ROTTEN TOMATOES: Critical Consensus: "Revenge of the Sith" Tomatometer Update

Critical Consensus: "Revenge of the Sith" Tomatometer Update

by Senh Duong | May 18, 2005

Now that the critical dust has settled, it’s time for a final consensus on "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith." After George Lucas’ first two "Star Wars" prequels received lukewarm responses from fans, he finally ends the series on a triumphant and satisfying note.

Reviews from the nation’s print, online, and broadcast critics are enthusiastic for "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith." This grimmer chapter, chronicling Anakin Skywalker’s descent into the dark side and transformation into Darth Vader, has scored an outstanding 83% on the Tomatometer. Despite some clunky lines and generally wooden acting, critics think the character-driven Episode III will please die-hard fanatics and non-believers alike – thanks to a more interesting story arc, technically awesome digital effects and the sheer power of a 28-year old mythology embedded in the fiber of American culture. "Episode III" also has a couple key performances to write home about - Ewan McGregor as the betrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi and, especially, Ian McDiarmid as the menacing Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

Compared to the previous two prequels, both of which are in the low to mid-60s on the Tomatometer, the 83% of "Episode III" is a major improvement, and the only prequel chapter to be Certified Fresh (Rotten Tomatoes’s seal of quality). It’s also the second best reviewed film in wide release behind "Kung Fu Hustle" (90%) and ahead of "Sin City" (78%). For comparison, "The Empire Strikes Back" scores 98% on the Tomatometer and the original "Star Wars" scores 93%, both of which are based on reviews from mostly current active critics.

The Star Wars Series Ranked by Tomatometer:
(Based on reviews by mostly current active critics)

98% - The Empire Strikes Back
93% - Star Wars
83% - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
80% - Return of the Jedi
65% - Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
62% - Star wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Related Items

Movie:	The Empire Strikes Back
	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
	Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
	Star Wars
	Return of the Jedi
Celeb:	Natalie Portman
	Ewan McGregor
	Ian McDiarmid
	Hayden Christensen
	George Lucas

(1-15 of 15 posts) | Reply

JesusChrist writes:
on May 18 2005 04:32 PM

[b]Good News[/b]
Looks like it will be the third best film, and the reviews reflect that. But keep in mind, Empire Strikes Back was panned by critics and only in recent years earned the classic status. The tomatometer would be much lower if reviews from 1980 were counted. So I guess time where tell where Sith will stand amoung the films, but 83% is pretty amazing.

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ljosaa writes:
on May 18 2005 06:10 PM

[b]Just saw it[/b]
I have to admit that I utterly and completely loved the last chapter of the Star Wars saga. The final scenes made me smile like a little boy again. And Vaders first breath! It deserves its rating. It really is the second best of the series. I'm almost afraid to say the best, but it just really tied the knot together nicely. I really felt like watching the old trilogy once more.

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the_game writes:
on May 18 2005 10:46 PM

In reply to this comment (#822216)
I too thoroughly enjoyed RoTS. From start to end it was one great, wild ride. Tied up alot of loose ends. It could very well be my favourite SW movie. Only time will tell.

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jeanfc writes:
on May 19 2005 10:50 AM

Just saw it too. I did not wait until the wee hours of the night, I caught an afternoon showing. I am not a Star Wars fanatic, haven't even seen the Phantom Menace or the Attach of the Clones, but Revenge... was fairly good.

Unlike a lot of the comments on this site that either hate Star Wars, or gush about it like a 12 year girl - I found Revenge to be a good movie, nor more or less. I am just happy its finally been released, now maybe we can talk about something else for a change.

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dkoenig writes:
on May 19 2005 01:00 PM

I grew up with the films (I am 31) and have always enjoyed them,. However I am by no means a fanatic. I rather disliked TPM and AotC due to its consistant pandering to little kids. I felt they were just way too cheesy and too much like a bad "summer event flick". Still I headed out to ROTS early today and was pleasently surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The pace is rapid and does not let up. Yes, the dialoge is awful, but you have to admit it was in the OT as well. A great ride and quite a spectical. I was very pleased with the end result.

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jeanfc writes:
on May 19 2005 01:32 PM

This is not a review. As so many of you are sure to e-mail, I am unqualified to write a review of Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith. I cannot tell the difference between a Gungan and a Greedo, and I cannot say the name Count Dooku without laughing. Also, when I saw the movie, I periodically blacked out from boredom. For nearly 30 years, when face to face with the Star Wars franchise, I have demonstrated an unearthly capacity to leave my body and imagine a galaxy far, far away where I am entertained. Such is my own personal Star Wars tradition: some dress up; some host parties; I doze.

