#190
Seen It:
Yes
| Ewan McGregor | Obi-Wan Kenobi |
| Samuel L. Jackson | Mace Windu |
| Natalie Portman | Padmé |
| Christopher Lee | Count Dooku |
| Anthony Daniels | C-3PO |
| Hayden Christensen | Anakin Skywalker |
| Ian McDiarmid | Supreme Chancellor Palpatine |
| Jimmy Smits | Senator Bail Organa |
| Frank Oz | Yoda |
| Keisha Castle-Hughes | Queen of Naboo |
| Director | George Lucas |
| Producer | Rick McCallum |
| Writer | George Lucas |
| The Star Wars Family Tree (click for larger image) |
But then it all changes.
| Star Wars Time Line (click for larger image) |
After setting up characters and situations for the first two and a half movies, Episode III finally comes to life. The Sith Lord in hiding unleashes his long-simmering plot to take over the Republic, and an integral part of that plan is to turn Anakin away from the Jedi and toward the Dark Side of the Force. Unless you've been living under a rock the last 10 years, you know that Anakin will transform into the dreaded Darth Vader and face an ultimate showdown with his mentor, but that doesn't matter. In fact, a great part of the fun is knowing where things will wind up but finding out how they'll get there. The end of this prequel trilogy also should inspire fans to want to see the original movies again, but this time not out of frustration at the new ones. Rather, because Episode III is a beginning as well as an end, it will trigger fond memories as it ties up threads to the originals in tidy little ways. But best of all, it seems like for the first time we actually care about what happens and who it happens to.
Episode III is easily the best of the new trilogy--OK, so that's not saying much, but it might even jockey for third place among the six Star Wars films. It's also the first one to be rated PG-13 for the intense battles and darker plot. It was probably impossible to live up to the decades' worth of pent-up hype George Lucas faced for the Star Wars prequel trilogy (and he tried to lower it with the first two movies), but Episode III makes us once again glad to be "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." --David Horiuchi
DVD features
Say what you will about the new Star Wars films--and plenty has been said already--but the DVDs continue to set the standard for technical excellence. From the opening of the first scene, the Dolby 5.1 EX sound is thrilling, and the picture, transferred directly from the digital source, is fantastic. A commentary track is again provided by a combination of people, including George Lucas, producer Rick McCallum, animation director Rob Coleman, and ILM visual effects supervisors John Knoll and Roger Guyett. Lucas admits that the film is political and that he was influenced by Vietnam, but makes no mention of the Bush administration, as is widely speculated.
The main documentary on the second disc is probably the most granular DVD feature ever. "Within a Minute: The Making of Episode III" takes 67 minutes to deconstruct one minute of the film, an excerpt of the duel on Mustafar. The idea is to cover all the aspects that go into creating that minute, from writing to set construction to accounting. Fortunately, many of the concepts such as costumes apply to the movie as a whole, but having producer Rick McCallum tell us the importance of food seems a bit overkill. Two other featurettes are "It's All for Real: The Stunts of Episode III," an 11-minute discussion focusing mainly on the lightsaber duels, and "The Chosen One," a 14-minute examination of Darth Vader's evolution over the six films.
The six deleted scenes were no great loss from the film but are all worth watching. Natalie Portman in particular gets some much-needed screen time as one of the co-plotters of an anti-Palpatine movement, and an early action scene ties in to the Clone Wars animated series. There's also a 15-part series of 5 to 7 minute Web documentaries on topics such as the creation of General Grievous and Ewan McGregor, and an Xbox sampler of Battlefront II (if you're lucky, you can play as Obi-Wan Kenobi cutting through an army of droids) among other supplements. --David Horiuchi
The Complete Star Wars Saga
| Episodes 4-6 Trilogy (widescreen) | Episode I: The Phantom Menace | Episde II: Attack of the Clones |
| Star Wars: Clone Wars Vol. 1 | Star Wars: Clone Wars Vol. 2 | The Star Wars Store |
Stills from Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (click for larger images)
| Anakin turning to the dark side | When Wookiees attack |
Yoda, Jedi master | Mr. and Mrs. Vader |
Saber training with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen | The cast |
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| Disc 1: | Disc One Commentary by George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Rob Coleman, John Knoll, and Roger Guyett Disc Two Six never-before-seen Deleted Scenes created just for this release, with introductions by George Lucas and Rick McCallum All-new-full-length documentary "Within A Minute" gives you the most on-depth look ever into the filmmaking process for a Star Wars movie by examining everything that went into making less than sixty seconds of Episode III Take an inside look at the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker as he transforms into Darth Vader in the exclusive featurette "The Chosen One" Witness firsthand the extreme training involved in creating the most intense Jedi action battle of the saga in the exclusive featurette "It's All For Real" Go behind the scenes of the making of Revenge of the Sith in an unparalleled 15-part web-documentary collection "A Hero Falls" music video featuring John Williams' "Battle of the Heroes" track Theatrical teaser and launch trailer and 15 TV spots Theatrical posters and print campaign from around the world Never-before-seen Production Photo Gallery with special caption features Access a special Xbox® playable demo with two entire levels from the new Star Wars Battlefront II and Star Wars Empire at War DVD-ROM weblink exclusive Star Wars content |