On November 1, 2005, the circle, or collection anyway, will be complete. The final
Star Wars "episode" will be released on DVD.
Before it came to theaters,
Revenge of the Sith was said to be the "darkest" of the three prequels; it would be for the prequels what
The Empire Strikes Back was for the originals.
Steven Speilberg was quoted as saying he cried during it:
"It's the best of the last three episodes. It's the best way you could possibly imagine for George to finish it off, it has a tremendous ending and it's very dark. You'll cry at the end, it's wonderful"."Look, this is a movie I was genetically predisposed to love. I remember being eight years old, and reading in Starlog that Darth Vader became the half-man/half-machine he was following a duel with Ben Kenobi that climaxed with Vader falling into molten lava. Now, twenty six years later, I finally got to see that long-promised battled - and it lived up to any expectation I still held. I was sad to see the flick end, but happy to know it's not the end of the Star Wars universe entirely (I've read stuff about a TV show...)".He pretty much summed up the feeling I had about it.
The
trailer, as with the previous two prequels, made me cry. Has there ever been, in the history of cinema, a movie that has such incredible trailers?
Episode III could've, should've been great. It
could have should have "redeemed" Lucas and
Star Wars. Instead, director/creator/sreenwriter George Lucas majorly dropped the ball. Amazingly, the whole
Star Wars phenomena sort of deflated, if not imploded, as a result of
Revenge of the Sith. It's like Lucas was feeding on himself, and invited the entire world to look on.
Still, I
love the original three, and I'll eventually learn to love this one, as I have the other two (
The Phantom Menace, specifically, is a better film as a result of
III.
Attack of the Clones is pretty tough to watch; it's so pointless and stupid, for the most part). I
will be buying the DVD.
The DVD, as with the other two prequels', is loaded with extras:
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1 EX), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1 EX), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
Commentary by writer-director George Lucas, producer Rick McCallum, animation director Rob Coleman, and ILM visual effects supervisors John Knoll and Roger Guyett
Exclusive deleted scenes with introductions by George Lucas and Rick McCallum
"Within a Minute" documentary film about the making of the Mustafar battle
"The Chosen One" featurette: George Lucas traces the myth of Darth Vader through episodes 1-6
"It's All for Real: The Stunts of Episode III"
A 15-part collection of Lucasfilm's Web documentaries
"A Hero Falls" music video
Poster and print campaign
Trailers and TV spots
Never-before-seen production photo gallery
Sweet! I'm excited! Shouldn't be...but I am! A couple of days ago, Ain't It Cool News showed several pics of some of the more interesting deleted scenes:
"The Slaughter of Shaak Ti<"
That's fairly brutal. You can see why it was thought the movie would earn a "R" rating.
My favorite are of Dagobah, and a defeated Yoda
making his escape to the isolated planet where twenty years later, the very last of the Jedi Knights, Luke Skywalker, would seek him out.
It would've been nice to have seen that sequence in the actual movie!
My final verdict on the whole prequel fiasco is that Lucas should have made just one. He could've taken the very best from each prequel, and made a truly great, 3 hour plus, classic. People went to see the 3 hour plus The Return of the King, so I'm sure they'd do the same for a Star Wars movie. Nonetheless, I can't wait for November 1, and the opportunity to once again throw money at Lucas & Co., which in no way needs it as much as I do.