But now the critics are weighing in, declaring this final chapter in George Lucas’s Star Wars sextet best... episode... ever. And just as when I was a child, I am outside my peer group, alone with my irritation. Of course, smarter people than me have defended Star Wars’ existence: It’s a modern mythology based on Jung! It’s Ulysses! Pilgrim’s Progress! It’s that rare popular experience that unites the ununited masses! In the book Using the Force: Creativity, Community and Star Wars Fans, Will Brooker writes of the fans: “It is the single most important cultural text of their lives.” So much for the Bible.

But what does it mean when a collective cultural experience passes you by, not once but six times? At 34, I am exactly the right age to have developed a potent Star Wars fetish. Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi (just saying those words makes me tired) should have taken root in my impressionable youth and bloomed to full-grown nostalgia by now. And don’t tell me I’m the wrong gender for spaceships and banthas, as Lucas once insisted: “Well, it’s not Titanic. This is the boy movie.” The lively website Star Wars Chicks points out that 40 per cent of Star Wars fans are women. I loved Jaws and Alien, and I take no issue with stuff blowing up; I just need some kind of credible story in between to make the explosions matter.

Star Wars after Star Wars, I have felt outside the loop. A month or so into the film’s release in 1977, when my fellow grade-schoolers were already saying, “May the force be with you!” in lieu of, “Bye. Have a nice weekend,” I was finally allowed to line up with my father, my older brother and one of his friends. (My mother somehow managed to excuse herself from many of the more commercial rites of North American childhood; she was nowhere to be seen when we hit Disneyland either.) Even at seven, I knew, acutely, that I was in the presence of a phenomenon. It’s hard to tell what came first: my youthful peers’ enthusiasm, the massive marketing campaign to capture it — or the media’s fascination with both.

As Luke delivered his terrible dialogue and Lucas’s bad comedy drew yuks — unfathomably, everyone cheered when Han Solo yelled at Chewbacca the ape thing: “Get in there you big furry oaf. I don't care what you smell!” — I feebly attempted to join in. But I was a beat behind, distracted by the ponderous Dark Side babble. Any enjoyment derived from the satisfying explosions and decent plastic costumes was marred by the story, that slow, dull 28-year-long yarn that feels as lecturing and joyless as the Davey and Goliath Christian cartoon. (Here’s a suggestion: this whole damn thing could have taken place in one inventive two-and-a-half-hour film.) If I’d been able to tell time, I would have checked my watch. Eventually, I napped a little. My father’s snoring granted me permission to do so.

And then, The Empire Strikes Back, of which I can say only this: zzzz.

By the time Return of the Jedi came out, I was 12. Reluctantly, I went along with a crowd of Grade 7s. My girlfriends were as excited as the boys, and they fell especially hard for the Ewoks — which seemed feral and cruel underneath their beards. Darth Vader’s obsession with his long-lost son dragged on interminably, even though he seemed not to give a Wookiee’s ass about his other long-lost child, Princess Leia. By this time, my classmates slept in Star Wars sheets and figurines littered the playground where we used to interact as humans. We drank pop out of Jedi cups, and ate candy out of Jabba the Hutt boxes. And yet, in 1983, lots of other movies looked as cool, so why was this series — this goofy, half-baked story about a guy with a daddy complex — still such a big deal?

To idealists and superfans, Star Wars means community, some kind of shared experience of the cinema, and the world. But for me, Star Wars is just the first time I remember being marketed to. According to a recent article in Forbes magazine, when Lucas secured the licensing rights to Star Wars toys and other promotional merchandise in 1977, he pioneered the tie-in; until then, merchandising rights began and ended with the T-shirt. Star Wars toys and merchandise have today grossed a total of $9 billion US. The sad part is that I never minded being targeted; in a way, it was a relief. Being told what to love, and what to consume, is welcomed by most children, which is why marketing to them is particularly vile. They are the most literal consumers. If a kid doesn’t buy the product, or love the film, then that kid is cast apart, and there’s enough of that in childhood anyway. If the price of not being ostracized is a $5 dolly in the shape of Palpatine, they’ll fork it over.

A marketing monster: Three-year-old Max Martin of Indianapolis, looks up to a life-sized Yoda. (AP Photo/Tom Stratman.)

