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And we thought that the idea of including Han in ROTS was a joke. After looking through the Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith book, I am shocked to find out that in early versions of the script, a ten year-old Han Solo was to fight alongside Chewbacca on Kashyyyk. They even show concept scetches of him. I am in shock - but this just goes to prove that Lucas is as dumb as we make him out to be, if not dumber.

Who has been on the fantastic, OT-based Star Wars ride Star Tours, at all of the Disney parks? The ride itself isn't that great, but the atmosphere is. The queue, filled with droids, ships, equipment, Star Wars-themed radio announcements, etc. was great. It's just like a Star Wars movie, right down to "I've got a bad feeling about this" and "Will the owner of the landspeeder marked THX 1338...". The worst part is George Lucas getting a cameo in the form of a man named Egroeg Sacul.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Ever since 1997, when I first saw Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Special Edition at the cinema, I have been a Star Wars addict. I purchased both the Special Editions and the originals of the Star Wars Trilogy, and I enjoyed them for many years. With the release of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, my opinion was divided. These were poor movies, yet there was something about them that appealed to me. I try to find good in any Star Wars media, regardless of how bad it is, and I like anything as long as it's Star Wars.

Now, Revenge of the Sith has finally been unleashed. When George Lucas first announced the Star Wars prequels, this is the one people looked forward to the most: seeing the rise of Darth Vader and the Empire. The end result is a strange conglomerate of good and bad ideas. It sometimes succeeds, but sometimes fails. The good news is that it's better than the two previous movies. The bad news is that it is still a Star Wars prequel, and all of the problems remain.

The movie starts with an action-packed space battle over the capital planet of Coruscant. While obviously deriative of the Battle of Endor from Return of the Jedi, this battle is far more complicated and confusing. ILM has used the power of CGI to fill the screen with hundreds of battling Star Destroyers, cruisers and fighters. There is almost two whole minutes of action before there is any dialogue. The camera swerves and dives as it follows the paths of Anakin and Obi-Wan's Jedi interceptors. The motion of the scene, combined with the countless flashing lights and ships, can make the scene a bit too dazzling. It's fair to say that the battle is seriously overdone. Lucasfilm could have understated it a bit more and still have it exciting.

As soon as the dialogue starts, we are back in Attack of the Clones. Expect cheesy one-liners from the pair of Jedi, and some poor acting. The actors don't react realistically at all. They are in the middle of a space battle, but they are just sitting in their cockpits talking to eachother. When the okay-ish Tri Fighters throw out some Buzz Droids, which stick to the ships of the Jedi and try and saw into it, I lost hope. Wouldn't it be easier to just fire some lasers or missiles at the ship, rather than sending some dumb droids to attack them? When Artoo succeeds in shaking them off, Anakin and Obi-Wan congratulate him with lines like 'Way to go, Artoo!'. When R4-P17 (Obi-Wan's droid) gets destroyed, Obi-Wan doesn't seem to care. Lucas clearly only considers main characters to be worthy of any dialogue related to them.

As the adventure continues, we meet the battle droids of the last two movies. In ROTS, their voices have changed to become more annoying, and they speak to eachother having conversations about random subjects. These droids are programmed to do battle, not to gossip! Things got worse when Artoo (using a comlink) picked fights with the droids and succeeded in taking a few out. It was totally unbelievable to the extreme. As the Jedi plan to rescue Chancellor Palpatine, we are introduced to the new bad guy for ROTS - General Greivous.

Like Darth Maul, Grievous has incredible hype but simply isn't that big a deal. He's a cool idea, a cyborg villain that is like a prototype Darth Vader, but he doesn't add ANYTHING to the story. He's simply a bad guy to fill in the gap in between Count Dooku and Darth Vader. He walks around, coughs a lot, says some cheesy lines, and gets killed really easily. As for his first appearence in the film, he basically laughs and runs away when his ship, the Invisible Hand, breaks apart. Anakin and Obi-Wan land the ship on the planet (incredibly, it comes in for a rather smooth landing after falling through the atmosphere at terminal velocity and catching fire). It's here that the film starts to really drag.

The romance has not improved at all. Anakin and Padme seem to have more chemistry between them, but they still act a bit wooden and Lucas has written some really bad lines for them. It's no wonder Lucas' wife left him if this is how he treated her. Anyway, after Padme's appearence, things really slow down as we are treated to several dull scenes of Anakin talking to Palpatine and the Jedi Council. Anakin seems very quick to believe Palpatine when he states that the Jedi may be after him, but this, of course, leads to Anakin turning over to the dark side. It seems as though even Lucas got bored writing this section of the movie, as scene after scene after scene just depicts Anakin talking to someone, unsure about the Jedi's motives. One good scene at the end of this dull spot is the opera house scene. In what appears to be a blitzball stadium from Final Fantasy X, Anakin and Palpatine have a revealing talk that hints at several things prequel fans will be itching to find out. The scene is surprisingly well-acted, and it seems rather believeable.

