Obligatory Star Wars Post II

OK. I've had to turn in my official geek-boy card for not seeing Sith on the first weekend. I hope to at least be able to keep an honorary membership by posting on it.

(Note: the following may or may not contain spoilers. But I figure if you haven't seen the movie yet you probably don't care anyway-CK)

First thought: Damn. Really a very nice roundout to the cycle, I even felt myself tearing up as Obi-Wan placed the infant Luke into his aunt's arms, an excellent lead up to A New Hope indeed.

Another thought: Irony in a Lucas film?! Indeed, Annakin's desire to save Padme drives him to a course of action which, inevitably, is exactly what kills her.

Political thought: Lucas MUST be being disingenuous when he denies certain lines' relevence to the current situation. Sure the story arc is quite likely from the original '70's concept (and doesn't the recent Deep Throat revelation bring THAT back into focus?), but Annakin's "with us or against us" paraphrase, coupled with the numerous references to the death of democracy in the face of an outside threat are too klunky not to have been personally written by Lucas himself.

Punches pulled thought: A severe criticism of CLones (to me anyway) was the cutaway from the annhilation of the sand people which was Annakin's first real step towards the dark side. I judged it a cop-out designed merely to preserve a PG-13 rating. In Sith Lucas still can't quite bring himself to show the evil of Annakin's massacre of the younglings, and I can't entirely disagree, but good on him for making this ultimate bit of barbarity a good deal more explicit, it really underlines the TRUE EVIL aspect of Annikin's fall.

No pulled punches thought: Annakin's final agony, terrible, yet appropriate. And it makes Obi-Wan's later observation to Luke that Vader killed Annakin ring ever truer.

All in all I felt that Sith not only stands among the best of the Star Wars cycle, but that it also manages to add the depth of history to the rest of the series.