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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film Handlers' Movie Reviews   » Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Page 1)

 
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Author Topic: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Brian Michael Weidemann
Expert cat molester

Posts: 944
From: Costa Mesa, CA United States
Registered: Feb 2004

- posted 05-16-2005 12:34 AM      Profile for Brian Michael Weidemann   Author's Homepage   Email Brian Michael Weidemann   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I suppose I'm going to take Joe's challenge and be bold enough to post the first review. I screened it late last night in our DLP. Training oneself not to look forward to movies is a good habit, and I'm close to perfecting that. It was exciting only because I have spent the last three years not being excited to see it, so when it was finally on screen, any excitement was genuine and not needlessly built up.

The dialog was slightly better than Episode II, but not by much. The characters said pretty much only what they needed to. In fact, the whole movie was only what it needed to be. But I thought it did it really well. I'm trying to think of spoilers, but almost nothing in the movie was a surprise. It all played out the way it needed to in order to make the transition. That was clearly this movie's sole role.

Natalie Portman is getting more gorgeous, and they managed to show her face almost exclusively, and her pregnant belly barely at all. Her acting abilities started to peak out in a vital scene, really her only chance.

Ian McDiarmid was great, because he's got a great voice for the character ... but there were a few squeaky spots that just didn't fit.

Light saber battles were great, or at least they would be if the camera wasn't so tight on the action. All that choreography and practice, and we're seeing nothing but light saber blurs because the "location" is very dark and too much is happening to discern the moves anyone is making; not on a first viewing, anyway. All the editing was typical Star Wars fare.

The effects for the most part were good, but there were a couple that just weren't convincing! It looked like a badly composited college CG film project a couple times, but I didn't let that bug me.

There were other things I didn't let bug me. But the things that actually did bug me, but really shouldn't have ... things flying off spaceships as if there were wind resistance in space? Sounds of explosions heard through the vacuum of space AND the shielded, blast-proof windows of observation decks? Eh, I'm over it.

The DLP presentation was noticeably pixelated. Lots of aliasing and flutter of crisp edges. Hitchhiker's Guide wasn't this pixelated. I don't know the specs of the resolution, though.

I think the movie as a whole was better than it was bad. It had great tie-ins, had the feel of the original episodes more than the prequels did, had a good number of "Oh, wow, that was just cool" moments, as well as some eye-rolling ones. The narrative, necessarily, had to keep switching to different locations, different characters, different situations; so it's a lot to take in. So for that it might seem a bit muddled and jerky.

I guess this sounds like a mixed review. Lots of little nit-picky problems, but it's good anyway. Hmmm. I'll have to see it again. I'll wait for a 35mm in our larger auditoriums.

Semi-spoiler: It's apparent that R2-D2 can hold his own, though! A bit cartoony, maybe, but fun to watch.

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Kurt Zupin
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 989
From: Maricopa, Arizona
Registered: Oct 2004

- posted 05-18-2005 02:28 AM      Profile for Kurt Zupin   Email Kurt Zupin   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Well after screening the two prints that we received...I must say that even after the second viewing of ROTS it was just as good as the first. This film to me is the best of the six...blows 1 and 2 away and is followed closely by Return of the Jedi. The acting is so much better this time around...the characters say what they need to say and push the story down the road its on. The romantic scenes between Anakin and Padmé were much more convincing this time around. Not so forced and fake. The fights were the best of all the films...a couple were just too short, being cut down for story telling...hopefully there is more on the DVD to make them feel a little fuller...but the three main fights were GREAT. Very fast movements by the actors, you can really tell they honed there skills.

All in all a 5 out of 5 from me.

Hope others were as pleased as I was

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Allison Parsons
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 630
From: East Peoria, IL
Registered: Oct 2004

- posted 05-18-2005 02:35 AM      Profile for Allison Parsons   Author's Homepage   Email Allison Parsons   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The last 30min. I loved. What I loved more than the last 30min was the last 10min. Those 10min. made up for the 6+ hours of time from my life I won't be getting back when I watched the last two Star Wars....

Samuel L Jackson just couldn't act his way out of a box in this movie, unfortunatly.

