Post your Revenge of the Sith Reviews and Commentary here!

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Coruscant's home fleet that we saw was smaller than the fleet with saw in ROTJ.

What are you, crazy? The Coruscant Home Fleet was much larger than the Imperial Flotilla at Endor.

Remmeber, we saw the Entire Emperial Task Group at once, during the space battle in ROTS we always just saw a little part of it.

[GePap]

I posted this question in the "real commentary" thread but that one died:

If the Trade Federation and the other economic guilds had their own battle fleets and droid armies, why didn;t the world's loyal to the Republic have them as well? We know Naboo, which is boviously a small weak world at least had some space fighters, if not a fleet of any sort. Why was a new clone army necessary? And where the hell was the fleet made? The army is clone in secret, but the new fleet is made out in the open???

That makes no sense.

Also, where did all the non-clone officers of the Imperial Navy and the Imperial army all of a sudden come from? IN the last two movies, everyone in the Republican forces which we see are either Jedi's or clones. This obviously changes in the next 20 years, though no reason whatsoever is given for the change.

[Alexander's Horse]

the script is a piece of crap, haven't you worked that out yet?

[GePap]

The script and the plot are two different if interrelated things.

[Alexander's Horse]

if you say so

[Stefu]

UNLIMITED POWERRRRRRR

[JohnT]

Originally posted by GePap
I posted this question in the "real commentary" thread but that one died(1):

Also, where did all the non-clone officers of the Imperial Navy and the Imperial army all of a sudden come from? IN the last two movies, everyone in the Republican forces which we see are either Jedi's or clones. This obviously changes in the next 20 years, though no reason whatsoever is given for the change.(2)

1. That's likely because this is the real commentary thread.

2. Planetary Grand Families and the corresponding ruling elite, seeing what was happening, have moved into top positions in the ever-burgeoning empire in a vicious Darwinian cycle of advantage seeking and favor currying. At least that's my guess - Lucas probably has them being bred and trained by the Emperor as a ruling elite, all of them loyal to Palpatine. They look older than 20-odd years because of the infamous "lightning ceremony" you get upon graduating from Bureaucrat School.

Speaking of which, why didn't Luke age in ROTJ? Time for another edit, George!

[JohnT]

I think the trilogy would've been helped immensely if it just didn't feature such names as "Dooku" and "Naboo." "Coruscant" - that's a good science-fiction planet name... but "Naboo"? That's something a 2 year-old would call his favorite bear.

[Brundlefly]

Anakin's turn to the Dark Side wasnt really that convincing.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Anakin's turn to the Dark Side wasnt really that convincing.

Call me a pessimist, but I expected worse.


The point blank space battle in the beginning actually made me cringe, even as space opera. It could've used a few 100 megaton nukes freeing up some space.

The Separatists don't make any sense. It's never particularly clear what they're fighting for beyond "separation" of something or other.

I liked the Obi-Wan-Grievious and Obi-Wan-Anakin lightsabre duels. The Emperor-Yoda showdown was comparatively meh-ish.

Why the hell did they have to put Chewbacca in there?

Jedi code or not, wasn't it awfully cruel of Obi-Wan to leave Anakin to die rather than put him out of his misery?

Isn't it wonderfully elitistic of the Jedi to find blasters "uncivilized", yet having no qualms leading scores of blaster-wielding clonetroopers?

What kind of cannon fodder were the Jedi that accompanied Windu to the confrontation with Palpatine?

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by GePap
I posted this question in the "real commentary" thread but that one died:

If the Trade Federation and the other economic guilds had their own battle fleets and droid armies, why didn;t the world's loyal to the Republic have them as well? We know Naboo, which is boviously a small weak world at least had some space fighters, if not a fleet of any sort. Why was a new clone army necessary? And where the hell was the fleet made? The army is clone in secret, but the new fleet is made out in the open???

Certainly, many Planetary systems have their own self-defense forces, that's probably where Palpatine draws the Intial crewing for the Republican/Imperial Starfleet.

It's safe to say that a Planet like Coruscant is going to own Capital ships while a planet like Naboo is only going to have a few starfighters, obviously Coruscant has the means to maintain a large customs/self-defense force that was incoporated into the Republican Military.

Prequel Novels (pre-AOTC) make references to the "Judicials" that are the non-Jedi law-enforcment arm of the Republic. We see a few of these at the Begining of The Phantom Menace, right before the Trade Federation 'splodes the ship Qui-Gon and Obi-won arrived in.

