I just watched Ebert & Roeper At The Movies, They did a review on Revenge Of The Sith and gave it two thumbs, Even though they had a bit of a problem with some of the dialogue, But the majority of there review was all positive.

Good to hear, though I always take what they say with a grain of salt considering Ebert (I believe) gave TPM 3.5 stars.

GREAT!

I would really like to read a transcript of that if anyone has it. I missed the show last night.

they just argue with each other....

Who's Ebart and Ropper??

I found this on the RottenTomatoes Forums (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showpost.php?p=6614106&postcount=92)

Show opens with a scene from the battle of Kashyyk.

Roeper: The most anticipated movie of the year, the decade, the century, finally comes to theaters...I'm Richard Roper

Ebert: And I'm Roger Ebert. Well here it is at last "Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith". It opens Wednesday at midnight. This is an early review, after 28 years the Star Wars series concludes with a final shot showing two characters facing a dawn of what we know will be parts 4,5 and 6.

By starting in the middle and returning to the beginning, Lucas loses some suspence since we already know that Anakin Skywalker will become Darth Vader.

But the transition is in a way all the more facinating as we see a younger and a more innocent Anakin (played by Haden Christensen)in love with Padme (played by Natalie Portman).

Their twins will be the future Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. As the movie opens, Anakin and a young Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Ewan MacGregor)are flying to the rescue of the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine.

Palpatine (played by Ian McDermid)has an uneasy relationship with the Jedi Council and tries to shake Anakin's loyalty to the Jedi.

Can Anakin be trusted? Mace Windu, Obi Wan and Yoda have their doubts about this untested young man.

That's Samuel L. Jackson as the powerful Jedi Master Mace Windu and of course Frank Oz as the voice of Yoda.

Finally the hostility surfaces in a duel to the death on a firey volcanic planet.

Revenge of the Sith is filled with action, including a thrilling dogfight, a sensational crash landing, maybe a little more dueling by lightsabers than you really need since since the swordsman are so good it takes forever for anyone to actually get hurt.

The weakness is in the dialogue. It's flat when it should be poetic and exciting. They seem to be working from a limited vocabulary of basic english.

This would be a bigger problem if the characters spoke more but they don't, except for Chancellor Palpatine who is eloquent and snakey as he seduces Anakin over to the Dark Side.

Thumbs Up

ROEPER: Yeah the Chancellor is the real villan in this chapter. Big thumbs up for me Roger. And you're right about the dialogue THAT'S ALWAYS BEEN A WEAKNESS IN THESE MOVIES.

But that's a small part of this saga. I do like the action sequences alot. I think this movie has something that the most recent two had none of and that is it has a heart. It really does. I mean the Natalie Portman character Padme..

EBERT: Yeah

ROEPER: I mean she's playing this as real drama. She's seen the man she loves going to the dark side and it's really breaking her heart and it feels authentic.

EBERT: Yeah, the last third of the movie is stronger thanks to that emotional content. But at the same time I wish that in a way he(Lucas) would have pumped up the dialogue you have people saying things like 'They're worried about you, they think you're under too much stress'. I mean come on.

ROEPER: Yeah. Hey absolutley

EBERT: I mean its just pedestrian clunky dialogue.

ROEPER: Maybe they should have brought someone like David Mamet to punch it up

EBERT: Somebody like Jackson (Samuel L.) is such an eloquent actor and here he is just intoning. THAT'S JUST A WEAKNESS OF THE SERIES.

ROEPER: But of the recent movies this is the best...

EBERT: Yes it is

ROEPER: I actually think it's the best one since Empire Strikes Back. Maybe the third best out of the 6.

EBERT: What this one does, it goes back to the great tradition of Space Opera, and action, and science fiction and gets out of those long dialogue passages that were not only badly written but also endless.

ROEPER: Yeah and as you mentioned of course the suspense isn't all quite there because we know what's going to happen.

EBERT: Yeah we know

ROEPER: But that also gives the scenes alot more resonance.

EBERT: The scene where Anakin turns into Darth Vader and how that mask is applied ...

ROEPER: Powerful stuff

EBERT:....that's a good scene.

ROEPER: So two thumbs up for Star Wars.


END REVIEW.

