. . . ROTS

What's wrong with:

STAR WARS

Revenge of the Sith

Low, Medium, High, Severe, Critical defects mentioned as before.

Defect breakdown:  Critical (3), Severe (2), High (2), Medium (4), Low (3)

There is a decrease in the total number of defects: TPM (33), AOTC (18) and ROTS (14). However, the number of Critical defects is about the same. That may be because my expectations are coming into play.  I expect the movies to be better, and they are, but I’m probably judging them based on their potential best version of themselves (like a dog show or a gymnastics routine) rather than comparing them against each other as one would the combatants in a singing competition, or trying to decide which four teams make it into the college football playoffs.

Note: I have not idea what is happening with the formatting.  I write in word and copy and paste into blogger.  Amateurish- sure, but I can only focus on doing QA on Star Wars movies, unreasonable formatting rules that make no sense- I can't deal with that right now.

Low

1) Obi-Wan (again):  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”  Again?  I forget where it was in the movie- either while he and Anakin were recklessly flying amid hundreds of other fighter planes, cruising in between dozens of other destroyers, all with dozens of cannons of their own, or when they were about to fight Dooku for a second time, an encounter he either knew was in the offing, or deeply suspected.  Hopefully, an enhanced force sensation isn’t merely akin to déjà vu.

Medium (this will be escalated to a high eventually)

2) Speaking of the odds.  Two small ships amid all that chaos mentioned in #1 above?  I picture what happens inside the autoimmune system of a person suffering from Leukemia.  Eventually that red blood cell is going to be earmarked for destruction.  Or, I think of my dad’s theory on the mileage of a car- the more inclement weather you’re driving in, the more miles you put on a vehicle, the more likely it is that things are eventually going to go horribly wrong. Horribly wrong means that a major character's entire ship explodes, not that his astromech droid is shot in the head.

Movies like Taken, with Liam Neeson, who did not play a Jedi (at least not in that movie), nor a super hero, nor a cyborg made of liquid metal, a zombie, an alien prescribed with a bullet immunity, a devil from a transcendental locale, etc. would receive a Critical defect for this.  I’m unwilling to suspend my disbelief while watching a human being suffer relatively few injuries given the total number of times he puts himself at risk.  Jedi are special, lucky, fortunate, destined to prevail, that is why this is only a medium.

Wouldn’t just one bullet, (outside of Order 66) among the thousands fired in the prequels alone, have hit a Jedi in the side, in the hand, in the knee? If anyone points out that some Jedi die on Geonosis or Luke is shot in the hand on Jabba's skiff . . . you are the worst kind of Star Wars apologists, in that, you exist.

Critical (cumulative error)

3) After surviving the dangerous flight to the ship where Palpatine is being held “prisoner” and plowing through 50-60 droids that never should have been mass-produced, like the DVDs of any Adam Sandler movie after Happy Gilmore, Kenobi and Skywalker fight Dooku for maybe four minutes.  Four minutes!  Four? Maybe. 

240 seconds of antagonism from a character who was formidable in your last movie, but is completely expendable in this one.  Who does this?  Again, you barely used Grievous, Maul was on screen for fewer than 20 minutes, Boba Fett had no more than three lines in two original trilogy movies.  And yet, and yet, you let midgets in bear costumes . . . . ggggahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .

Low

4) Anakin is poised to cut off Dooku’s head and is urged to do so by Palpatine, to the apparent shock of Dooku, and without Anakin recognizing Dooku’s crestfallen reaction.

At this point, my expectations of the creator of the franchise, for the nuance of recognizable non-verbal communication, is almost non-existent.  I gave this a low because I’ve been beaten down by how simplistic the franchise’s creator has made many of these characters.

5) I’ll give a pass to Anakin’s crash landing of the large ship that needed only a token bath while entering the planet’s atmosphere.  I’m not an engineer, astronomer or scientist, so I don’t really know how those particular metal panels entering a planet’s atmosphere would be treated by the compressed planet air, depending on its denseness, blah, blah, blah.

N/A  (I’m watching this as an issue, rather than as a defect- for now)

      6) Anakin doesn’t know Padme is pregnant; she isn’t showing enough when they’re reunited after the abbreviated Dooku duel.  If she had a significant bump, he would have physically felt it so we know she couldn’t have been far along.  And apparently, it never occurred to Lucas, or other convincing creative-types, to provide a Jedi with an ability to sense the possibility that he impregnated his wife.  This comment itself is just foreshadowing.  The viewer has no idea how long it has been since they had last seen each other.

tracking

      7) It appears to be later that same night and Padme is wearing something sexy.  She can’t be more than 3-4 months pregnant.  My wife is an obstetrics nurse with 15 years of experience, so I asked her.  And I’ve fathered three children.  To use a line my dad had used liberally: “I can’t make this shit up.”