And yeah, it was pushing a PG-13 at the end. I'm too tired to write more zzzzzzzzzzz

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

- posted 05-18-2005 04:29 AM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
Well here we are with the "last" episode of Star Wars. (Is anyone else betting George will pick up with the final trilogy anyway?) Rather than compose a nicely worded review, I'll just list some bullet points since that is quicker.

  • GOOD - Jar Jar had very little screen time in this one.
  • BAD - Jar Jar did not die a horrible death that spanned two reels. Very disappointing.
  • GOOD - The sound was freakin' phenomenal!!! I ran it at 9 and it was fantastic.
  • BAD - This movie was clearly shot on video. Some of the scenes, inparticularly the scene where they are "building" Vader looked like it was shot on a VHS camcorder.
  • GOOD - The last 2 reels finally started wrapping things up in the trilogy and did a good job at it.
  • BAD - The dialogue and acting. Just like the others, don't expect much here. Much of it had us flat out laughing when the actors were trying to be completely serious. It just couldn't be helped, it was too hokey.
  • GOOD - John William's score, as always.
  • BAD - The fact that the score is playing under EVERY SINGLE SCENE!!! I honestly don't think it stopped for more than 30 seconds at any one given point. Someone pay attention to this for me and see if indeed there is one solid minute without music being used.
So as you can tell, it has it's good points and bad points. All in all I think this film will do monsterous business for at least a few weeks, and is certainly something to truly show off your sound systems with.
3.5 out of 5 stars

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

- posted 05-18-2005 04:43 AM      Profile for Monte L Fullmer   Email Monte L Fullmer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
4.0 out of 5 stars for me.

..for nothing will ever beat the orignal '77 release.

THAT was the "Space Cowboy" adventure of adventures!

-Monte

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

- posted 05-18-2005 08:14 AM      Profile for Michael Schaffer   Author's Homepage   Email Michael Schaffer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Brad Miller
This movie was clearly shot on video. Some of the scenes, inparticularly the scene where they are "building" Vader looked like it was shot on a VHS camcorder.
You are right. This footage was actually shot by the Emperor himself, handheld and live, and like you noticed, on his personal camcorder.

I think this movie blooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooows!!!!!!
No sense of style and continuity, completely unrealistic looking scenes overladen with too much CGI stuff going on everywhere. The attempts to provide some connections to the earlier movies failed miserably. For instance, the scenes filmed in Senator Organa's ship stood out glaringly and didn't fit the overall look of the rest of the movie at all.
But yes, they gave Natalie Portman a noodle hairdo as a preecho of Leia's later hairstyle.
They already started building the Death Star? So it eventually took them 20 years to complete it? But then it only took them maybe a year or 2 to build an even bigger one later?

What I find worst is how the endless potential of a vast place in space is completely collapsed in the new episodes. Everybody knows everybody (or their fathers) already. Look, there is little Greedo, and all the robots are already there, and look, Yoda even met Chewbacca. And they were really good friends too! Is this a Muppet Show episode or what is it supposed to be?

Lucas' great achievement back then was to have the idea and the energy to push his original project through - and then hire the right people to help him make it come alive. But he doesn't have these people anymore, apparently all he has now is a bunch of highly paid yesmen. But he alone obviously does not have the vision to create, or recreate, anything remotely close to the original trilogy.

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Paul Konen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 981
From: Frisco, TX. (North of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 05-18-2005 09:27 AM      Profile for Paul Konen   Email Paul Konen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Michael, I agree about the Death Star Scene. I feel that people are going to be disappointed that the tie-ins to EP4 weren't elaborated on more. I think a bit more info on Leia growth into being the Princess, teaching her about Obi-Wan (She never knew him), capturing the Death Star plans, recording her message onto R2 and eventual capture. Even some background on Luke growing up, altbough IMO, he didn't really become a factor until EP4 anyway. (He just wants to get power converters anyway [Big Grin] )

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John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

- posted 05-18-2005 11:32 AM      Profile for John Walsh   Email John Walsh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
A friend of mine made the point that (it seems) George only gives his actors the minimum amount of information to do a scene. This causes their acting to be sort of wooden. Maybe it's because he wants to keep everything a secret. For example, it's as if he will tell an actor, "Look up at the blue screen. You see a big spaceship. Now say, 'Wow, that's a really big spaceship.'" OK CUT; .. next!

