It was a pretty good movie, some of the plot holes and dialogue will have you groaning.

Yeah, it was pretty sweet. Even with the corny dialog and plot holes ("We need you to watch all of the Chancellor's dealings...."- but later on, we'll watch Jedi Temple security camera footage from his office. What the hell??).

The finale of the Anakin/Obi Wan fight was a hell of a lot more graphic than I thought Lucas had the balls for, and in my opinion that warrants the PG-13 (I'm taking my seven year old anyway, but some parents might flip out at that).

Having Jar-Jar get eaten by a swarm of carnivorous insects would have been nice, but after "Phantom" and "Clones" lowered the bar, this one is definately a winner.

The way I see the two "potshots" is that Lucas had the story line of the Republic morphing into the Empire in his head way before Bush (Phantom Menace came out during the Clinton administration).

Obviously, Lucas has his own political ideas, and I think he saw the Bush administration acting in a way that was undemocratic at the same time that he was writing a a movie about the fall of a democracy.

The "this is how democracy ends..." line is a good. It doesn't have to be seen as a commentary on Bush. I think it has value outside the current political climate. And the "with me or against me" -- well, Bush admitted that was a mistake, and it definitely seems in character for the emporer to say that, I think.

As far them "having no place in the film"... well, it is lucas' film (literally, he financed all the prequels). Plus, it's hard for an artist to hold back something they think is timely. It sounds like both instances fit in the story relatively well, so I don't see it as that big a deal.

But, I haven't seen it yet, so i will see how they actually play out in the film. Can't wait to see it. Sounds great.

What a movie! The culmination of over thirty years of George Lucas's immagination and work dazzles and amazes the audience. Although the movie will be criticized for holes in the plot, and charachter dialogue, the movie is nothing short of sheer genius.

The political sector of the movie is by far the best in any Star Wars film. Anakin's fall to the 'dark side' is a complex affair. While it has been argued that the fall to the dark side has no objective correlative other than Anakin's own iclinations to evil this is just absurd. The Emperor's temptations are strong and powerful, and most importantly, the ultimate reason that Anakin goes to the dark side.

Anakin's love for his wife is great, but it is secondary. Many times in the movie Anakin appears concerned about the political stance of his wife. All of these concerns are embodied in their final confrontation where Anakin strangles her with the force.

Strangles his own wife!? This scene is the most compelling scene in the movie. Firstly, this scene shows that Anakin's fall to the dark side is not solely based on personal lust for power, but also based on higher ideals which he fervently believes in. Secondly, it is the beginning of the end for one of the worst characters in the Star Wars universe.

Padme, champion of high ideals, is finally shown in a realistic manner. While she is the embodiement of idealism, her rationale is far from realism. She would love to see her galaxy 'get along' and feels that democracy and negotiations is the answer to this desire. How wrong she was, in order to mantain peace, justice, and order in the galaxy it is at time neccessary to use force. Her line "So this is how democracy dies... to thunderous applause" is one of the most contradictory statements of all time. Democracy, the will of the people, could never die to thunderous applause, it is a blatent oxi-moron. Democracy has done what she asked of it, it has negotiated, it has thought, and it has decided that it had to evolve in order to protect itself, the republic was not destroyed by an outside invader; but reforged itself into a stronger form of government to counter exterior forces.

The Emperor states "all who have power are afraid to lose it." This is shown to be true. Everything which the Emperor says throughout the movie is true, at least from a certain point of view. The Jedi are planning to overthrow him, his attack of the Jedi has every logical and practical backing. The movie is just another classic example of Social Darwinism at its finest.

All in all, a must see!

Blake:

Thanks for the post adding a little more plot to my review. I didn't include a lot of details due to my attempt not to spoil it for everyone else. It sounds like everyone has seen it already anyway.

The "you're either with me..." is inescapably a reference to Bush. But the "this is how liberty dies" is only a reference to Bush if you think American liberty is dying. Is it?

