logo Sign In

I don't think Revenge Of The Sith is as good as everyone says it is. — Page 2

Author
Time

Great thread to discuss it. I find it really interesting how ROTS has become more and more popular over the years, and I regularly see people acting like it’s hands-down the best Star Wars film. It’s such a contrast to even a few years ago.

I’ve been saying it’s one of if not the best for as long as I can remember. People used to laugh at me, now they laugh with me.

In pretty much every fan community (except possibly here), Quite a few people consider the movie to be one of their favorites

You can cross out those parentheses.

At least until a couple years ago most people here would tell you ROTS is either dead last or second to last in a “Best To Worst” list

No, it’s always been widely (albeit not universally) considered the best of the Prequels.

I think both TPM and ROTS get bad reps for being connected to the shitstorm that is AOTC.

I agree that AotC is miles worse than the other two.

What makes ROTS worse for me is that it’s “good” mainly for events that would have happened regardless of the movie they were delivered in.

Those events are a big part of what makes it great for me, regardless how well they handle them.

Prequel fans are taking the criticisms that fans of the Originals heaped upon the Prequels and passing those same complaints along to the Sequels.

The criticisms are completely different, though. It’s like the OT got split Dark Crystal style between the PT and ST and each one got half of its strengths and half of its weaknesses.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I echo the general sentiment that the actual events in the movie are compelling, but the execution, especially the dialogue, doesn’t do justice to the dramatic tragedy the movie is supposed to be depicting. My hot take is that TCW actually makes ROTS worse though.

TCW shows us a far more compelling characterisation of Anakin, fleshes out his grievances with the Jedi, makes him sympathetic and likeable - and even in the final episodes, it goes out of its way to build tension around Anakin’s fall via Ahsoka’s disbelief and Maul’s fear. Then you watch ROTS and enjoy lines like “I would certainly like to!” and “I will discover the truth of all this… 😃” as a lobotomised Anakin fails to have any strong emotional response whatsoever to finding out one of his father figures orchestrated the war he’s been fighting - and has lost many friends in - for essentially his entire adult life. Anakin and Obi-Wan’s legendary TCW bromance concludes with… Obi-Wan shouting about democracy and a robotic Anakin forgetting exactly why he sided with Palpatine in the first place.

By making the audience more engaged in Anakin’s story, TCW makes ROTS all the more disappointing and frustrating as a botched execution of the most pivotal moment in the franchise’s story. I almost feel as if the overall Star Wars saga would be stronger if ROTS was left implied, and you just skip from the Siege of Mandalore to ANH.

Author
Time

J0E said:

I agree, but I disagree with it being the best of the prequels.

It has highs as high as Jedi, but the lows are lower than Clones. There’s a lot more lows than highs. There’s good fan edits of the film. Add few extended/deleted scenes, cut a lot of the filler and it’s a solid 6/10. The official edits though are like 4/10. Most of my problems with the movie are it’s pacing and it’s tonal inconsistency. I also really don’t like how everything is wrapped up at the end to lead right into Star Wars. It’s lazy.

I still maintain that The (theatrical cut of the) Phantom Menace has aged the best out of the prequels. It’s pacing, it’s tonal consistency mixed with using actual sets, miniatures, costumes, etc. It’s sound design is absolutely fantastic. It’s a competently made movie that’s bogged down by cringe slapstick and bad writing. Overall though, it’s a 5.5/10.

Good post.

Dek Rollins said:

Handman said:

Phantom Menace is the best prequel. It’s the closest to an actual movie.

This.

And ROTS is the absolute worst of the prequels.

Absolutely agree.

Author
Time

Rodney-2187 said:

Prequel fans are taking the criticisms that fans of the Originals heaped upon the Prequels and passing those same complaints along to the Sequels. It’s a new Star Wars tradition it would seem. Everyone overlooks the flaws in the things they enjoy, but are entirely intolerant of similar flaws in other things.

Sure, movies made in different eras by different people have their own unique qualities and therefore certain unique flaws, but all the Star Wars movies (including the Originals) have a lot more in common regarding flaws than some seem willing to admit.

I feel fairly certain we will eventually see Sequel fans and Skywalker Saga fans saying the same things about whatever comes next, though I think the majority of people have a very positive outlook on the Star Wars franchise as a whole.

Is Revenge of the Sith any good? It’s as good or as bad as any other Star Wars movie.
“Your focus determines your reality.” - Qui-Gon Jinn

+1

Author
Time

Rodney-2187 said:

Is Revenge of the Sith any good? It’s as good or as bad as any other Star Wars movie.

