{"id":8067,"date":"2005-06-01T12:42:19","date_gmt":"2005-06-01T19:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/06\/01\/episode-iii.html"},"modified":"2014-11-10T11:33:02","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T18:33:02","slug":"episode_iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/06\/01\/episode_iii.html","title":{"rendered":"<em>Episode III<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Margie and I went to a nearly-deserted showing of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0121766\/\" target=\"_blank\">Star Wars: Episode III &#8211; Revenge of the Sith<\/a><\/em> last night (the multiplex was definitely not hopping on a Tuesday night, and our theater was empty besides the two of us until the trailers started to run, at which time one popcorn munching fellow wandered in and sat down, of course, immediately behind us).<\/p>\n<p>Brief review:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fabulous special effects\n<li>A decently strong story line<\/p>\n<li>Some pretty awful dialog<\/p>\n<li>Acting that ran the gamut from mediocre to terrible<\/ul>\n<p>The general consensus is right &#8212; this is by far the best of the &#8220;new&#8221; trilogy, as the suspense and <em>human <\/em>drama actually exist here.  It recalls, in epic sweep, <em>Empire Strikes Back<\/em> &#8212; but, sadly, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher can act rings around Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman (as scripted and directed by George Lucas, at least), so the top crown remains on the older film.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad I saw it in the theaters, I&#8217;m glad I didn&#8217;t wait in a midnight line to see it, and, when it was all over, it was with a faint sense of disappointment, nostalgia, and closure that I left the theater.<\/p>\n<p>For more &#8230; there be spoilers below &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\n<center>*&#038;nbsp&#038;nbsp&nbsp;*&#038;nbsp&#038;nbsp&nbsp;*<\/center><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/sith.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"right\" title=\"Revenge of the Sith\" width=336 height=500 ><strong><u>The Actors<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0159789\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hayden Christensen<\/a> remains Mr. Sulky of the 2000s.  He&#8217;s sulky when happy, sulky when sad, sulky when angsty, sulky when triumphant, and so forth.   Tormented beyond words (though not without a certain measure of justification), he slides from sulky to homicidal, then back to sulky again.  His unwillingness until the very end to chew the scenery a bit (and his inability to do so effectively when he finally gets around to it) leaves his acting flat and unengaging, almost torpedoing the whole production.  Heck, even James Earl Jones&#8217; voice emotes more authentically than Christensen does with voice <em>and <\/em>body.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0000204\/\" target=\"_blank\">Natalie Portman<\/a> is almost as bad, though she can be given something of a pass for having some truly awful dialog fed her, and only a very limited number of set pieces.  That said, her costumes change more frequently than her worried expression, and the active, powerful, exotic, dynamic princess\/senator from Naboo spends most of the movie mooning on her balcony and <em>watching <\/em>events around her unfold, passive bystander to a cosmic catastrophe.  That she literally gives up at the end is not surprising, given that she&#8217;s not done all that much the whole rest of the movie.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0000191\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ewan McGregor<\/a> as Obi-Wan at least makes a game attempt.  As much as this movie is supposedly about Anakin&#8217;s descent into evil, it&#8217;s even more about Obi-Wan&#8217;s realization of what an utter failure he&#8217;s been as a Jedi master.  This gives him some real drama to play with, amidst the banter, and McGregor does a decent job of it.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of scenery chewing, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0001519\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ian McDiarmid<\/a>&#8216;s evolution as Palpatine is one of the roles that holds the movie together.  