Intended as the last Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith still holds up as the best chapter of the Prequels and a fitting bridge for the Original Trilogy.
"ANAKIN SKYWALKER: “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.” OBI-WAN KENOBI: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.” ANAKIN SKYWALKER: “You will try.”"
By 2005, a division erupted within the Star Wars fan community over the Prequels. Some believed that while The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones weren’t as good as the Original Trilogy, they were still entertaining as the originals. Others felt that George Lucas had betrayed the fans, reducing a beloved modern myth into a commercialized clap-trap and kiddie fare. And after Attack of the Clones’ lower than expected box office returns, the pressure on Lucas was intense.
Then in May of that same year, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith premiered. And almost overnight, to the eyes of his disillusioned disciples, Lucas redeemed himself. Not only did critics and audiences consider it the best of Prequels, some even said it was the best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back. Even today, there are those who recommend that when doing a Star Wars marathon, to just skip Episode I and II altogether and watch Revenge of the Sith in-between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Their argument for doing this is that, in terms of backstory, Revenge of the Sith is all you really need.
Since [Anakin and Obi-Wan’s] duel was intended as the key moment of the “Skywalker Saga,” it meant everything in Revenge of the Sith needed to support or lead up to this moment. As a result, Lucas forced himself to rewrite–or cut out entirely–several scenes during filming, including plot developments built from the previous prequels.
Interestingly enough, Lucas himself might agree with them. Because when it came to Anakin Skywalker’s (Hayden Christensen) fall to the Dark Side and becoming Darth Vader, Revenge of the Sith is what Lucas mostly had in mind ever since making The Empire Strikes Back. The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are essentially the backstories to the backstory he really wanted to tell.
Well… if we’re being honest, there’s only one specific aspect of Revenge of the Sith which Lucas envisioned. This would be the climactic lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) on the volcanic planet of Mustafar, the end of which results in Anakin somehow surviving having his limbs cut off and being burned alive (hence the “PG-13” rating instead of the usual “PG”).
Since this duel was intended as the key moment of the “Skywalker Saga,” it meant everything in Revenge of the Sith needed to support or lead up to this moment. As a result, Lucas forced himself to rewrite–or cut out entirely–several scenes during filming, including plot developments built from the previous prequels.
A ten-year old Han Solo? Gone. Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) returning as a Force ghost? Gone. The answer to the Sifo-Dyas mystery from Attack of the Clones? Gone. A prologue depicting the Clone Wars fought on seven different planets? Gone, but somewhat kept during the “Order 66” scene. More lines for Jar Jar Binks? Mercifully gone. Though, there’s supposedly a deleted scene where Palpatine sarcastically thanks the Gungan for helping him take over the galaxy.
Thus what started off as a four-hour long movie, Lucas and company managed to cut down to almost two-and-a-half. Some subplots still remain, though, like Obi-Wan hunting down the droid Separatist military leader, General Grievous. Same with the battle on the Wookie planet Kashyyyk, a holdover from Lucas’ original draft of Star Wars and Return of the Jedi, using concept art from The Holiday Special. Even so, there apparently wasn’t enough room for all the scenes with Princess Leia’s adoptive father, Senator Organa (Jimmy Smits) and the beginning of what would become the Rebel Alliance.
Lucas also wanted to explore with the subplot of Chancellor Palpatine’s (Ian McDiarmid) rise to power how totalitarian regimes can emerge from democratic governments. After all, the Galactic Empire in Star Wars is clearly an allegory for Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, one can pretty much tell that Lucas wrote the script for Revenge of the Jedi during the aftermath of 9/11 and in the early years of the Iraq War. More than one political pundit at the time observed how similar Anakin’s line of “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy” echoed then President George W. Bush’s, “If you’re not with us, then you’re with the terrorists.” To be fair, the line also goes as far back as the Book of Joshua, but whatever.
Even the reason behind Anakin’s fall underwent massive rewrites. In earlier drafts, Lucas put more emphasis on Anakin’s belief that the Jedi are plotting to overthrow the Republic and remove Palpatine from office in order to end the Clone Wars.
Helping Lucas polish up the script was noted playwright Tom Stoppard. As Stoppard also wrote scripts for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Shakespeare in Love, this may account for why much of the dialogue in Revenge of the Sith sounds as lofty and pseudo-Elizabethan as it does. It’s definitely melodramatic, particularly when it comes to the continuation of Anakin and Padmé’s (Natalie Portman) forbidden marriage. At least lines like “You’re going down a path I cannot follow!” are more bearable than anything from Attack of the Clones.
Also, for as much hype as there was about General Grievous–mainly that he’s a Jedi-killing droid wielding multi-lightsabers–he isn’t as impressive as he looks. Not helping matters is that in order to fully understand the character, one has to also watch Gendry Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars animated series where Grievous first appears, and which is no longer considered canon. In an interesting case of what might have been, Grievous was originally supposed to have been voiced by Gary Oldman. Unfortunately, because Lucas was making Revenge of the Sith without involving the Screen Actors Guild, Oldman, who was a member, opted out, and sound designer, Matthew Wood voiced Grievous instead.