Sure the movies all have flaws, but there’s gotta be a bounds of reason here, right? Why even have a discussion if AOTC or the 2003 Clone Wars movie is on the same level as SW or ESB?

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

Author
Time

NeverarGreat said:

Rodney-2187 said:

Is Revenge of the Sith any good? It’s as good or as bad as any other Star Wars movie.

Sure the movies all have flaws, but there’s gotta be a bounds of reason here, right? Why even have a discussion if AOTC or the 2003 Clone Wars movie is on the same level as SW or ESB?

Hey, the 2003 Clone Wars movie was great! 😉

But I agree that there are bounds of reason. The idea that all Star Wars movies are the same level of quality just doesn’t make any sense to me.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

Author
Time
 (Edited)

NeverarGreat said:

Sure the movies all have flaws, but there’s gotta be a bounds of reason here, right? Why even have a discussion if AOTC or the 2003 Clone Wars movie is on the same level as SW or ESB?

StarkillerAG said:

Hey, the 2003 Clone Wars movie was great! 😉

But I agree that there are bounds of reason. The idea that all Star Wars movies are the same level of quality just doesn’t make any sense to me.

That’s not exactly what I was trying to say. All Star Wars movies are not created equally. Also, entirely different people are bound to have entirely different opinions. I certainly didn’t mean to imply otherwise. Art is subjective, but yes, there are definitely objective statements that can be made regarding quality.

I just think it’s funny when fans of one set of Star Wars movies will defend against criticism, but then level the exact same criticism on another set of Star Wars movies. Then fans of those particular movies use the exact same counter arguments as before.

I’m talking about critiques like poor dialogue, wooden actors, and plot holes. Or when people chalk everything up to nostalgia or the lack of it, and how old you were when you first saw it. It’s like poetry, it rhymes versus something being unoriginal. There’s a long list.

It’s like a game of Mad Libs. If you erased the names of movies and and characters, lots of criticisms as well as the rebuttals would fit more than one Star Wars movie from more than one era.

I didn’t mean to say all movies are equal, just that people are more forgiving of flaws in the movies they like, for whatever reason, but more critical of similar flaws in another they may not be a fan of, for whatever reason.

Author
Time

Revenge of the Sith had a good enough last act to make people remember it more fondly than it probably should be. It’s very much like “Jurassic World” in that sense: It’s probably not THAT good a movie, but it hits that last half-hour so hard that you’re not against watching it again if given the chance.

The Siege of Mandalore arc on Clone Wars is a better Revenge of the Sith than Revenge of the Sith was. I don’t think that’s exaggeration, either - it does the things that movie wants to do, but does them better. Which is probably why people took on the task of trying to cut the two together despite the fact even the best attempts at it would come off like that weird, ungainly “Watchmen Ultimate Cut”

Author
Time

Jurassic World was crap, and I say that as someone who liked JPII and JPIII.

Author
Time

Rodney-2187 said:

NeverarGreat said:

Sure the movies all have flaws, but there’s gotta be a bounds of reason here, right? Why even have a discussion if AOTC or the 2003 Clone Wars movie is on the same level as SW or ESB?

StarkillerAG said:

Hey, the 2003 Clone Wars movie was great! 😉

But I agree that there are bounds of reason. The idea that all Star Wars movies are the same level of quality just doesn’t make any sense to me.

people are more forgiving of flaws in the movies they like, for whatever reason, but more critical of similar flaws in another they may not be a fan of, for whatever reason.

Everyone’s opinions on media are valid, but I fully believe that the reasons people give for it are usually dumb, and often not the real reason someone likes or dislikes something.

Like, for example, 90% of all plot holes that people talk about aren’t real. They’re often just something people bring up to make a critique of some media deeper than it otherwise would be.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

Author
Time
 (Edited)

J0E said:

I still maintain that The (theatrical cut of the) Phantom Menace has aged the best out of the prequels. It’s pacing, it’s tonal consistency mixed with using actual sets, miniatures, costumes, etc. It’s sound design is absolutely fantastic. It’s a competently made movie that’s bogged down by cringe slapstick and bad writing. Overall though, it’s a 5.5/10.

I concur. Visual design, sound design and soundtrack, great sets and props, and that overall feel of a wonderous, new universe are strong point of TPM and this makes it the best prequel movie for me. I find it to be more of a boring than a bad movie. And one that can be salvaged by a good fan edit. I wonder if Deepfake will soon be advanced and easy enough to use by someone to attempt to “hack” AotC’s 19 year old Anakin into TPM as a more rogue-ish hotshot pilot wannabe Jedi in place of 9 year old Jake Lloyd. That, and a suitable replacement for Jar Jar plus some dialogue changes and minor restructuring might actually turn it into a solid, good movie.

