Revenge of the Sith

Of the three Star Wars prequels, my favorite is Revenge of the Sith because, even though I already knew what would happen the first time I saw it (anyone familiar with A New Hope knew what would happen), I still found it incredibly compelling,  I was really curious about why Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) turned to the dark side of the Force and I wanted to see how he was physically transformed into Darth Vader.  I was eager for the confrontation that had been building between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and to learn why the latter was compelled to live as a hermit on Tatooine afterwards.  I wanted to know how Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) was able to take over the Senate and become the Emperor of the Galactic Empire.  Finally, I was most interested in how and why the twins Luke and Leia were taken from Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) and raised separately.  I eagerly awaited all of these revelations and I remember being blown away by the emotional conclusion to the trilogy.  Episode III is now back in theaters to commemorate its 20th anniversary (what?) and I was so excited to see it on the big screen again with my nephew last night.  I loved all of the exciting action sequences, especially the light saber battles between Anikan, Obi-Wan, and Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) during the rescue of Palpatine, between Obi-Wan and General Grievous on Utapau (even though he resorts to an uncivilized blaster to destroy him), between Palpatine and Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) in Palpatine's office on Coruscant, between Darth Vader and all of the Separatists on Mustafar, between Yoda (Frank Oz) and the newly created Emperor in the Senate chamber on Coruscant, and, of course, the epic battle between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader on Mustafar.  Christensen's performance has been much maligned but, in my opinion, his portrayal of the conflict within Anakin is very powerful and I loved the cross-cutting between Anakin in the council room and Padme in their apartment before he makes the fateful decision to go to Palpatine.  The music by John Williams is always a highlight and, while I found "The Battle of the Heroes" to be incredibly stirring, I absolutely loved the callbacks to "The Imperial March" when Anakin pledges himself to the Sith and to the Main Theme when Obi-Wan delivers Luke to Owen (Joel Edgerton) and Beru (Bonnie Piesse) on Tatooine.  I cheered every time I saw a reference to the original trilogy (Padme's buns!) and I was particularly struck by the armor worn by the clone troopers who execute Order 66 because they appear to be an early iteration of the armor eventually worn by the stormtroopers (I don't know why I have never noticed that before).  Seeing this again was so much fun and I highly recommend it (especially if you have never seen it on the big screen).

Note:  Apologies to my nephew for my unhinged behavior which started during the opening crawl (although he said I wasn't as crazy as some of the other people watching it with us).