      8) The Skywalkers talk about the dream Anakin had about Padme and its similarity with those he had about his mother.  A necessary scene to aid in the motivation and insecurity of the Darth-to-be.

      9) Likewise, good discussion between Kenobi and Skywalker about the chancellor’s move to power.  Necessary. Would have been more necessary in the second installment of the prequel, but better late than never.

10) I had noted, and will again, about how none of the Jedi are active keepers of the peace.  They sit around and pontificate.  They could be more active and still fail the republic, and if their activity and failure were filmed, and someone else wrote the dialogue and the treatment, it would have improved the movie.  And I want to reiterate, by not wasting all that time on the first movie, as already detailed, there would have been time for it.  It isn’t like Lucas didn’t know he was making three movies.  I want to give a shout out (“is it legal”) to Lucas for coming up with the “genius” idea of sending Yoda to Kashyyyk to aid the Wookies.  Also wise to add Chewbacca to the mix.  We saw a much younger Boba Fett in AOTC and a much younger Greedo in TPM, that establish who each of those minor characters are when they are young.  Cancel that, Greedo’s scene with young Anakin was prominently removed from the finished product because someone who turns into a bounty hunter and another who turns into a Sith lord, has no place in a 140 minute movie about pod-racing and politics, and doesn’t reveal any character traits, per the franchise creator.  My bad.

      11) Obi-Wan informs Anakin the Jedi council wants him to report on the chancellor’s dealings.  Again, should have happened a movie earlier, or not at all, since the Jedi should have taken a more active role in the politics, should have realized they needed to be more active, yeah, ahh, ahem, jeez.

      12) “It’s very dangerous to put them together.”  I don’t even remember whether this was Obi-Wan or Windu who came to this realization, in reference to having Anakin spy on Palpatine.  But, in Kenobi/Windu’s defense, it isn’t like there’s a precedent in putting Anakin in a situation where he is alone together with someone he shouldn’t be.  Or is there?

Note: This was 6 items in a row (7-12) I’ve listed that aren’t necessarily defects.  If they were, they couldn’t be anything less than High because of not having it occur to a council filled with capable, experienced, instinctive and premonition-laden super heroes, for all intents and purposes.

Retest

      13) The camera angles and the clothing make the job of the viewer more difficult in attempting to determine how pregnant Padme is.  Trust me, this is pretty important or I wouldn’t keep watching it.  Plus, Natalie Portman isn’t unattractive.  Continuing to put her in clothing that makes her look good, and not pregnant . . . I’m not complaining.

      14) Great Dialogue!  Anakin and Palpatine in the booth at the play talking about all who gain power are afraid to lose it and the tragedy of Darth Plagueis who could create life and keep those he cared for from dying.  This was delivered with quality!  If I was currently writing episode nine, it would occur to me, with all that Star Wars DNA coursing through my veins, to have Palpatine be the apprentice to Snoke, to have Palpatine be the Sith who stole Plagueis’ power and “killed” him.

High
15) Not one of the thousands of soldiers on the planet where Grievous is hiding, makes sure a Jedi Knight gets back into his ship and flies away? Not one.  How conveeeeenient (have I used a Church Lady reference in one of these WWW yet?)  So, not only can the enemy not hit anything (other than Luke’s mechanical hand on Jabba’s skiff) with all those laser blasts spread across so many movies, but not one of them can watch an enemy get in his friggin ship.  I’m incredulous.  Also, Kenobi can’t turn invisible, and while he’s got the agility of a Jedi, he’s not getting 100 yards away from his ship, concealing his physical presence, without one of Grievous’ soldiers noticing.  If he assumes they aren’t watching . . . Again, Kenobi would come off as a better hero if the villains weren’t made so, in the words of my son, so “thick”.  Thick means, slow, obtuse and stupid.

     If only Rian Johnson had come up with the idea for a Jedi to be able to force ghost project three Star Wars movies sooner.  We would have seen a multi-generational creative hand-off from one person who started to eff with our movies to another one.  I want to be clear, force ghost- brilliant idea; I’ve already enumerated Johnson’s not brilliant ones in the critique of The Last Jedi.