Obi-Wan is forced to go to Utapau to look for General Greivous. Utapau, as most Star Wars fans can tell you, was in the original draft of the A New Hope script. It eventually evolved into Tatooine. This sinkhole world looks interesting enough, but the only purpose of Utapau being here is so that Lucas could put it into the official story, since this is his last chance. It doesn't do much for the story. Obi-Wan basically lands, finds General Grievous, kills him, then leaves. On the subject of General Greivous, the chase scene between him and Obi-Wan is almost unbearable to watch. Greivous pulls out four lightsabers, only to lose two of them almost instantly, so he jumps into his wheel bike and off he goes. Obi-Wan follows on a big lizard (apparently called Boga). Boga never shuts up - she is always screeching and yelling and roaring. It looks fake and it has to be one of the stupidest chases in any movie. A clumsy lizard and a big wheel... which has legs? After a very short lightsaber battle, Grevious gets shot with his own blaster.

While this is happening, we see the much-anticipated Kashyyk battle. Kashyyyk, which debuted in The Star Wars Holiday Special, is the Wookiee homeworld. This battle was originally planned for Return of the Jedi, but it got replaced with the Battle of Endor. Much like Utapau, Lucas feels the need to include it here. Also much like Utapau, it does nothing for the story. We see a few snippets of the battle, we see a few angry Wookiees, and that's basically it. What's worse is that Chewbacca is here. Nothing really wrong with that, but Yoda makes such a big deal out of saying goodbye to him. He sort of has a touching goodbye scene with Chewie, but they hardly knew eachother! The only reason that this is a big deal is because Chewie will become an important character later in the series.

Back on Coruscant, through a series of dull and coincidental events, Anakin is spying on the Jedi for Palpatine and spying on Palpatine for the Jedi. Palpatine admits he's a Sith, Mace Windu comes and starts attacking Palpatine. Mace really seems to be having fun ruthlessly torturing this guy. He may be the Sith, but surely there was an easier way? Palpatine unleashes Sith lightening on Mace, and his face becomes warped into it's ROTJ form. Why and how this happens in unexplained, I guess it's just there to look cool. Anakin suddenly decides that the Jedi are evil, and throws Mace out of the window to his death. Anakin briefly asks what he's done, before bowing down before Palpatine. Palpatine gives Anakin a lame naming ceremony ('I'll call you, hmmmm... ah! Darth Vader!') and that's it. He just becomes a Sith. His drive is to save Padme from dying during childbirth (which she does anyway). This is shown to us via some cheesy dream sequences that look ripped out of a dated 50's seriel.

And so it continues. From this point on, the entire film is fighting. Obi-Wan vs. Anakin, Yoda vs. Palpatine, clones vs. Jedi... the list goes on. Some nice cameos from A New Hope characters and ships sprucen up the deal a bit, but you can't help but feel it's all just one long action sequence after another. The Anakin vs. Obi-Wan fight is ridiculous (especially when the two surf on debris while fighting), and the lava setting of Mustafar is straight out of The Lord of the Rings. Anyone expecting lots of Darth Vader will be dissapointed, he basically shows up for a small scene at the end. Any coolness of the scene is ruined by Darth Vader's infamous 'Nooooooooooo!' . It breaks the tension of the scene and while it's understandable that he would say this, it seems so out-of-place for such a cruel villain. Even out of the suit, Darth Vader was pretty nasty in this movie. The often-mentioned statement that he murders kids is just a testiment of his darkness.

The last few minutes are a way of tying up loose ends. C-3PO and R2-D2 are accepted into the Royal House of Alderaan aboard the Tantive IV, Bail Organa takes baby Leia to his wife on Alderaan (this is our first look at the planet - it looks just like a mountainous version of Naboo), and Obi-Wan takes baby Luke to Owen and Beru on Tatooine. Some other random facts are thrown in, such as a hint as to how the Jedi can return as spirits (it's a very lame excuse involving Qui-Gon), and why Yoda goes into exile. Padme dies during childbirth, and the dumb medical droid (who has to ask Obi-Wan what sex the babies were) says she died of a broken heart. Huh? What kind of excuse is this? Having her get killed by clones, or best of all, Darth Vader, would have been much more believable. Padme is a strong fighter. She wouldn't give up the will to live so easily.

So should you see the movie? If you're a Star Wars fan, then yes. Despite it's many flaws, it's enjoyable to see the build-up to A New Hope. It ties up most (but not all) loose ends, joining the two trilogies together in a believable fashion. Even if you hated the last two, you should probably still see it as it remains an enjoyable film if you count it as being seperate from the rest of the saga. There's nothing wrong with ROTS as a whole, it just falls apart compared to the other Star Wars movies.

8/10

For comparison, my other ratings:

The Phantom Menace: 7/10
Attack of the Clones: 7/10
Revenge of the Sith: 8/10
A New Hope: 10/10
The Empire Strikes Back: 9/10
Return of the Jedi: 7/10