, he's trying to literally duplicate the wooden feel of the old Saturday morning serials that influenced him.
"You're under a lot of stress," Padme tells Anakin when he comes around complaining the Jedi Council is shutting him out. And later when his downward spiral begins, she notices, "You've changed." Well, it's not the cologne. If understatement is possible when you're sitting in a living room that appears to be Liberace's space capsule, Portman has managed it. She calls him Anie, and when she says they're preggers, there's not a thing a person with a mouth could do. Anie: "You're so beautiful." Padme: "You say that because you're in love." Anie: "I say it because I'm in love with you."
Space Ping-Pong, anyone?
Still, don't be hard on Christensen. He's not a great actor but he's the ideal actor, and perfect for playing the kind of young rebellious guy whose bitterness becomes a crutch. He's the ideal vessel for influence, and primed to be filled by whomever is more convincing. If Lucas can't write scenes between people, when the time comes for explaining how Anakin journeys to the Dark Side of the galactic street, he rallies. We know what will happen, but the moral ruin of Anakin is more painful for being personal.
He's not evil at heart.
He's dealing with a lot: He has dreams of Padme dying. The Jedi Council wants him to spy on Palpatine, and Palpatine, the devil on his shoulder, wants him to report on the Jedi Council. He promises to teach Anakin methods for avoiding his wife's death.
The Jedi are being demonized by Palpatine, who says his actions are now national security issues. If this sounds like more of the pontificating that buried the previous two episodes, it's handled with the breezy headlong rush that hasn't been felt since the first Star Wars picture.
The second half's trip into the heart of darkness (down a riverbed of lava, no less) is a tour de force, and without placing Big Statements into his characters' mouths, Lucas consolidates his themes into one: fear.
It's what Palpatine (the future wizened evil Emperor) exploits, what drives Anakin to commit horrendous acts. And it's the moment Lucas gives Star Wars a little gutsy real-world relevance. Padme wonders if the democracy they're fighting for exists. Anakin replies: If you're not with him, you're against him. When Palpatine establishes the Empire in the name of security, Padme muses: "So this is how liberty dies, to thunderous applause."
Take that as a commentary on our own leaders, but these are themes that have always existed. One revolution replaces another. They just haven't existed for Star Wars. And neither has, for years anyway, the sense of an epic merging with its remarkable visuals. (That we hardly dwell on them now, is proof of their effectiveness.)
That's especially felt in an inventive brawl between Yoda, (the Jedi kumquat with bad syntax) and Palpatine (who's been transformed into Darth Sidious). These forces of good and evil, democracy versus fascism, literally tear down the Senate chamber to prove points.
What's different this time?
Lucas got a hand on the script from playwright Tom Stoppard, and reportedly none other than Steven Spielberg became designated director on a number of scenes. (The moment Vader is born, I think, seems like classic Spielberg.)
I also think it's more simple than that: Revenge of the Sith is the movie and the story he's wanted to make all along. It's dark - perhaps too gruesome for small children - and never does restore the heedless charm of the first film. But what's replaced is a sense of the mythic weight everyone's been talking about for the last three decades.
I never really bought it.
Star Wars has always been like an afternoon at the movies where you fall asleep and happily wake up only for the best parts. What's different is an admission that the importance of Star Wars is not in the story but in the way it makes you feel about going to movies in the first place.
When it's good, it's like a promise of thrills to come; it's an adolescent thing. And when it's bad, it believes its own laborious press. Revenge of the Sith does this by introducing a new element: melancholy. We see Chewbacca growl for one last time. Yoda slinks away into hiding. Obi-Wan vanishes. Lucas cashes in that promise made in 1977. The result is bittersweet.
But also, a terrific, riveting, surprisingly affecting finale to a series that has impacted every last inch of our culture, and as many problems as I've had with the stiff acting and impossible dialogue and the speechifying and C-Span lethargy - we truly hurt the ones we love - I sort of hate to see it all go. But then again, as the twin suns of Tatooine set on Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Yoda promises: "Until the time is right, disappear we will." Choked up, I totally was.
Contact Christopher Borrelli at: cborrelli@theblade.com
or 419-724-6117.
First Published May 19, 2005, 2:17 p.m.