High
16) Obi-Wan arrives by himself and starts fighting a very qualified opponent (Grievous) amid said opponent’s, reported, posse of thousands with no back up until after the fight is well under way.  Again, never mind the odds.  Sure, I believe Grievous made it clear, no random laser blast should be fired at Kenobi, that Grievous would take care of the Jedi scum himself.  But it isn’t like the enemy would hit anything if they fired at the hero ten thousand times- so it doesn't matter what Grievous might have told them.

Severe (because these types of mistakes have started to add up)

       17)   Grievous, a character who can capably wield four lightsabers at a time, is only allowed to do so for less than a minute of screen time.  Here, you have a villain capable of making Kenobi look like a better hero, and you wasted the opportunity.  Really, there are no jobs for a guy like me at ILM, the Skywalker ranch, or Disney Star Wars?  I added a ScrumMaster certification to the cadre of other roles I am already performing.  Maybe I could go in and do some light dusting and fix some of the story issues like Matt Damon effectively did when he solved a math equation on the blackboard of a college where he was polishing floors in Good Will Hunting.

       18)   Windu- “I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi.”  Why didn’t I put a severity on this defect?  What’s the point. If sense is just another word for having added up all of the obvious clues you should have been tracking for the last ten years (of actual time) and six hours (of screen time), then that is just the dim-witted use of the five senses that the overwhelming majority of the rest of the humans on this planet can lay claim to.

Critical

       19)  It takes Palpatine 12 seconds to take down 3 of the 4 Jedi that came to arrest him. I have so much here:

   a)    Palpatine is a great villain; he’s the devil in a space robe, but the acting, fight scene choreography is horrible.  A couple of the Jedi are in a death pose before the Emperor’s saber even penetrates them.  The Jedi and the Emperor would appear more formidable if you didn’t have 3 super heroes killed in seconds of screen time.

   b)   What is wrong with having arms and legs cut off?  These Jedi have been sitting around so long, perhaps they’re out of practice?  In all their years of fighting, or sitting around, the first time they suffer damage, it is critical damage?  Thinking outside the box happens all the time in my world; in the land of the Star Wars creative types, not as much.

   c)    four Jedi to take down a villain that was able to fool them for 10-15 years? I’d have brought eight.

   d)   Lucas overburdened these movies with politics and while Palpatine knows he’s being watched and the Jedi now know who he is, you went from 0 (not suspecting a thing about Palpatine’s plot) to 60, coming to arrest him with the threat of violence if he didn’t step down.  Wouldn’t the request to have Palpatine step down be more reasonable, if made, and refused by him, inside of the hallowed stadium of the senate?  And if not . .

   e)    Why not record the exchange of the Jedi calmly requesting the Emperor to let go of the emergency powers previously granted him, like the massacre of the younglings inside the Jedi temple was recorded.  Seriously, technology exists in this world and theirs. I continue to marvel at how child-like Lucas must have supposed his audience to be.

  20) I read some criticism about Anakin’s reaction to Windu’s threats to Palpatine.  And                  how Anakin should have done this and wouldn’t have done that, even after he had                           become Darth Vader, not just in name, but once he was locked inside his cage of a suit.                     I disagree, because we see how indecisive Anakin has been, how lost, confused, and                         angry.  He feels entitled.  He probably still sees himself as a slave and so probably fees                     inferior, and has a desire to prove himself.  It is Anakin’s unpredictability that makes it                   very difficult to complain about what he did or didn’t do, and why.  See, I can expect                         that out of a human being and a character, not out of a writer and a director.  Darth                           Vader’s rampage scene at the end of Rogue One is made possible, believable and                               awesome because of the incompleteness, insecurity, and fear of uncertainty.  Sure, the                     actor doesn’t always do the best job of bringing that across, but I’m not sure a critic                         can zero in on trying to fit Darth Vader’s motivations and reasoning into a template.

Medium

      21)  We speak infrequently in the software development world about getting the business what they must have, need and what, to them, would be nice to have.  This complaint falls into the latter grouping.  A “nice to have” is something that would save people time, a convenience, something that makes a website easier to control, gets the business some reports, gives them another method to achieve something, find more information, etc.