Going from oily and beguiling to maniacally triumphant, he&#8217;s by far the biggest &#8220;winner&#8221; in the film, both as actor and as character &#8212; though in appearance he keeps varying between Colin Mochrie and Gary Oldman&#8217;s Dracula.<\/p>\n<p>Jimmy Smits does a decent, if overly reverent and servile turn as Senator Organa.  Christopher Lee&#8217;s appearance as Count Dooku is far too brief, more of a setup for the rest of the film than an actual chance to act.  Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu seems uncomfortable with his clunky lines.<\/p>\n<p>And who is the best actor in the whole production?  The best-filmed, best dialoged, and most dynamic entity in the whole flick is the CG-based and Frank Oz-voiced Yoda.  And how sad is <em>that?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><u>The FX<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s not unexpected that the fx are a huge part of this movie&#8217;s wonder, and, to be perfectly honest, this film puts all previous installments to shame.  Those who were wonderous in <em>Return of the Jedi<\/em> at the big climactic battle over Death Star II will be wetting themselves during the massive space battle at the very beginning of this film.  <\/p>\n<p>And things never let up from there, as every scene change leads to amazingly new planet vistas, new (and old) alien characters, bigger and more exciting explosions, and some of the best lava work on record.  Not to mention, back on Coruscant, endless lines of aircraft and space ships.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the fx parade is so unrelenting, one almost begins to hope for a simpler Tatooine, Endor moon, or similarly less fantastic location, and the &#8220;return&#8221; to &#8220;Imperial&#8221; technology and settings at the very end comes as almost a relief, putting us back on familiar ground.  <\/p>\n<p>Of special note is that ILM\/Lucas finally have light sabers right.  Never mind making them look like real rods of energy &#8212; these light sabers (and there are endless light saber battles) flash in an impressive way that actually shows you why the Jedi would prefer them to blasters and other, less elegant weapons.  <\/p>\n<p>All of which leads me to a great heresy.  As much as I&#8217;ve detested Lucas&#8217; didding with the original trilogy&#8217;s fx, I&#8217;m now sold.  But he shouldn&#8217;t go halfway.  I want to see near-complete remakes of all three of the original films, retaining only the actors\/backgrounds, with all the fx updated and tweaked and made pretty.  Avoid messing around with the (&#8220;Han shot first!&#8221;) plot, and this could be a real win for Lucas.  Forget about the 3-D rumors &#8212; I want a <em>Millennium Falcon<\/em> vs. TIE Fighters duel that&#8217;s as exciting as the first five minutes of <em>Ep III.<\/em>, and a surface of the Death Star that looks as real as the surface of Coruscant.<\/p>\n<p><u><strong>The Story<\/strong><\/u><br \/>\nAnything that&#8217;s going to set up the rise of Darth Vader and the Empire is not going to be a happy tale.  That said, <em>Ep III<\/em> is a fascinating story of corruption, which carries plenty of blame to pass around (perhaps its most convincing part).<\/p>\n<p>Sure, there are the obvious bad guys &#8212; Palpatine, with his lust for power, other folks like the Trade Federation driven by cupidity or just plain old nastiness.  But they largely take advantage of problems that are already present &#8212; for one, a Senate bogged down by internal rivalries and bureaucracy, but, more importantly, a Jedi Council that doesn&#8217;t know what the hell it&#8217;s doing.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve ranted at length before over how stupid the Jedi are during the first film.  Here they compound that error &#8212; either blind to Palpatine&#8217;s evil, or, aware of it and carrying on with business as usual (&#8220;I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;ll give up power once Grievous is defeated; if not, we&#8217;ll worry about it then&#8221;).  They continue to act as military shock troopers, even though it&#8217;s clear how vulnerable they are in that role.  