It's also here, on this forum, under the "reviews" thread.

I know. I know. I read it. But if this thread is specifically ABOUT the Ebert and Roeper review, I think it would be logical to have the transcript in it.

Hey can someone post the review? I'd like to read it.

Hey, and while I'm on subject, it would probably be a good idea to create a forum for reviews from critics so they can be found in one place. What do you guys think?

Roger Ebert also put up his review of the film in the Chicago Sun-Times today. He gave the film 3 1/2 stars. Here it is:

George Lucas comes full circle in more ways than one in "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," which is the sixth -- and allegedly but not necessarily the last -- of the "Star Wars" movies. After "Episode II" got so bogged down in politics that it played like the Republic covered by C-Span, "Episode III" is a return to the classic space opera style that launched the series. Because the story leads up to where the original "Star Wars" began, we get to use the immemorial movie phrase, "This is where we came in."

That Anakin Skywalker abandoned the Jedi and went over to the dark side is known to all students of "Star Wars." That his twins Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia would redeem the family name is also known. What we discover in "Episode III" is how and why Anakin lost his way -- how a pleasant and brave young man was transformed into a dark, cloaked figure with a fearsome black metal face. As Yoda sadly puts it in his inimitable word order: "The boy who dreamed, gone he is, consumed by Darth Vader."

As "Episode III" opens, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and his friend Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) are piloting fighter craft, staging a daring two-man raid to rescue Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). He has been captured by the rebel Gen. Grievous (whose voice, by Matthew Woods, sounds curiously wheezy considering the general seems to use replacement parts). In the spirit of all the "Star Wars" movies, this rescue sequence flies in the face of logic, since the two pilots are able to board Grievous' command ship and proceed without much trouble to the ship's observation tower, where the chancellor is being held. There is a close call in an elevator shaft, but where are the guards and the security systems? And why, for that matter, does a deep space cruiser need an observation tower, when every porthole opens on to the universe? But never mind.

Back within the sphere of the Jedi Council, Anakin finds that despite his heroism, he will not yet be named a Jedi Master. The council distrusts Palpatine and wants Anakin to spy on him; Palpatine wants Anakin to spy on the council. Who to choose? McDiarmid has the most complex role in the movie as he plays on Anakin's wounded ego. Anakin is tempted to go over to what is not yet clearly the dark side; in a movie not distinguished for its dialogue, Palpatine is insidiously snaky in his persuasiveness.

The way Anakin approaches his choice, however, has a certain poignancy. Anakin has a rendezvous with Padme (Natalie Portman); they were secretly married in the previous film, and now she reveals she is pregnant. His reaction is that of a nice kid in a teenage comedy, trying to seem pleased while wondering how this will affect the other neat stuff he gets to do. To say that George Lucas cannot write a love scene is an understatement; greeting cards have expressed more passion.

The dialogue throughout the movie is once again its weakest point: The characters talk in what sounds like Basic English, without color, wit or verbal delight, as if they were channeling Berlitz. The exceptions are Palpatine and of course Yoda, whose speech (voiced by Frank Oz) reminds me of Wolcott Gibbs' famous line about the early style of Time magazine: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind."

In many cases the actors are being filmed in front of blue screens, with effects to be added later, and sometimes their readings are so flat, they don't seem to believe they're really in the middle of amazing events. How can you stand in front of exploding star fleets and sound as if you're talking on a cell phone at Starbucks?

"He's worried about you," Anakin is told at one point. "You've been under a lot of stress." Sometimes the emphasis in sentences is misplaced. During the elevator adventure in the opening rescue, we hear "Did I miss something?" when it should be "Did I miss something?"

The dialogue is not the point, however; Lucas' characters engage in sturdy oratorical pronunciamentos and then leap into adventure. "Episode III" has more action per square minute, I'd guess, than any of the previous five movies, and it is spectacular. The special effects are more sophisticated than in the earlier movies, of course, but not necessarily more effective.

The dogfight between fighters in the original "Star Wars" and the dogfight that opens this one differ in their complexity (many more ships this time, more planes of action, more detailed backgrounds) but not in their excitement. And although Lucas has his characters attend a futuristic opera that looks like a cross between Cirque de Soleil and an ultrasound scan of an unborn baby, if you regard the opera hall simply as a place, it's not as engaging as the saloon on Tatooine in the first movie.