The actor doesn't know why he's saying a line, and doesn't have either a real set or other actors to work off/with.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 05-18-2005 12:33 PM      Profile for Mike Blakesley   Author's Homepage   Email Mike Blakesley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Lucas has said the acting that we might consider "wooden" is actually a style from the 1940 and 50s. I'm not sure how to describe it but if you look at old movies ("Ben-Hur" and "The Ten Commandments" come to mind) you can see it. The actors speak more slowly, and with less emotion/inflection than today's movies have. I'm sure there are lots of much better examples out there but I'm not really into movies from that era.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

- posted 05-18-2005 12:37 PM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
Interesting. Even more interesting is that he is making a futuristic (or should I say "a long time ago") movie, yet he would use the "wooden" style from the 40s and 50s. [Confused]

Personally, once the movies started talking, they started to suck. Sure there are many exceptions over the years, but for the most part the films released from the 40s into the late 70s were crap in my opinion. Then the crapfest seemed to start back up at the end of the 90s and I don't see an end in sight. [Frown]

Maybe Michael Shaffer can predict when good movies will be made again.

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Jeremy Spracklen
Film Handler

Posts: 39
From: Arlington, TX, USA
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 05-18-2005 05:50 PM      Profile for Jeremy Spracklen   Email Jeremy Spracklen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
George Lucas is a genius…a freakin’ comedic genius. I laughed my ass off through the whole thing.

Seriously! This whole intergalactic mess could have been avoided if Anakin had just learned to put a sheath on that saber. Or didn’t they have condoms a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away?

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Brian Michael Weidemann
Expert cat molester

Posts: 944
From: Costa Mesa, CA United States
Registered: Feb 2004

- posted 05-18-2005 11:27 PM      Profile for Brian Michael Weidemann   Author's Homepage   Email Brian Michael Weidemann   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Me
The DLP presentation was noticeably pixelated.
I must revise this. Apparently during our original screening, it was playing at the right settings and everything, but something in the data conversion compression doo-hickamabob was playing it at a needlessly low resolution.

We had a tech in today working on the problem and the problem, which I didn't think was much of a problem, was resolved. All the obvious side-effects of pixelation are gone now! DLP doesn't look too bad after all!

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Adam Wilbert
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 590
From: Bellingham, WA, USA
Registered: Mar 2002

- posted 05-19-2005 02:39 AM      Profile for Adam Wilbert   Author's Homepage   Email Adam Wilbert   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
All the obvious side-effects of pixelation are gone now! DLP doesn't look too bad after all!
Oh no! All of my worst fears have come true. Apparently Georgie built some sort of subliminal messages into the movie. He must be pissed that his 2001 predictions didn't come true, so he's found a way to "force" his beliefs on the unsuspecting public. [Big Grin]

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Brian Michael Weidemann
Expert cat molester

Posts: 944
From: Costa Mesa, CA United States
Registered: Feb 2004

- posted 05-19-2005 04:39 AM      Profile for Brian Michael Weidemann   Author's Homepage   Email Brian Michael Weidemann   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
[beer] Well, it didn't look nearly as good as it would have if the IMAX deal had gone through.

I viewed most of it tonight in a large auditorium (400 seats) in 35mm. We recently had a lamphouse upgrade retrofit in there and it looked beautiful! Bright, crisp, clean. It didn't look too video-ish to me, but then, I don't have the eye for that kind of thing even nearly as good as most people here seem to.

I think the crowds liked it. But then, again, they were cheering during the Snickers ad in the 2wenty! Lunatics!

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

- posted 05-19-2005 04:54 AM      Profile for Michael Schaffer   Author's Homepage   Email Michael Schaffer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Brian Michael Weidemann
I must revise this. Apparently during our original screening, it was playing at the right settings and everything, but something in the data conversion compression doo-hickamabob was playing it at a needlessly low resolution.
You can't do much about at what resolution the file is played back by the content server - that depends on the mastering of the file - but there are several stages involved in the resizing and formatting in the DLP projector. Most projectors (which one do you have?) allow you to store a number of preconfigured settings to be called up at the touch of a button. Then all you need to do while screening the movie is to either know what input resolution and output format the movie actually is mastered in, or go through these presets and see which one gives you the best "look".

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