Even the reason behind Anakin’s fall underwent massive rewrites. In earlier drafts, Lucas put more emphasis on Anakin’s belief that the Jedi are plotting to overthrow the Republic and remove Palpatine from office to end the Clone Wars. In later drafts, it’s because of his premonitions of Padmé dying in childbirth which makes him turn to Palpatine to learn how to use the Force to prevent death. Adding to this is Anakin suspecting Obi-Wan is also in love with Padmé, and trying to steal her away from him. In the end, it seems as though all three in some form or another made into the final cut, making things feel needlessly clunky and complicated.
Even so, Revenge of the Sith is at its strongest when it does focuses on Anakin, particularly his relationship with Palpatine. In Lucas’ original script, he reveals that Anakin conception was the result of Palpatine manipulating the midichlorians around Shmi Skywalker, thus technically making him Anakin’s father. This ended up being cut, but hints of Anakin’s true parentage remains within Palpatine’s recount of “Darth Plagueis the Wise” during the excellent opera scene. Moreover, this familial-like bond between Anakin and Palpatine gives a whole new context to scenes between Darth Vader and the Emperor from Return of the Jedi.
What’s just as fascinating is how Lucas paints the Jedi Order as being indirectly responsible for Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side. When going to Yoda for help about his visions, Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) gives him Zen-like platitudes. Most of the Jedi Council, particularly Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) are openly distrustful towards him even before his fall to the Dark Side. And while Obi-Wan (who McGregor plays with such perfection that he even sounds like Alec Guinness) considers his former padawan like his younger brother, what Anakin really wanted was somebody he could call a father.
…an uncredited Steven Spielberg helped Lucas direct the Mustafar scene, particularly when it came to the visuals and, according to Brian Jay Jones’ George Lucas: A Life, adding sweat to Anakin and Obi-Wan.
Of course, none of this could have worked as well as it does without McDiarmid’s fantastic performance, who once again shows off his knack for chewing scenery with absolute sincerity. Even when he finally turns into a full-blown cackling Sith Lord–complete with his over-the-top cry of “Unlimited Power!”–it still feels right. Just his role in this movie alone makes a convincing case that Palpatine, not Darth Vader, is the greatest Star Wars villain.
What’s really surprising, however, is the noticeable improvement from Hayden Christensen. Compared to Attack of the Clones, he’s far more confident and relaxed, and (most of the time) doesn’t say his lines with all the emotion of an Amazon Alexa. It also helps that, in preparation for reprising his role, Christensen went into an intense exercise program, which included workouts lasting for “five to six hours” and eating “six [high-protein] meals a day.” In just three months, he gained twenty-four pounds, all of it muscle.
Part of this regimen included more sword training from Nick Gillard. Christensen and McGregor spent two months rehearsing the climactic fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan alone. In addition, an uncredited Steven Spielberg helped Lucas direct the Mustafar scene, particularly when it came to the visuals and according to Brian Jay Jones’ George Lucas: A Life, adding sweat to Anakin and Obi-Wan. There are no stunt doubles during this sequence and, with the exception of a few frame removals, both actors are genuinely moving as fast as they are shown on-screen. The volcanic explosions in the background? Those are real, too, taken from footage of a real volcanic eruption in Italy. The only real flaw in the final duel is that goes on for too long.
Spielberg also helped Lucas with segments of Obi-Wan’s pursuit of General Grievous which ultimately weren’t used in the theatrical cut. But the continuous shot of the space battle over the planet Coruscant which follows the opening text crawl? That breathtaking scene is all Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic. Likewise, the scene of a conflicted Anakin looking out across the planet’s cityscape from the Jedi temple, with frequent match cuts of Padmé doing the same from their apartment. The moment where Anakin is fitted into the iconic Darth Vader armor is all Lucas, too, inspired by The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) and with Christensen himself in the Vader suit (Though perhaps it could’ve done without James Earl Jones’ “No!”).
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Even if Revenge of the Sith doesn’t quite reach the level of the original Star Wars trilogy, it certainly feels more connected to the original trilogy than The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones ever did. Perhaps this is partially why, unlike Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith was a box office hit, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 2005. Then again, fans had plenty of preparation to see it. After all, it’s no coincidence that Lucasfilm released the DVD box set of the original trilogy the year before Revenge of the Sith’s release, which included Hayden Christensen replacing Sebastian Shaw as Anakin’s force ghost.
One also can tell from watching Revenge of the Sith that Lucas put his heart and soul into it. It’s as if he not only knew this would be the last Star Wars movie (or so he thought) but also the last movie he would ever direct. In keeping with this, much of the marketing behind Revenge of the Sith strongly suggested that the “Skywalker Saga” was now complete. Now that Episodes I, II, and III had been made, Lucas claimed that Star Wars had really been about the rise, fall, and redemption of Darth Vader all along. Vader, not Luke Skywalker, was the real protagonist of the six-part epic.
Yet as we all know, this wouldn’t be the last word on Star Wars–not by a long shot. No one could expect that, in another ten years, Star Wars would not only return to the big screen but take off into potentially controversial directions. Although if Revenge of the Sith had remained the last Star Wars movie, it’s a still decent enough note to end on and a fitting complement to Episodes IV through VI.