nan | 楠木

It’s hard not to like this movie, after seeing it in the cinema.
Like I said in the last post, I had not seen the complete original trilogy prior to this viewing. Yet the plot was familiar to me, since I had long read the novelization. And indeed, the entire new trilogy is focused on the “downfall” of Anakin, so from a plotwise point of view, there were few surprises. Everybody knows what happened. We only want to know how it happened. The gruesome details.
And details this film provides. Episode III opens up with a thrill–in the form of an epic space battle– but it’s the latter half of the film that really gains strength and momentum. The wheels of history starts turning. We see Anakin’s tragedy, how his undying love for Padme and his thirst for power turned against him and all that he loved.
And yet while we supposedly know what happened, this film still provides more than a few twists. And we are immediately emotionally attached– because of all things in this world, perhaps the most tragic is betrayal, and it is profoundly sad to see the fall of the Jedi force.
Still there is hope. Luke and Leia are born. Obi-wan and Yoda still lives. Anakin becomes Darth Vader, yet through that cold helmet somehow we feel there is still some good.
9 out of 10.