Well I want to start out by saying the movie was very good. You can complain about the bad dialogue, or the wooden acting, but once you get through that it was a very moving and emotional story, especially in the last hour or so in the movie. Whether or not it saved the prequel Trilogy is a matter of opinion, but it was by far the best of the three. But about the "Pot shots" quite frankly I think it's outrageous that we even have a president that can be even loosley associated with the dark side. You can't say that the line "you're either with me or against me" is an inescapable refrence to bush, it's just showing the closed mindedness of the dark side, and the fact that bush said anything like that should be an alarm that, hello he might not be the best person to lead our country. Any other political refrences are Lucas' critique's on Totalitarianism, and should be an eye opener to what's happening in our own country. If this movie showed us anything, it's that we should always question our leader's, and never let them have absolute control over our country, because sometimes they don't have our best interests in mind.

Blake,

I have to disagree with your political assesment of episode III.

Yes, Padame was a champion of high ideals, and she was killed, but she was killed because of evil, not her high ideals.

Early in the film, Obi-Wan is called the "negotiator." I believe Lucas is trying to frame Obi-Wan as the man of peace and Anakin as the man of war.

I think you prove Lucas' exact point with your comment "Her line "So this is how democracy dies... to thunderous applause" is one of the most contradictory statements of all time. Democracy, the will of the people, could never die to thunderous applause, it is a blatent oxi-moron. Democracy has done what she asked of it, it has negotiated, it has thought, and it has decided that it had to evolve in order to protect itself, the republic was not destroyed by an outside invader; but reforged itself into a stronger form of government to counter exterior forces."

The way that liberty dies is by getting the will of the people to willingly give up its power. How do you do that? By scaring them, making them think their are in danger and the only way to protect themselves is to give their government more power. Does this all sound familiar to you?

In case you didn't pick up on it, Palpatine orchestrated the sepratist uprising so the people of the republic would feel threatened and give him more power.

Can you think of any recent politicians who "created" a threat that wasn't there ("we don't want to smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud") to get the will of the people on their side -- and received thunderous applause in doing so?

This is from today's Chicago Tribune:

`Darth Bush'?

Politics gets into everything these days, even "Star Wars."

"George Lucas must be a Democrat," said my 15-year-old son when he arrived home from the opening day of the latest "Star Wars" movie, "Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith." Ah, The Force is strong in this one, I thought, echoing Darth Vader. For, without the benefit of any advance word or special Jedi abilities, my young Jedi easily detected the anti-Bush propaganda that some liberals, to their delight, and some conservatives, to their fuming outrage, allege is embedded in Lucas' new flick.

In keeping with today's polarized politics, some of the culture warriors are not as amused by Lucas' message as my son was. "Our country is at war and Lucas spouts off this crap?" blasted a Web site called Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood, echoing other conservative sites.

"Lucas has basically all but said Vader is George W. Bush," conservative columnist John Podhoretz wrote in the National Review blog The Corner. In a Weekly Standard review, he also slammed the film and Lucas as "the final chapter in the sad degeneration of a vital, vivid, and highly amusing moviemaker into a dull, solipsistic, and humorless incompetent."

On the flip side of the political fence, Slate.com critic David Edelstein praised the film's "anti-fascist politics" for taking a "palpable swipe at our own Darth Dubyous."

How subversive is it? Not very. But like a Rorschach ink-blot test, people will see what they want to see or, for those who imagine Hollywood-liberal propaganda embedded in every movie that is not produced by Mel Gibson, what they don't want to see.

"If you're not with me, you're my enemy," declares Anakin Skywalker as he drifts over to the "dark side" morphing into the evil Lord Darth Vader and echoing Bush's warning "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Ouch.

Anakin's mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, retorts: "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes." Double ouch.

Bad-guy Chancellor Palpatine exploits war fears to consolidate his power, suspend democratic rule and turn the Republic into a dictatorship. It's not hard to hear echoes here of Congress' rush to pass the USA Patriot Act that expanded government search and eavesdropping powers after the Sept. 11 attacks. Padme Amidala, played by Natalie Portman, laments, "This is how liberty dies: with thundering applause." Triple ouch.

But has Lucas' prequel trilogy drifted all that far from the original "Star Wars" trilogy (which even then was labeled Episodes IV through VI) that then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) praised back in the 1980s for anticipating President Ronald Reagan's epic struggle against the evil empire of the Soviet Union?