And, frankly, they treat Anakin like crap &#8212; peevish about his flaws, but not addressing them.  Arguably, they are distracted by the war, but they both let the situation spiral out of their control <em>and <\/em>ignore what they can do about it along the way.<\/p>\n<p>(As an aside, I still don&#8217;t buy &#8220;The Clone Wars&#8221; as what anyone would call this particular dust-up.  People don&#8217;t name wars for the troops or weapons <em>on their side<\/em>.) <\/p>\n<p>The movie starts on an up note.  The banter between Obi-Wan and Anakin seems forced and clumsy at times, but it&#8217;s reminiscent of the bravado of the Luke\/Leia\/Han trio, making out even the direst of danger as a great romp.  It doesn&#8217;t quite work, both because of clumsy writing and flat acting, but because the groundwork for it &#8212; the Obi-Wan\/Anakin relationship &#8212; hasn&#8217;t really been well-established.  Indeed, though it goes to the heart of the film&#8217;s conflict between the two, the brotherly love between them seems to come out of left field.<\/p>\n<p>It is, though, Obi-Wan&#8217;s abject failure as a Jedi Master that drives the disaster.  The Council was, in this case (back in <em>Ep I<\/em>), right &#8212; Obi-Wan <em>was<\/em> too young and headstrong to be a Jedi Knight, let alone master of his own <em>padawan.  <\/em>All the advice that Yoda gives Anakin about letting go, about eschewing human relationships (as inhuman as that is &#8212; more on that in a moment) is exactly what Obi-Wan <em>doesn&#8217;t <\/em>do in his relationship with Anakin.  he lets his love for him as a &#8220;brother&#8221; get in the way of teaching him as he needs to be taught, with tragic results.  An insufficient advocate for his <em>padawan <\/em>against others, and an insufficient mentor to teach same, Obi-Wan is precisely correct when he tells Anakin late in the film about how badly he&#8217;s failed him.<\/p>\n<p>And &#8230; um &#8230; hey, Obi-Wan, as painful as it must be, wouldn&#8217;t it actually be a more <em>charitable <\/em>and <em>loving <\/em>death to kill your former apprentice &#8212; you know, the one you loved as a brother, and who&#8217;s also responsible for the death of so many others &#8212; rather than leaving him to die, in agony and alone, next to a lava pit?  Nice Jedi work there, dude &#8212; that&#8217;ll come back to haunt you, karmically.<\/p>\n<p>For what it&#8217;s worth, though, his flaws (and awareness of them) makes Obi-Wan the most likable of the folks in the movie, and establishes a very strong basis for his whole behavior (if not apparent age) in the Alec Guiness role for the next three films.  His continuity works best.<\/p>\n<p>The other Jedi fare even worse.  Mace Windu seems to go out of his way to alienate Anakin, with as sneering an arrogance as Palpatine ever manages.  &#8220;I don&#8217;t trust you, so you&#8217;re going to have to prove you&#8217;re trustworthy, O Clearly Alienated Youth.  Meanwhile, let me treat you like dirt.&#8221;  You might want to consider what sort of feelings you provoke before you teach them to trust their feelings, eh?  And, y&#8217;know, Anakin <em>did <\/em>have a point about, well, not killing Palpatine outright (nice Jedi teaching there, Mace).  <\/p>\n<p>Yoda, on the other hand, time and again lets himself get outmaneuvered, and is clearly wildly overconfident about both the Jedi&#8217;s ability to take down Palpatine and, one-on-one, his own abilities to that end.  Yup, failed you have.  That overconfidence, too, leads to the great tragedy.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, the Jedi betray themselves.  Eschewing attachments to others on an individual basis, they are unable to sense and deal with the flaws among their ranks.  Acting in service to others, they are implicitly contemptuous of the masses, arrogant and full of hubris.  Ostensibly great diplomats, they are heedless to the feelings of others if they are sure that they are following the <em>right <\/em>cause &#8212; that rightness not an intrinsic part of their power (since the same power is behind the Dark Side), but their own philosophy.  Accusing the Sith of dealing only with absolutes, their own absolutes trip them up.  