So, Order 66. When I was reading rough story outlines years before ROTS came out, one of the subplots was the hunting down and destroying of the Jedi.  Obi-Wan said as much in Star Wars.  That would have been wicked, or boss, or wicked-boss.  Since so many of the Jedi were already killed by Order 66, that couldn’t happen.  No research, tracking, covert operations, no intrigue, no showing off the Sith v. Jedi in ways never explored, as I’ve specified. Disappointed.  If you borrow the feel of the hunt from the 1982 Blade Runner and migrate it to Star Wars . . . I’d have rather watched that than pod-racing, hover pods in the galactic senate, Gungan city warriors and a droid army occupation.  The only occupation the droid army is qualified for is a thumb war with C-3PO to see who can act as the pimp for Rosie the cleaning lady robot from the Jetsons.

      22)  When Padme is leaving to go after Anakin- “3PO will look after me.”  My dog, before we owned him, did a better job of looking after me.

Defect severity coming shortly

      23)   Padme’s pregnancy is more noticeable than it has been the whole film, because of the clothes she’s wearing.  It isn’t because she’s that much further along.  Lucas was incapable of telling a story except by taking 2-3 day snippets out of the lives of the characters and laying all his cards on the table.  Maybe, maybe 2 weeks passes between the events following Palpatine’s rescue and the Obi-Wan v. Anakin battle on the hell planet. But that expansive passage of time would have been something Lucas has never been able to capture realistically in five other attempts. I can't buy it here either.

Medium

       24)  Plenty of physics issues on the duel between Mr. Kenobi and Mr. Skywalker.  Anakin           standing on a hunk of metal that likely couldn’t support his weight and couldn’t resist the lava river that would have melted it to nothing- that kind of stuff.  That’s low hanging fruit- another software development term for fixing a small problem quickly. 

Low

      25)  The Mustafar battle is too long.  Take off 3-4 minutes and add those to the fight scene between Palpatine and four Jedi . . . just sayin’.

Medium

      26)  How could Yoda not have been ready for whatever Sidious was going to throw at him?  He’s showing up to the lair of a devil who, Yoda has to assume, already defeated four other Jedi (three of them in about 12 seconds).

Critical

      27)  Padme delivers two healthy 6-9 pound children when she’s still only an estimated 4-6 months           pregnant after not showing much of anything for the majority of a movie that probably spans               the length of, by the most liberal measure- 2 weeks.  Lucas has no idea how to deal with                       pacing, or continuity, or biology.  In fairness, he’s probably not into realism, or accurately                   portraying the passage of time. Yep, the story is geared toward 6-12 year old boys, so                           presenting a woman with child wasn’t a focus, but c’mon.  He made the same mistake in The             Empire Strikes Back, which I’ll get to, and Rian Johnson glaringly makes it in The Last Jedi, which I’ve addressed already.  Stop it, just stop it.  Write the outline of your story and think about when these events happen in time.  Unless Padme is actually some kind of alien-reptile from the movie Species, whose gestation period is tracked in hours or days, don’t bring that kind of time-math into a movie you put in front of a paying audience.

 My wife said that only tall women would have a chance to be 4-5 months pregnant without                 noticeably showing.  Natalie Portman is not 6-2. 

Severe

      28)  He has to get this stuff right.  Uncle Owen looks maybe 30 at the end of this movie.  He’s at least 60 at the beginning of Star Wars, the next time we see him.  By my math, that’s 30 years.  Obi-Wan is about 35 when he brings Luke to the Lars’.  Obi-Wan is at least 65 in Star Wars.  Unless Star Wars or Jedi time is different, none of that makes sense.  Luke is not only 20 at the beginning of Star Wars.

      29) None of the deleted scenes should have made it into the movie, even the one that shows Yoda landing on Dagobah.

Unfortunately, this WWW installment was about as long as the one for Attack of the Clones, while Revenge of the Sith is a much better movie.  In my opinion, it was demoted to the 4^th best following Rogue One’s 2016 release.  Since 4-5 of the points made above concerned things that were well done, and another 5 were used to track the Critical error of Padme’s pregnancy, there might appear to be as many defects as AOTC, though there aren’t.

Another reminder- anyone who accidentally has read this at all, or this far, might question the assessment of Padme’s pregnancy (critical) and the ages of characters involved in the transfer of Luke to Tatooine (severe) as being a bit too pedantic in nature.  Tough.  Those things are killers in the whole continuity, consistency, technical delivery/execution of the story.  You cannot sit down to write a story that is meant to fit together with revered and respected series portions and get that timing wrong.  This is akin to having a battle scene in a movie about World War II in 18^th century California or putting 7 stars on the helmet of a 4-star general.

So, in the words of my 13 year old son, and my father, who passed away in 2016- stop being so thick, and do a better job of making this shit up.