“So this is how liberty dies,” she says, with a sullen, resigned expression, “with thunderous applause…”
The line is spoken by Senator Padme Amidala: as the Emperor declares the end of the Republic and the advent of galactic dictatorship – and the chamber echoes with the approving applause of thousands of politicians whose corruption or complacency has allowed this tyrannical seizure of power to arrive.
It’s a great line, perfectly delivered by Natalie Portman.
And it’s a moment, and a theme, that resonates more and more with the trajectory of contemporary politics and society – and the dangers we have found ourselves much closer to today than we could’ve really imagined back in 2005.
That’s partly because said themes are both timeless and universal.
And that’s one of the secrets to George Lucas‘s underlying recipe for his Star Wars movies – something that the modern, post-Lucas franchise hasn’t been able to replicate.
Padme’s increasingly iconic line is one of many truly great moments in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
A film I previously described as ‘a story about how democracies fall, yet equally about how empires become inevitable. And about how religions and orthodoxies become stagnant and ineffective. It’s a story about death and birth and rebirth. And about both the destructive power of obsessive love, and yet also the redeeming power of unconditional love…‘
And as ‘a Shakespearean epic of a tortured fall from grace and a Greek tragedy about the dangers of loving someone too much; and that too wrapped within an even larger epic about the fall of a Republic, the fallibility of religion and the genius of the Devil and failure of the angels…’
What Lucas created in fact was the ultimate expression/culmination of the art of the epic itself – fittingly enough, in order to conclude the defining epic of our modern times (what Brian Blessed once described as the Shakespeare of our age).
It’s a film I’ve been so attached to for so long now that I’ve already written two frankly essay-length pieces about it on this site (here and here).
So I won’t do so again here, as I’ll probably end up repeating a lot of the same things.
This isn’t another article gushing over specific scenes or sequences or examining key moments or elements: rather it’s just a broad commentary on why this film still has so much weight and holds so special a place.
Really, another piece on Revenge of the Sith felt irresistible. Both because it’s the twentieth anniversary of its original cinematic release – and because George Lucas’s epic finale to his Prequel Trilogy and overall Star Wars franchise returned to cinemas in recent days in celebration of the anniversary.
If you never originally saw Episode III in the cinema in 2005, do yourself a favour and take the opportunity to do so now.
There is no greater cinematic experience, at least as far as big-scale blockbuster cinema is concerned.
I saw it four times during its original theatrical run – and I’m not someone who pays to see a movie more than once in the cinema.
I also always regretted that the 3D release that was planned prior to the Disney acquisition of Star Wars never happened. I did see The Phantom Menace 3D release in the cinema, but they cancelled the rest. Revenge of the Sith would’ve looked awesome in even partial 3D conversion: the opening space battle, the Mustafar lightsaber duel, the Utapau sequences, etc.
I’ve said before and say again: Revenge of the Sith is the *pinnacle* of grandiose adventure/fantasy type filmmaking.
In the two decades since, probably only the twin behemoths of Avengers Infinity War (2018) and Endgame (2019) compete with it for scale, scope or mythic impact.
And I would still rank Lucas’s film higher, for several reasons: one of them being the level of sheer artistry, whether in the brilliance of the score, the stunning visual conceptions or the timeless themes.
If nothing else, it’s worth seeing Revenge of the Sith in the cinema again just to remind oneself of when Star Wars was last truly great.
The respected, if sometimes controversial, academic, Camille Paglia (once ranked #20 on a Prospect/Foreign Policy poll of the world’s top 100 public intellectuals), famously declared a few years ago that Revenge of the Sith was the greatest work of art in the last thirty years.
Watch her enthusing excitedly about the film in the video clip below.
In an interview, Paglia argued, ‘I have been saying to interviewers and onstage, “The finale of Revenge of the Sith is the most ambitious, significant, and emotionally compelling work of art produced in the last 30 years in any genre – including literature”…’
In her book Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars, she discusses twenty-nine examples of artwork spanning 3000 years, from Ancient Egypt to Donatello’s Mary Magdalene. It was Lucas’s final film she chose as the contemporary work of art worthy of inclusion and discussion.
The book in part addresses the problem of modern cultural ignorance and the author’s worries that 21st century Americans are overexposed to stimulation by the “all-pervasive mass media” and losing the capacity for contemplation.
But I covered all that and Paglia’s views in this article nine years ago.
Watching Lucas’s final offering and comparing it to modern Star Wars might be a jarring experience.
By contrast, The Rise of Skywalker (which I reviewed here) – the climax to the contemporary Star Wars trilogy – was a directionless, meaningless, plagiaristic leviathan of soulless corporate slop.
I wasn’t quite as scathing as that in my original Rise of Skywalker review: but my view of that movie has worsened even more in the last six years.
Rise of Skywalker literally guts, hurts and diminishes everything that came before it, essentially existing now as an inoperable tumour on the Star Wars saga.
By sharp contrast, Lucas’s end piece of his saga, Revenge of the Sith, not only stands as a fantastic piece of cinema in its own right, but it substantially supports, enhances and resonates the rest of the franchise (the train-wreck Sequel Trilogy notwithstanding).