By ROTS the Clonetroopers are in a troubleshooting/Ranger role, rather than the bulk of Republic's military. Remember, it's cheaper and easier to institute a Galacticwide draft and raise and army after a year or so of Boot camp/specialty schools than spending ten years training everyone to a "commando" standard. This is shown when Yoda only takes a Battalion of Clonetroopers to Kashyyk, which would be a fart in a tornado, numbers wise. Much of the Fighting on Kashyyk probably took place with regular Republican Forces and the Wookies.

And when you got an entire Galaxy to hide a shipyard, it's easy to build a fleet secretly.

That makes no sense.

Also, where did all the non-clone officers of the Imperial Navy and the Imperial army all of a sudden come from? IN the last two movies, everyone in the Republican forces which we see are either Jedi's or clones. This obviously changes in the next 20 years, though no reason whatsoever is given for the change.

See above, no doubt most were drawn from Planetary militaries and Republican "Judicials".

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Anakin's turn to the Dark Side wasnt really that convincing.

No it wasn't. And it has probably not much to do with the Hayden's lack of talent or Lucas's lack of talent as a director. The problem runs deeper than that IMO. Like sci-fi author David Brin pointed out:

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main/index.html

The biggest moral flaw in the "Star Wars" universe is one point that Lucas stresses over and over again, through the voice of his all-wise guru character, Yoda.

Let's see if I get this right. Fear makes you angry and anger makes you evil, right?

Now I'll concede at once that fear has been a major motivator of intolerance in human history. I can picture knightly adepts being taught to control fear and anger, as we saw credibly in "The Empire Strikes Back." Calmness makes you a better warrior and prevents mistakes. Persistent wrath can cloud judgment. That part is completely believable.

But then, in "Return of the Jedi," Lucas takes this basic wisdom and perverts it, saying -- "If you get angry -- even at injustice and murder -- it will automatically and immediately transform you into an unalloyedly evil person! All of your opinions and political beliefs will suddenly and magically reverse. Every loyalty will be forsaken and your friends won't be able to draw you back. You will instantly join your sworn enemy as his close pal or apprentice. All because you let yourself get angry at his crimes."

Uh, say what? Could you repeat that again, slowly?

In other words, getting angry at Adolf Hitler will cause you to rush right out and join the Nazi Party? Excuse me, George. Could you come up with a single example of that happening? Ever?

That contention is, in itself, a pretty darn evil thing to preach. Above all, it is just plain dumb.

Another thing doesn't really make sense, according to Brin. And if you think about it he's right:

Darth Vader murders billions with the press of a button -- but none of those casualties matters next to the personal saga of a great one. The slaughtered victims are mere minions. Extras, without families or hopes to worry about shattering. Spear-carriers. Only the demigod's personal drama is important.

Thus few protest the apotheosis of Darth Vader -- nee Anakin Skywalker -- in "Return of the Jedi."

To put it in perspective, let's imagine that the United States and its allies managed to capture Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, putting him on trial for war crimes. The prosecution spends months listing all the horrors done at his behest. Then it is the turn of Hitler's defense attorney, who rises and utters just one sentence:

"But, your honors ... Adolf did save the life of his own son!"

Gasp! The prosecutors blanch in chagrin. "We didn't know that! Of course all charges should be dismissed at once!"

The allies then throw a big parade for Hitler, down the avenues of Nuremberg.

[Last Conformist]

Arguably, killing off the Emperor prevented alot of future evil.

The point about anger is good, however.

[Kuciwalker]

In response to the first quoted part: the idea, I guess is that it's different for force users, that in fact, using anger to fuel the force will do bad stuff or whatever. Admittedly, it's all mystical bull**** anyway.

Re: the second quoted part, the idea is not that the act of saving his son outweighed all those deaths, but that it represented a true repentence from evil.

[Q Classic]

Okay, here's one comment:

All the people explaining away things like the Judicial arm and such... fans, if you will, apologists, if you will...

Most people aren't going to see that stuff, even if it is canon (which I'm not sure it is). People aren't going to want to go out of their way to see Clone Wars, which explains why Grevious isn't a complete droid--and, with what their given, are going to wonder why the **** a robot has to cough. (Actually, even after watching Clone Wars, one wonders why the **** a cyborg has to cough.)

They're going to see small little plot holes, like why are the Jedi policing everything, and they're not going to go by the books, or presumptions, or any of that stuff.

Going by the source material most are familiar with, that being the movies, the sin most of you apologists suffer from is you use outside material to explain away all the inconsistencies. (The opposing sin would be a lack of familiarity with material considered canon--which I doubt the novels, comic books, and so on are.)