THE STAR PUZZLE

The wait is over: With Revenge of the Sith, George Lucas delivers the final installment of a saga that took 28 years to make. The question is: does the completion succeed or does Star Wars take its final bows with a dud?

It will probably come as no big surprise to anyone who has been alive and kicking for the past six years that Revenge of the Sith works on a visual level: The SFX are as impressive as anything seen in its big fantasy-contender The Lord of the Rings, and sometimes even possibly a notch or two better. While the two predecessors, despite their breathtaking overall look, both had a few scenes that looked strange or just plain wrong, everything seems spot on this time around. What George Lucas, being a true master of visual composition, delivers with Revenge of the Sith is simply a feast for the eyes, from the first minute to the last. Viewers with any chance of actually watching the film in a theater with digital projection should go for it, because the average (and nowadays that usually means pretty shitty) 35-mm-copy looks like a worn-out VHS-tape in comparison. Technically, Revenge of the Sith is the future of motion pictures, live at a theater (hopefully) near you.

But doubters, rest relieved: this time around Star Wars is more than just endearingly bonkers eye candy with a few magical moments, which does not mean that George Lucas abstains from the typical non-stop action-plot that almost seems to explode off the screen. His direction of these scenes is elegant, as it has always been, but with a much more brutal edge to it – a quite fitting choice, since at its core, the final Star Wars installment is a tragedy in the best Greek tradition. To anyone not living either under a rock or behind the moon, the ending will not come as any surprise at all, having been well-known for over two decades. And yet, the events manage to seize the audience's interest in a manner that will make many people grab the armrests of their seats, and that is exactly what makes good tragedy: to tell a familiar story in such a stirring way that it brings tears to one's eyes. At least the key moments of Revenge of the Sith should be able to achieve such a feat for long-time fans of the saga who have been looking forward to the "birth of Darth Vader" for years. The bridging of the new and the old films works surprisingly well, especially considering that the prequel trilogy was consciously constructed in a very different way. During the movie's final hour, well-informed adepts of George Lucas's imaginary parallel universe will probably almost hear the clicking when the last missing parts of a puzzle, whose overall appearance has been known for some time, come onto the table and form a whole. But even the average moviegoer should feel some emotional reaction when one of the best parallel montages in years illustrates the fall of the Jedi in general and Anakin Skywalker in particular, as usual brilliantly accompanied by the sweeping orchestral score of John Williams.

Something that probably will, unlike the visual brilliance, surprise a few people is the success Revenge of the Sith has in delivering some satisfying or even remarkable performances. There is not a single actor who fails to improve considerably on the lackluster showings of Attack of the Clones – which, on its own, may not seem much of a feat. The big star of this film definitely is Ian McDiarmid who delivers a deliciously evil performance as arch-villain Palpatine. Tying for the second spot of the competition are Ewan McGregor's ability to finally fill the large shoes of Alec Guinness, portraying Jedi-Master Obi-Wan Kenobi with wit and charm, as well as the animation team of Yoda at Industrial Light & Magic that manages to bring the little green gnome to a level of facial expression rivaling that of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. But even Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, who undoubtedly shared the most awkward moments in Attack of the Clones, manage some very decent acting this time around. Although the latter does not make use of all the facets the transition from well-meaning Anakin Skywalker to mass-murdering Darth Vader offers, he nevertheless enables the audience to feel a more than a hint of the pain, fear and doubt that initiate his change.

The bottom line? Well, the author of this sorry excuse for a review left the premiere showing of Revenge of the Sith with a big, happy smile and finds it hard to imagine a considerably better closing chapter for one of the most remarkable sagas ever produced in the history of cinema, easily surpassing not exactly low expectations. George Lucas succeeds in delivering a worthy finale without letting the movie become a simple rehash of the old trilogy. There is still quite a difference in style and atmosphere compared to the originals from the 1970s and 80s, only that this is now used solely to the advantage: Revenge of the Sith not only logically binds several story threads of its two predecessors together which seemed somewhat doubtful at first, but gives a new spin to the entire saga. With the overall image completed, Star Wars is no longer simply the hero's tale of Luke Skywalker's fight against the evil Empire but actually the tragic life story of his father Anakin. Framed by beeping droids, grunting aliens and cheesy dialogue, this is, of course, no second Shakespeare. But in the end, it is the loveable absurdity that makes George Lucas's work so unique and original.