This is to the extent that Episode III is now essentially the gravitational center and pivot point of the entire franchise, more so than even A New Hope in 1977.
More happens in these two-and-a-half hours, more substantial events and of more weight, than in the entirety of the recent Sequel Trilogy.
Again, I’m not going to list various scenes or moments this time, but let’s just single out one sequence: the stunning “Order 66” montage, with all the Jedi being assassinated by their own troops, caught off-guard. Accompanied by John Williams’ stirring choral theme, we see all the nobility and heroism being systematically eliminated from the galaxy by literally mindless clones. The callous extermination of the Jedi – reminiscent of many of the brutal purges that have accompanied coups in the real world – is as stirring, as epic, as Star Wars gets.
Lucas was always inspired by his friend Joseph Campbell’s thoughts on mythology, but moreover informed by his own careful distillation of elements from various cultures and civilisations (what he has referred to as our collective human ‘archaeological psychology’). In effect, Lucas’s mythic construct is every bit as influential as Virgil, Homer or Shakespeare were in their respective times.
And if Star Wars remains the pre-eminent item of contemporary popular mythology, then Revenge of the Sith is the centerpiece of that mythological tapestry.
It also contains more artistry, more stunning visualisation and sound, more deft editing and artistic juxtaposition, than most of the ten years worth of post-Lucas Star Wars output we’ve had.
Or than any comparable big-scale cinematic enterprise. Much of it, particularly the climatic Kenobi/Skywalker duel and that final act with the birth of the twins, death of Padme and creation of Vader, almost isn’t cinema at all – but opera. As I wrote here a decade ago, this could’ve been something Wagner was composing if he had ever existed in the cinema age. In fact, the final few scenes of the film don’t even have any dialogue, but are purely musical and visual.
It’s also special because it’s Lucas’s final major contribution to his saga. It’s his final film, his final piece of the puzzle. His final vision: and, fittingly, the apex – the culmination of decades.
Until The Force Awakens came along a decade later, it was the end of the franchise, at least in cinematic terms: the final word.
Many would argue it should’ve remained that way. I in fact had already argued it even before the new Star Wars films began to appear.
And again here, where I argued that Return of the Jedi (1983) and Revenge of the Sith – the two finales of their respective trilogies – were a perfect symbiosis: a perfect combined end-point for the franchise.
In a more personal vein, Revenge of the Sith was still the final word in the Star Wars cinematic canon, my love for the franchise was at its height.
I listened to the John Williams score endlessly. I wanted the merch. I needed the novelisation. I remember my nervous excitement before the first viewing – and in the weeks leading up to it. And watching the trailer over and over again.
I kind of miss that.
Twenty years later, my love for the franchise is at its weakest. And that’s for multiple reasons, one being the simple oversaturation, another being mismanagement, as well as overall creative decline.
Episode III ended everything at a creative, thematic and technical peak. The contemporary franchise instead is predicated on keeping everything going indefinitely: churning out content for content’s sake.
It’s a machine.
Sure, there’s been some bright spots: I enjoyed the Obi-Wan Kenobi series and Andor, which is currently streaming its final season to rave reviews, is genuinely fantastic.
But the majority of the Lucasfilm output in the Disney era has been consistently below par and lacking vision.
Revenge of the Sith, by comparison, was clearly a labour of love – a culmination of a decades-long vision.
And I believe it will continue to stand the test of time.
When I wrote a substantial essay about this movie even ten years ago here, there were still some mocking responses (“You like the prequels? What’re you, stupid?”). That attitude seems to have died off more and more in the years since, as the film has inevitably gained more and more stature.
Internet talking-heads who once revelled in the anti-Lucas bandwagon now find themselves backpedalling. It’s actually a bit embarrassing.
Even Mark Kermode has re-evaluated his views, admitting he was unfair in his earlier judgement.
And the fact that this twentieth anniversary re-release has already done remarkable business at the box office (especially for a movie two decades old) further demonstrates not just how good this film always was and how much it means to people, but how well it has aged.
In one of the very first articles I ever wrote for this site, way back in 2013 when I was but a wee blogger, I said: ‘In a hundred years time, when almost all other billion-dollar big-screen orgies of our time are long-forgotten, George Lucas’s original (as in, ENTIRELY original, and not adapted from a comic book, TV series, computer game or novel) SF opus will stand out from the prevailing ennui of today’s blockbuster cinema… like the Statue of Liberty rising out of the sand in that famous documentary about apes…’
Revenge of the Sith also remains, again, the last time that Star Wars was truly, genuinely great.
Some further reading: ‘STAR WARS EPISODE III: Revenge of the Sith – An Underrated Masterpiece…’, ‘George Lucas is a Genius & ‘REVENGE OF THE SITH’ May Be the Greatest Work of Art in Our Lifetimes…‘, ‘Every STAR WARS Film Revisited/Reevaluated…‘
See ALL STAR WARS articles here.
