Noooooooooo!!!

Anakin is Darth Vader!? It can't be! I've never been more surprised.

Saw Star Wars: Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith (phew) on Saturday. Now, I am not a Star Wars baby, Lucas has not raped my childhood. He did waste several hours of my life in 1999, as I tagged along with a group of rabid fans to see Episode I. As they waxed happily on its every virtue, I just kept thinking "What the fuck was that? The Force is a bug?". It did have the honor of containing the single most annoying character every committed to celluloid, and this from the creator of Howard the Duck.

Episode II was better (though not everyone agrees). It did have a scene about sand that had me laughing out loud in the theatre. Great action set piece at the end.

The latest one got it right for the most part. It did have the scene or two of world famous Lucas writing, and the single worse moment in any of the six films (see the title of this post), but some of its set pieces are virtuoso examples of film making, helped by the fact the characters speak very little of George's dialog.

And in a strange way, it is a very old fashion film, regardless of the digital sheen on everything (and they still can't get blue-screened actor's shadows right where they touch the ground). It is the world of the golden age of science fiction, right down to the capital of the Galaxy Empire of "Foundation". What makes it of today is the fact that Anakin is not allowed to be pure evil, but to have turned to the Dark Side out of good intentions (though it plays more as the story of a madman, rather than a good man driven to evil).

As so it is done. I don't believe it for a second.