They are a horrid example of a blend of church and state, smug in their elite righteousness, ripe for being exploited, and the unwilling abettors of the fall of the Republic.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, they deserve to have been destroyed.  Palpatine has that much right.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that, the story, as a whole, holds up pretty well.  There are some odd bits, and as we get toward the end, there&#8217;s a rush to establish (rightly) the ties to the next film.  Two of those ties ring false:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The toss-off Yoda line about Qui-Gonn having, beyond death, figured out how to &#8220;come back&#8221; (thus establishing why we see ghostly Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin in the final frames of <em>Return of the Jedi <\/em>&#8212; though not why we never hear or see Qui-Gonn in the same films, though Lucas&#8217; revisionism may change that in later releases).  The line is necessary to explain why we haven&#8217;t seen thus far ghostly Jedi advising the current Council, but it comes across as such a throw-away &#8220;Oops, we need to explain this&#8221; bit that it jars.  (Yoda also seems, given the succession of tragedies we&#8217;ve just seen, unseemingly jolly about the matter.  (&#8220;Never mind you about the fall of the Republic, the death of Padme, the slaughter of our friends &#8212; Qui-Gonn a message has for you!&#8221;)\n<li>The Death Star scene.  This film takes place about 20 years before <em>Ep. IV<\/em> (given Luke and Leia&#8217;s ages), but that Death Star scene implies (a) Palpatine already had the project going, and (b) it took two decades to finish building the first one (and only a year or so to nearly complete the second one).  Doesn&#8217;t work, any more than Wayne Pygram&#8217;s cameo turn as a younger Tarkin.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, that two decade interval seems problematic from other perspectives.  Granted, Obi-Wan has had a rough life out there in the Jundland Wastes.  Still, the Alec Guiness iteration seems to have aged a great deal over those two decades (heck, so does Yoda).  And the line &#8220;Obi-Wan?  I haven&#8217;t heard that name since before you were born [except in chatting with Yoda later that day, or Qui-Gonn&#8217;s ghost in the succeeding weeks]&#8221; doesn&#8217;t quite fit any more.  Unless he&#8217;s gotten forgetful out there, too.<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n<p>Still, that&#8217;s all quibbling to some extent.  Lucas has managed to do a remarkably good job of tying together the conclusion of a prequel released in 2005 with a movie hatched somewhat out of the blue almost three decades earlier.  There&#8217;s enough grist there for geeky fanboy debates for decades to come, and that&#8217;s probably not a bad thing.<\/p>\n<p>A few other, stray thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>While the concept of missiles that release little tech-destroying robots made for some exciting scenes, it&#8217;s a truly <em>dumb <\/em>idea (vs., say, oh, a <em>warhead<\/em> on a missile).\n<li>No, I don&#8217;t believe even the spiffiest pilot of all time can maneuver a crippled chunk of spacecraft from orbit down for a near-perfect landing on a runway.  (Runway?  What ships use runways?)<\/p>\n<li>I liked Obi-Wan&#8217;s squonking lizard mount &#8212; though it seemed to run faster than it ought to, and its death (?) went unremarked.<\/p>\n<li>The whole General Grievous thang was fun from a bad guy perspective, but not terribly believable.  He never showed enough brightness to be made a general, and he seems to have had a distinct design flaw &#8230;.  He made a great distraction for Obi-Wan, though.  (Grievoius may have been better established in the Clone Wars cartoons.  Which I haven&#8217;t watched, so my comment stands.)<\/p>\n<li>Anakin drops into Palpatine&#8217;s camp awfully quickly.  He goes from torn youth to &#8220;What have I done?&#8221; to &#8220;Here, let me kill these kids for you, my Master&#8221; in about thirty seconds.  I understand what his motivation was supposed to be &#8212; it just didn&#8217;t seem to work.<\/p>\n<li>The Night of Long Knives against the Jedi was not nearly as engaging or moving as it ought to have been.  