Episode III, Hite 0
Saw Revenge of the Sith for the second time Tuesday with kaynorr, this time in digital projection and from the center sightlines, rather than at midnight from the second row as voxel, gnosticpi, and I did on the Night of Madness Friday.

The first twenty minutes are the best twenty minutes in any film in the sextet, with the possible exception of the first twenty minutes of Return of the Jedi, on which they were obviously modeled. Throughout, Lucas proves himself (again) to be one of the best cinematographers in SF film history, with a brilliant sense of wonder and some elegantly composed (albeit occasionally far too busy) shots. Well worth the second ticket, just to see without a crick in my neck.

That said...

I lowered my expectations for Episode III as far as they would go. I expected five lightsaber duels, and a beaded dress on Natalie Portman, and that was it. And after the first viewing, I felt that those expectations had been met, along with that first set piece.

The trouble with the second viewing is that it was much harder to avoid the damage Lucas did to all of the things about Episode III that I still liked. Just the nonsense that closes out that last lightsaber duel ("I have the high ground!" of all the stupid, pointless things for one Jedi to say to another) almost eclipses the vitiation of the entire reason to care about the six films. ("Only a Sith talks in absolutes!" "Well, thank gosh there's no such thing as a Dark Side, then. You've really cleared that up for me, thanks." "The Chancellor is evil!" "Would you just make up your damn mind?") And on a sheerly geek note (one of many): it apparently takes more time to fly across town on Coruscant than it does to go from Coruscant to Mustafar in the Outer Rim. I suspect the Chancellor's promise to clear up aircar gridlock has a lot to do with his popularity in the Senate.

But this doesn't just point up my geekery, it points up Lucas' carelessness. How can you be expected to maintain (or even build) tension when everywhere is just a scene wipe away? (Compare, say, the tension built by Luke's race from Dagobah to Bespin in Empire.)

But Lucas doesn't care about his script, under which gelid wodge of pork fat he immures the cast, especially Natalie Portman. They suffer like the damned frozen beneath Cocytus, mouthing clunking, mud-brick dialogue -- "wooden" dialogue is several TLs above this stuff -- that Nat Levine would have cut in a heartbeat from any serial on the Republic lot. (Lucas' admitted fondness for Republic serials may be why he retains such power and skill in twenty-minute action sequences with no dialogue more complex than "Open all ports and drag fins!") Only Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid, in the great tradition of British paycheck-cashing thespians, force their heads above the goo long enough to actually act, if one classifies McGregor's by now blatant (and obviously intentional) Alec Guinness impression as acting.

Fortunately, we then went back to kaynorr's and watched the real Star Wars (well, mostly real -- Greedo shoots first on DVD), which wasn't at all ruined. As it turned out, it was even better than I had remembered it. So hurrah for the good guys.

But if I read one more reviewer call Poutykin McSulkwalker's "Teen Coriolanus" character arc "Shakespearean", I'm going to turn to the Relatively Dark Side myself.