darthpsychotic wrote:
Points are taken away for being as long as the actual movie.
*shrugs shoulders* I think Goddard once said, "The best way to critique a film is to make a film," and that's precisely what he's done here. He takes the wind out of his own sails several times throughout the review(s) so the fact that his reviews are so long winded clearly isn't lost on him.
I actually agree with most of the points he makes in regard to Anakin's character and that's one of the reasons I LOVE the prequels. Again, the saving grace of the entire endeavor is that Lucas didn't simply remake the earlier films but rather mined the universe he created for deeper meaning, meaning that some may not see but so be it. Lucas has said he's satisfied with his creation and at the end of the day he got his uncompromised vision up on the screen. Everything that we see has a logic, a purpose that we can either interpret on ignore based on our personal reaction to the film itself. If Lucas struggled with the Machiavellian plot and behind the scenes motivations of some of the characters then perhaps that's to be expected-hey, there was only one Niccolo Machiavelli after all.
The entire saga is rife with astonishing ideas about heroism, culture, religion, philosophy, cinema, good, evil and even human nature. It is also, at times, clumsy and lumbering. I acknowledge this and forgive the films their flaws not just for all that they get right but for all that they say and mean to me.
A lot of what Plinkett says in this and all of his reviews has to be taken with some grain of salt. Any film analyzed to the depths Plinkett has gone to here can be revealed to be full of holes. You can just as easily render "Citizen Kane" (the other film he cites in his review) as wholly manipulative and completely implausible from the first scene; after all who is the room with Kane to hear him when utters his last word, "Rosebud?"