These last three chapters (or these first three, excuse me, and that’s also irksome; Lucas should have made them in order, because now we know how it ends) have seemed even more cynical, convoluted and silly. Episode I: The Phantom Menace opens with about 25 minutes of titles in that familiar scroll that tells us: “The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute...” Note to insomniacs: This premise is better than sheep counting. Obviously, a film about taxation would obsess George Lucas, who, according to Forbes, is now personally worth $3 billion US.

The newer films jump from action sequence to action sequence, cramming the space between with preposterous dialogue as an afterthought. Everyone speaks in explanatory paragraphs, feebly attempting to make sense of the Republic-civil-war-Galactic-Senate-Dark-Side-White-Side muddle, talking past one another’s shoulders where their words are absorbed by green screens. George Lucas reportedly returned to direct Episodes I-III reluctantly, much preferring the solitude at the Skywalker Ranch where he can play with his Industrial Light and Magic buttons and gizmos and invent goofy, baby-babble place names like “Naboo” and “Dagobah” without any live person saying: “That’s really stupid, George.” He is as much of a sequestered loner as Woody Allen, and oddly, his films suffer from the same insularity: while Allen can’t rub some mythic version of New York out of his eyes, Lucas is so out of touch that he actually thought Jar Jar Binks — a yes-massah, jive talkin’ elephant slave — would appeal to children. He has done such a good job at faking a world that there is nothing human to cling to within its walls. No blood is spilled when all these troops go down. It is a war of ideas, not people.

Most abhorrent in the turgid Episode II — Attack of the Clones Yoda was. Whenever I awoke, the small green Jedi master seemed to be doing something vaguely humiliating, like striking a kung fu pose or bastardizing Buddhism. I’ve always hated Yoda. All those powers, but he can’t master grammar. “Stopped they must be; on this all depends.” No, all depends on the subject and the predicate in correct relation.

Of course, Episodes I and II were ridiculed, and the crass marketing — Darth Maul lawn fertilizer, anyone? — became a late-night punchline. Still, people went, more out of some sense of obligation than fun, and the films earned $542 million US combined. Somehow the public retains a sense of ownership over these films. And yet, Lucas continues to tinker for the digital market; he made Han Solo more heroic, and added a shot of Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin Skywalker, at the end of Return of the Jedi. Star Wars is not democratic. The films belong not to an adoring audience, but to a little boy-man playing with his toys.

Drawn to the Dark Side: Hayden Christensen plays Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith. Courtesy LucasFilm Ltd.

And now, Sith, the final chapter. Here’s my review: It’s fine, appreciably darker in sprit, and there is something marginally enjoyable in watching Anakin Skywalker become Darth Vader. The relationships are still stiff and unbelievable; pillow talk between Padmé and Anakin is mired by babble about Senate obligations and, I think, taxation. And you know how it ends.

But perhaps the reason people seem to be embracing Sith is, like all things Star Wars, economic: we want to feel we’re getting payback for all those years of investment, emotional and financial. Lucas has admitted that he held out, stuffing the last two with filler because he wanted this one to be good. In other words, he screwed us like any other advertiser, and buoyed by nostalgia and a false sense of belonging to something bigger, we don’t seem to mind. Something to sleep on.

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jeanfc writes:
on May 19 2005 01:33 PM

Above ! Just a good review I picked up on the CBC - that's the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

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metroidcrazy92 writes:
on May 19 2005 04:32 PM

gonna see it 2morrow!can't wait!looks awesome

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the_game writes:
on May 19 2005 05:06 PM

In reply to this comment (#822221)
I feel sorry for this person...

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jeanfc writes:
on May 19 2005 07:08 PM

Notwithstanding wether you agree with it or not - the review itself is pretty good. Star Wars, some like some don't. Won't matter in one year.

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catracho03 writes:
on May 20 2005 07:45 AM

In reply to this comment (#822215)
I saw the movie last night and I thought it was an expertly crafted movie; with all the lightsaber sequences, dramatic scenes, and wartime special effects joined together in (finally) a structured format that the audience can easily follow through. The plummet of Anakin into the dark side is just both tragic and inspiring. Darth Vader really is an immortal movie villain.

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jsmccune writes:
on May 20 2005 10:00 AM

[b]The reason...[/b]
The reason these movies have struck a chord is because of this: It is the 1st/biggest movie series to deal with the absolute delineation between good and evil and the galactic (i.e., all-encompassing) consequences involved. It is the global scale (well, far beyond global, I guess) that is so appealing. As children (at least as male children) we all aspire to be superheroes that save the day... What could be more amazing than saving the universe?

