Because there’s actually someone on this planet (maybe) who ranks ROTS ahead of every other SW movie other than the original (yes, even ESB).
That’s me! I’m not blind to the flaws though. I guess what I like about it is it’s pivotal role in galactic history. Everything is so grand, and we see how good became bad, how Chancellor became Emperor, how Republic became Empire, and, of course, how Anakin became Vader. It fails miserably at that last bit, but the rest is handled fine. It’s dark, but not for its own sake. It’s because it had to be. It’s a tragedy, of course it’s gonna be dark, and it manages to convey that darkness beautifully. That’s not to say the film is devoid of lighter moments, though, as the opening rescue mission demonstrates. Yeah, the “humour” isn’t particularly funny, but the atmosphere is still good enough for me to overlook that.
Grievous isn’t completely unecessary, as he does provide someone for Obi-Wan to chase. His four lightsabers are. Might as well have called him General Overkill. Speaking of his name, while yes, it’s not the most inspired, it’s by no means the worst in SW (that honor goes to Savage Opress) and grievous is a word I’ve hardly, if ever heard used in its traditional context, so in practice, the fact that it’s an existing word pretty subtle. Now back to the topic of his four sabers, it’s not like they aren’t cool, but he doesn’t make good use of them, and the movie is already way too crammed with lightsaber duels. Every other film has one or maybe two. This film has five. There’s so many of them they even manage to have two going on at the same time!
Speaking of which, I like the Yoda versus Palpatine duel. Sure, it’s not really important in the grand scheme of things, out-of-universe, since we know both survived and don’t really have any tension between them to resolve. The thing is, it’s just cool to see the two strongest force users in the Galaxy duke it out. Granted, if I’d been in charge, I’d have left out lightsabers altogether and made it an over-the-top shonen-style fight to demonstrate their mastery of the Force. In the end the duel’s short, so it’s not like you have to put with it very long if you don’t like it.
The dialog is awful of course, but at three movies into the Prequels, that’s nothing knew. While “Love won’t save you; only my new powers can do that.” remains the cringiest line I’ve ever heard in anything, the movie at least provides substance to make up for it. Yes, the ending is rushed, and should’ve been better spread out, but what we got isn’t half bad imo. It’s leagues better than the prior installement in the saga.