The lesson, I think, is that special effects should be judged not by their complexity but by the degree that they stimulate the imagination, and "Episode III" is distinguished not by how well the effects are done, but by how amazingly they are imagined. A climactic duel on a blazing volcanic planet is as impressive, in its line, as anything in "Lord of the Rings." And Yoda, who began life as a Muppet but is now completely animated (like about 70 percent of what we see onscreen), was to begin with and still is the most lifelike of the non-humanoid "Star Wars" characters.

A word, however, about the duels fought with lightsabers. When they flashed into life with a mighty whizzing thunk in the first "Star Wars" and whooshed through their deadly parabolas, that was exciting. But the thrill is gone.

The duelists are so well-matched that saber fights go on forever before anyone is wounded, and I am still not sure how the sabers seem able to shield their bearers from attack. When it comes to great movie sword fights, Liam Neeson and Tim Roth took home the gold medal in "Rob Roy" (1995), and the lightsaber battles in "Episode III" are more like isometrics.

These are all, however, more observations than criticisms. George Lucas has achieved what few artists do; he has created and populated a world of his own. His "Star Wars" movies are among the most influential, both technically and commercially, ever made. And they are fun. If he got bogged down in solemnity and theory in "Episode II: Attack of the Clones," the Force is in a jollier mood this time, and "Revenge of the Sith" is a great entertainment.

Note: I said this is not necessarily the last of the "Star Wars" movies. Although Lucas has absolutely said he is finished with the series, it is inconceivable to me that 20th Century-Fox will willingly abandon the franchise, especially as Lucas has hinted that parts VII, VIII and IX exist at least in his mind. There will be enormous pressure for them to be made, if not by him, then by his deputies.

Does this fat half-wit really not realize that Fox has no fucking say whatsoever over these movies? If they had, there wouldn't have been a 16-year gap between ROTJ and TPM.

I was about to comment on that. Fox distributes these movies, which are, in reality, indie-movies. They have no say or authority what-so-ever.

I also disagree with the Mos Eisley Cantina >> Galaxies Theatre. This makes the same mistake as a stupid article someone wrote on why the Outlander Club shows Lucas as a failure by comparing it to the Cantina. No thought went into the fact that these two places are on different planets and in different social environments. Outlander Club = Upper- and middle-class sportsbar/nightclub, Galaxies Theatre = Upper-class social gathering-place, Mos Eisley Cantina = Lower-class bar festering with dirt and smoke.

Different environments are not indicative of a poor imagination.

Well said that.

That review becomes less and less credible as you read through it.


Actually, "The boy you trained..."



Might want to do your research next time:

For all it´s worth, Leland Chee (continuity-checker at Lucas Licensing) was asked if there was any G-canon material concerning the time after ROTJ. (G-canon constitutes the movies and other material by George Lucas). He said no.

However, it seems now that that is not quite true, the only thing Lucas had in mind was R2 recalling the tales of the Skywalker family 100 years after ROTJ. He told this story to the Keeper of the Whills. That´s what Rob Coleman was told by Lucas during a conversation they had during the post-production of ROTS. This is of course not nearly enough to warrant a movie, let alone three!

A little scary tho that Ebert would give "kicking and screaming" 3 stars!

I know I'll love EP III - whether or not tubby liked it or not. Ebert tends to cater to what the public wants to hear when it comes to which films he likes. Personally, I think Kicking and screaming looks like one of the stupidest films ever. But that's just me and my inability to watch Will Ferrell in a lead role (although the dart scene in Old School is still one of the funniest things ever)

Him in small doses? OK.

Him in a lead? No thanks.

Bring on the 19th!

I did like what was said about GL's influence. What I dig about the Star Wars Canon is that one guy, ONE SINGLE PERSON basically created a whole universe, then made it accessible and inviting. The impact that he'd go on to have on modern culture wasn't on his mind at all.

He just had some ideas he really liked and didn't stop until the work was done. I'm sure many of us here (or at least I hope...) are artists ourselves, and hell if this isn't a huge source of inspiration, not to mention a standard for quality and integrity.

*end hero-worship session.....