Despite all the bad dialogue (which seems worse for the prequels, though several people say otherwise), trite scriptwriting and perhaps over inundation of effects (no such thing :), Lucas has developed a world where the consequences of choice become absolute and have a butterfly effect across the universe... Where we humans have shades of gray and our actions usually take hold on little less than the person next to us. In a galaxy far, far away, we could do things far more impressive than blog and browse.

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kubrickfan writes:
on May 20 2005 10:07 AM

I just saw it last night too, and it was awesome. I loved every second of it. Granted I also liked episodes 1 and 2, but this, in my opinion is one of, if not the best in the series. It is certainly the most epic. After hearing all the crap about the dialogue and the wooden acting, I must say that dialogue and acting were much better than I thought they would be. Everyone complains about the wooden acting, what you don't get, is that it's about jedi!!!. It's not about a group of normal humans like the first trilogy was, jedi are supposed to be emotionless!!! The only non-jedi characters are padmay (who is a politician, therefore shows little emotion), droids, and the sith, who's only emotions are anger and hate. I think ewen mcgregor did a great job. He plays a great noble jedi, but at the same time you can tell that he still looks upon anakin as a brother or even a son, rather than just an apprentice or a fellow jedi. He is the only jedi besides anakin that shows any emotion, and he pulls it of convincingly. And we all know that hayden isn't the greatest actor, but I wqas suprised by him as well. Not that some one else could have played the part better, but I still think he did a good job. The scene where he goes into the temple, and finds the hiding children, when you know he is about to kill them all, is the most dramatic and powerful scene in the entire series. Overall, it's a great movie, and sets up the original trilogy perfectly.

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ccchhhrrriiisss writes:
on May 20 2005 12:01 PM

[b]Much better than I expected or hoped...[/b]
This film was awesome! I enjoyed the old Star Wars films (even though they are before my time). But the prequels left alot to be desired. The prequel stories are actually good -- just not some of the acting.

This one MORE than makes up for it!

I thought that the story was actually heartbreaking and haunting. It was ironic that the thing that Anakin/Vader wanted to avoid was actually accomplished through an almost Shakespearian tragedy. The story of how Anakin is lured to the Dark Side -- and in the end, pay for it with all that he held dear -- was heartbreaking. It was also haunting on how the Republic did not get CONQUERED by the Empire. Instead, like every major dynasty of history, the Republic BECAME the Empire. To see the Senators applauding the Emperor as he transforms the Republic into the Empire was like seeing Hitler get elected in Germany.

The acting was good (and in some cases GREAT). It was the best acted of the prequels. And Ian McDiamin was INCREDIBLE as the Emperor. I even think that he deserves an Oscar nod. And perhaps, Frank Oz deserves a nod as Yoda. And even some of the "wooden" actors from the previous film were "light years" better than before!

The music was great! But what else do we expect from John Williams? Among the best scores were those that used heavy vocal choirs. Awesome!

The action was relentless! The battles were numerous and well presented -- and strangely believable.

The cinematography was great -- both during the battle scenes and during the awesome camera placements. Watching the helmet decend upon Vader was chilling. The most awesome scene (in my opinion) is the one where both Anakin and Padme are looking out of their balconies...with such incredibly haunting music playing. Wow!

The visuals were stunning! This film closes the argument that CGI cannot be presented in a realistic and breathtaking manner. Through much of the film, it was difficult to determine which scenes were real, and which scenes were CGI! Again, this film should win the Oscar for Visual Effects.

This film is either my favorite Star Wars film -- or a very close second place (to The Empire Strike Back). While it lacks the charm that Han Solo's character gave the older films, Revenge of the Sith more than makes up for it with breathtaking and moving displays of emotion. Imagine -- a Star Wars film that tragically pulls at your heart strings! Some little kid in my theatre actually cried out, "Don't do it, Anakin!" during a crucial scene. It was cute -- but we were all inwardly saying the same thing.

It definitely merits standing among the best sci fi films of all time. I can't wait for the DVD -- and all of the deleted scenes!

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comicgirl writes:
on May 20 2005 08:53 PM

[b]SW fans - are we all just lemmings[/b]
I'm not going to trash the movie...but it annoys me how Lucas seems to believe that SW fans will flock to anything he throws on the screen. Please , will someone tell me WHY they keep allowing this man to write scripts!?!?!? Break his crayons, for Gods sakes!

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