Starring: Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel l Jackson, Frank Oz, and Anthony Daniels.
George Lucas
Where I Watched it: Disney Plus
English Audio Description Available?: Yes
Description Provided By: Media Access Group
Narrated By: Miles Neff
The Plot: Anakin inches closer to being an even worse person than he already is. His fatherhood is imminent. And since Padme doesn’t appear in any other films, Natalie Portman awaits the sweet release of her three picture contract.Oh, and Obi Wan kenobi does some stuff that I can only assume will lead to whatever is in the new Disney Plus series.
Does It hold Up?” Well, not really. I’m finding out this time around that my enjoyment of Phantom Menace seemed to increase slightly, while Attack Of The Clones went down even more. now, Revenge Of The Sith was more of a struggle, as without the visual elements, it is really hard to maneuver through Hayden Christensen’s acting. One might assume that because he has a film under his belt that because of experience, he automatically got better. one would be wrong. He still seems to have very little grasp of who Anakin is, or what words on a page do when they come together to form sentences. It’s just a big struggle.
The rest of the cast, and some phenomenal action set pieces really save this film. Portman has gotten out of the shitty dialog she was stuck with in Attack Of The Clones, McGregor is fantastic in that final action sequence and acts his face off, but really Ian McDiarmid steals this show. This is the film where he really truly gets to go nuts, and he eats this shit up. Watching his Palpatine go all the way is a reminder why they cast him in the first place. Not for the easy stuff he was handed in past films, but for this scene chewing madness here.
It’s technically a better film, but when you strip away everything from Hayden’s performance and leave it up to just narration and his ability to read a script, it doesn’t work. He’s someone who clearly rode in on his looks, and I’m sure a deaf audience who gets his physicality but not his line delivery has a totally different opinion.
But sadly, my vision loss has taken an actor and a performance that I already didn’t care for, and turned it into some form of torture. And he’s dragging these two films in the Star Wars films down. Prior to this set of rewatching, i would have easily answered Revenge Of The Sith as the best of the prequel films. now I rank it even with The Phantom Menace.
The Blind Perspective: Aside from General Grievous, there really aren’t any new major character descriptions. And Star Wars films assume you know what the character already looks like going in. his description was really good, but you need to know who everyone else is and what they look like going in. the physical transformations made by both Palpatine and Anakin both are notated well.But the strength in this narration continues to be Miles Neff, who is deeply invested and excited for what he’s describing, and for the action sequences, which were quite impressive the handful of times I saw them prior, and are well described here.
Final Thoughts: If i rewatch this again, I wonder if Phantom Menace will overtake it, or if I can find a way to be at peace ever with Hayden’s performance. I just don’t know.
Final Grade: B- (well, it’s like the 4th time I’ve seen this, so the grade suggests it’s at least mostly rewatchable).