The less said about AotC, the better. There are a few good things about it - I liked some of the vehicle designs, Across the Stars, Geonosis as a locale and Jango vs Obi-Wan on Kamino was a refresher from lightsaber duels - but overall it is just a bad, boring movie. I see it best serving as a source for fan edits of TPM and RotS as a duology.

RotS is a mess. It has frequent tonal shifts that completely take you out of the moment, such as the jarring switches between serious (and great) and terribly badly written, acted and directed segments of the Battle of Coruscant. The movie does have some, few, high points. Padme’s ruminations scene comes to mind. But its lows are really, truly bad. People sitting on sofas and talking Yes, RLM was right about this one and it definitely has not aged well. With some exceptions, them being parts the space battle and the duel on Mustafar, the CGI has aged very badly. The climactic duels were too drawn out and over the top, Order 66 was a boring montage, Grevious was awful and Dooku died way too early. Anakin’s fall was just atrocious.

Someone very talented with a decent budget could cut AotC and RotS into a decent, watchable movie. But for me, RotS has never been a favourite and in fact, has aged quite poorly

Apologies for typos, writing from mobile.

Author
Time

Rodney-2187 said:

I didn’t mean to say all movies are equal, just that people are more forgiving of flaws in the movies they like, for whatever reason, but more critical of similar flaws in another they may not be a fan of, for whatever reason.

This. I’ve never really disliked ROTS because I grew up with it so I’m completely biased. I will say that as an annoying contrarian, I used to revel in the fact that I liked something that everybody else I talked to hated, but now I like it less and less with the sudden popularity the past few years. The memes are so annoying to me personally that every time I hear them in the movie it makes me want to do a fanedit to remove all of them in spite. Hot take, the memes aren’t funny.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Lesser said:

Rodney-2187 said:

I didn’t mean to say all movies are equal, just that people are more forgiving of flaws in the movies they like, for whatever reason, but more critical of similar flaws in another they may not be a fan of, for whatever reason.

This. I’ve never really disliked ROTS because I grew up with it so I’m completely biased. I will say that as an annoying contrarian, I used to revel in the fact that I liked something that everybody else I talked to hated, but now I like it less and less with the sudden popularity the past few years. The memes are so annoying to me personally that every time I hear them in the movie it makes me want to do a fanedit to remove all of them in spite. Hot take, the memes aren’t funny.

It’s treason, then.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Imo its the most engaging of the trilogy, but also the least interesting in story and especially art direction. The first half is pretty dry and confusing for a newbie, unless you tuned in for a short micro-series that aired on a kid’s network. Anakin’s turn feels like it was written in 5 minutes, too sudden and not gradual at all. Too much time was spent on the Grievous stuff as well as stupid filler stories leading up to this point. It really makes me wish TPM and most of AOTC weren’t such time-wasters. There are some standout moments that I legitimately love, but it’s not definitely not Star Wars, nor TESB.

“Star Wars has, and will always be a restaurant.”

Author
Time
 (Edited)

RotS is a mess. Lucas lost the plot while making Episode II so he had to shove all of the OT set up into this film while also book-ending all of the random stuff he set up in Episodes I and II. Anakin’s turn felt rushed, a huge plothole involving Padme and Leia was created, Palpatine looks like a fat monster and not the same character from RotJ, Obi Wan is a boring character with no arc/growth for the third film in a row, Yoda acts like an idiot, Grevious is another generic Boba Fett/Captain Phasma/Knights of Ren bad guy who dies after 1 fight, and all of the “memes” from this film that have been around since 2016 are now insufferable to a point where I get taken out of the film when I hear them. Overall though the film is an improvement from AotC, but still pales in comparison to TPM.

Use the Force, Joh Yowza.

Author
Time

It has enjoyable moments. And it isn’t the worst film ever made, but it is wildly inconsistent in tone and quality from one scene to another.

The really bad moments are Padme dying of a broken heart, that scene with Obi Wan riding the Lizard. Worst of all to me was the lightsaber duel. I had waited since the 80s to see that. It is just a bunch of fancy twirling if you slow it all down it is nonsense. And also Anakin’s sudden turn to the darkside makes no sense.

Author
Time

Hot take, the memes aren’t funny.

Some of them are pretty good, but I don’t understand the obsession with Obi-Wan and in particular “Hello there”, not to mention that one’s done to death.

Author
Time

My super unpopular take is that not only is RotS the worst and most soulless of the three prequels, but the best prequel in my opinion is AotC.

