George Lucas is the Brian Wilson of cinema; his work is thrillingly imaginative and technically ingenious, but frequently tacky, soulless, and ill-advised. But, so what? Hilariously bombastic and excessive in every way possible, the film (though I guess we can’t really call it that) has no reason to exist other than to make the audience dizzy with an endless maze of surfaces and self-references. And to that end, I thoroughly enjoyed it, even the interminable stretches of dialogue, which have all the naturalism of a Noh play with ten times the comedy. You know there’s something strange about a movie in which the funniest moment involves killing children and the most touching involves Yoda climbing on the back of a Wookiee companion. Revenge of the Sith could hardly have been more campy if John Waters had directed it.
And for those seeing this “film” projected digitally, there is the added treat of seeing all of the logos for digital projection companies at the beginning of the film. One of these actually features the image of a piece of celluloid burning up in the projector with a slogan that tells us that “The Future is Now,” or something. Bottom line: film is old and it sucks.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: 20th Century Fox Digital Projection
28 May 2005 12:51 PM | Submit Comment