I think Lucas has a larger, age-old message: If democratic societies like ours are not eternally vigilant, the next evil empire might be us.

During a news conference at the film's premiere in Cannes, Lucas said he wrote the framework of his double-trilogy in 1971 when President Richard Nixon was building his "enemies list."

Lucas said, "The issue was: How does a democracy turn itself over to a dictator? Not how does a dictator take over, but how does a democracy and Senate give it away?"

He also said, "I hope this doesn't come true in our country. Maybe the film will awaken people to the situation of how dangerous it is. ... The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we are doing now in Iraq are unbelievable."

Whether you agree with the Iraq-Vietnam comparison or not, Lucas did not need Bush or Iraq to come up with Sith. Try the Roman Empire, the French Revolution or Adolf Hitler's Germany for more examples of democracies that willingly yielded power to dictators who used fears and suspicions of outside threats, internal disorder and assorted scapegoats to gain popular support.

The message of "Star Wars," then, is not much different from the heroic themes that energized the Saturday matinees when I was a kid. Freedom depends on ordinary people willing to fight for it, even when the dark side looks like a more appealing choice.

Consider this: Everyone loves star wars.

Muslim fanatics love star wars, schoolchildren from Ohio love star wars, liberal western europeans striving to be communist loved star wars and oppressed eastern europeans striving to be free of communism loved star wars.

Everyone interprets it in a different way, think someone else is the 'evil empire' of the movie. In eastern europe they were positive it was the soviets, and now it appears Lucas thinks it's America. The 'xxx is darth vader!' analogy, of late, has become as popular a gross rhetorical mis-statement as the tried and true 'xxx is a nazi!'.

But the fact that it has such universal appeal, I think, tells us that (perhaps in spite of Lucas's intentions) he has created a much more universal story with a less defined meaning then that. We all find things to relate deeply to in it. Regardless of what the creator of the films say, I think what he has created is bigger then he is, and it really has nothing to do with any current event, but something more a part of human nature and life in general.

In that regard, I agree with Tom.

As far as Lucas and all the other raving lefties declaring Karl Rove to be Darth Vader, well, I'm quite disappointed he said that, but I expect no better then him. I don't much care for Lucas, nor his new 'prequels', although the first 3 were excellent movies. All in all, I think he cheapens the whole thing quite a bit to draw his petty politics into it.

JRR Tolkein also created a story much bigger then he was, that affected people all over the world very deeply. It was written in part in the trenches of WWI (Tolkien was a soldier) and in whole, it was written over the years between WWI and WWII, a quite chaotic time. Many people were SURE he had made some political statement in there, that the 'orcs' were based on one side or another.

But Tolkien allways refused to attach any political message to his fantasy story. It was just a story, one he wrote to tell his children, and one he wrote for his own intellectual gratification, because he thought there was a distinct lact of truly English (as in England) mythology and fantasy.

Lucas could do well to take a note from Tolkien and keep his snide comments to himself, rather then label half his fans as 'the dark side'. But I doubt he will. After all, Tolkien never whored out his story and replaced the ents with ewoks, a mistake Lucas seems to like to repeat as often as possible in his movies.

I love how all these right-wing bloggers are attacking Lucas now. MJ saying Lucas has created a great story in spite of himself, another blog saying Star Wars is all special effects and Lucas never had any talent (he obviously has never seen American Graffiti, which is a GREAT movie).

If someone has a different politcal opinion than the right, they get attacked. (too be fair, not all right leaning people are doing this, but many are).

W is Jar Jar.

Tom, I never much cared for Lucas himself. Even before I knew he was one of those crazy hippy bastards who thinks America is the Empire.

The point, tom, is if his whole movie was symbolic and America is the Empire, then yes the movie was good in spite of him. Because if that's how he intended it (And at least that's the sort of crap he's spewing now) then it certainly doesn't sound like something I would care to watch.

As far as being attacked? If someone has a different political opinion then the right, they get attacked by the right?

WTF?

Yes, Tom. If your opinion is that the USA is the greatest threat to democracy and freedom and GOP politicians are Darth Vader, yes. Don't expect much love from the right. I don't know if that qualifies as an 'attack' though, I think he's the one doing that.