Most disagree, but for whatever reason Clones is just the film that feels the most in line with what I love about Star Wars. TPM feels weird and disconnected from the rest of the saga in tone, and RotS always felt like a string of boring conversations held together with video game style boss battles to me.

AotC, despite the sillier stuff, the overuse of CGI and the terrible romance, has some of my favourite additions to the Star Wars mythos. I always thought Boba’s origin fleshed out his character in a more interesting way than some of the other retcons, Obi-Wan finding the clone factory brought some of the mystery of exploring new worlds from the OT back, and the Battle of Geonosis feels like such an exciting and pivotal moment in the franchise.

In the same way I don’t understand the intense praise people show for RotS, I don’t get why AotC is SO despised by many. I feel like too many people get hung up on the bad stuff, but I would argue that it has higher highs than RotS, and feels like a much more intriguing story despite all it’s flaws.

RotS took too much mystery away from the OT and it was a little too hard to get invested in a story where you know pretty much every outcome. AotC on the other hand was the first time we ever got to see the clone wars in any capacity, and without it we never get The Clone Wars or Rebels.

TL;DR - I’m probably about to make a lot of enemies.

“Goodnight, but not Goodbye!”

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Lesser said:

Rodney-2187 said:

I didn’t mean to say all movies are equal, just that people are more forgiving of flaws in the movies they like, for whatever reason, but more critical of similar flaws in another they may not be a fan of, for whatever reason.

Hot take, the memes aren’t funny.

Wholesome Sand Chungus Healo There Keanu Breathtaking Genreaalal Kenobiwan 100

zzzonkers said:

RotS the worst and most soulless of the three prequels

TPM and RotS are opposites: TPM is super cringe, but at least has a decent story. RotS isn’t (that) cringe, but its story is barely even there.

Not sure which of the prequels is the best/least-bad. RotS is the easiest to swallow, but TPM has the actual story. And as for AotC, well, it’s cringier than TPM and only barely has more of a story than RotS, but it has some cool action scenes and the Obi-Wan part of the movie is kind of cool.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

Author
Time

Anakin Starkiller said:

Some of them are pretty good, but I don’t understand the obsession with Obi-Wan and in particular “Hello there”, not to mention that one’s done to death.

Not to mention that and a few others are just recycled OT lines.

Author
Time

SparkySywer said:

Not sure which of the prequels is the best/least-bad. RotS is the easiest to swallow, but TPM has the actual story. And as for AotC, well, it’s cringier than TPM and only barely has more of a story than RotS, but it has some cool action scenes and the Obi-Wan part of the movie is kind of cool.

I’d argue that RotS is just as “cringe” as the other two, but hides it well behind slightly more competent direction and more lively acting. There’s a reason RotS memes are a thing. Most of Palpatine’s scenes are super hammy, some of the action sequences look really cartoony, most of the nods to the OT feel like they’re one step away from winking at the camera, and the dialogue is maybe even more tonaly out of place at times than the previous two films. If AotC suffers from underacting, then RotS suffers from a huge case of overacting. I know some people would prefer that, but it always sort of takes me out of the film.

Also TPM feels like too much of a singular story. Most of the film is set on Tatooine, and it mostly follows Qui-Gon’s POV exclusively apart from some Anakin scenes. That’s why The Battle of Naboo is so good. It finally shifts into the classic style of jumping around and showing all different aspects of the story. AotC stays more true to the OT format of showing the story from many different view points and even more of the villians’ POVs. RotS sort of does this, but it feels more flat since it’s mostly just Anakin and Obi-Wan’s parallel stories, and Obi-Wan is trapped in a video game style cutscene for most of that.

AotC is far from perfect, but it balances out a little better out of the three for me. TPM and RotS are two different sides of the scale, but AotC feels somewhere in the middle and makes it the least offensive, at least personally. It feels like the film that’s closest to classic Star Wars even if it misses that mark a lot of the time. RotS felt like it was trying to be too “edgy”. The Clone Wars finale is a better example of how to emulate that classic Star Wars tone but still tell a much darker story.

“Goodnight, but not Goodbye!”

Author
Time

NeverarGreat said:

AOTC actually tries to have a mystery plot, which is a new and interesting direction for a Star Wars movie. Even if it doesn’t ultimately work, it at least tries. In comparison, TPM and ROTS are much more straightforward.

I feel like the step into new territory makes ANH the most compelling prequel for me personally. I think sadly it’s ambition is part of why so many people don’t look toward to fondly too. In my opinion RotS felt too fan service focused, and TPM was very much a rehash of the beats from the original movie. Weirdly enough the prequel and sequel trilogies parallel in that way. You could say they rhyme 😉

“Goodnight, but not Goodbye!”