Part of that may have been distraction by the amazing planetscapes.  Part of it may have been that the majority of Jedi have been nameless light-saber-wielding drones, so far as the movies were concerned.  It did raise some odd questions about the Imperial storm troopers (Were they &#8220;programmed&#8221; with that order? Was it distributed earlier? Why no hesitation?), and the Jedi, for the most part, seem to have been taken out far too easily, even if surprised.<\/p>\n<p>The most moving Jedi death is the one that Organa witnesses.<\/p>\n<li>Ignoring the snarky debate over what sort of parallels George Lucas sees between the Empire and the US, the &#8220;This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause&#8221; line is a great one &#8212; even if Portman&#8217;s rendition of it is clunky.<\/p>\n<li>Again, nice to see the &#8220;Rebel Blockade Runner&#8221; ship showing up as Organa&#8217;s personal cruiser.  Not sure it would actually still be in service twenty years later, but it was a nice touch.<\/p>\n<li>Okay, the How Anakin Physically Turns To Darth Vader scene was perfect.  Agonizingly perfect.  Except for the whole Obi-wan leaving him there to die a gruelling death.  I&#8217;m a bit surprised that, after being consumed by hate, then subjected to the greatest of torture, Anakin manages to ask as his first words, without pause, how Padme is.  There was a dramatic beat or a few lines missing there.  But, by then, we&#8217;re already barreling toward the conclusion &#8230;<\/p>\n<li>The Emperor must have immediately ordered redecoration and uniform changes for the Imperial fleet, because while it was neat seeing them, they felt jarringly different from every other Republic starship interior and uniform design we&#8217;d seen to date.<\/p>\n<li>I still don&#8217;t get why Padme dies.  I mean, yeah, her heart is broken, she has no reason to live, blah blah blah.  It seems awfully sketchy, especially since neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda seem to do much to try to snap her out of her funk.<\/p>\n<li>Beautiful, beautiful lava.  Though as the funky metal thingamabob fell into the lava, carrying Anakin and Obi-Wan in their life-and-death struggle with it, and they panned back and we saw it was about to go over a lavafall, as well, Margie and I couldn&#8217;t help but laugh. &#8220;And there&#8217;s a bus full of nuns down there, too, just to increase the suspense.&#8221;<\/p>\n<li>The role of the Senate is given short shrift here.  That the Senate would follow Palpatine over into the abyss is not, to my mind, well enough founded &#8212; and it has to be, because it drives the whole reason why the Jedi go bonkers.<\/p>\n<li><em>Why<\/em> do Yoda and Obi-wan have to go into exile?  Why not start a resistance\/rebellion right then and there?  Heck, you&#8217;ve alread got Alderaan in your pocket &#8230;<\/p>\n<li>Speaking of which, it was poignant seeing Alderaan, knowing it was going to become sparkly space debris in a couple of decades.<\/p>\n<li>The Owen and Beru scene was really neat &#8212; it felt too abrupt, in some ways (ending the movie with two relative strangers on center screen), but it was also a nice tie-in to the past.  Even if Owen never struck me before as a gaze-at-the-setting-sun sort of fellow.<\/ul>\n<p>So a lot of little complaints, and a few big ones, but, all in all, not the worst way to have ended the Star Wars cinema franchise.  Indeed, it was enough to make me want to go back and watch the first trilogy (IV-VI) again, just to see how the continuity setups carry on.<\/p>\n<p>And, yeah, I&#8217;ve got a yen again to play in a <em>Star Wars<\/em> campaign &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center>*&#038;nbsp&#038;nbsp&nbsp;*&#038;nbsp&#038;nbsp&nbsp;*<\/center><\/p>\n<p>And on a completely different note, the trailers before the show:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Narnia<\/em> &#8212; Disney does <em>Lord of the Rings<\/em>. I hope it comes out far better than that sounds.\n<li><em>Shark Boy &#038; Lava Girl<\/em> &#8212; Katherine is evidently quite interested in seeing this.  My God.\n<li><em>Fantastic Four<\/em> &#8212; Might not suck.\n<li><em>Mr. &#038; Mrs. Smith<\/em> &#8212; <em>True Lies<\/em> meets <em>Undercover Blues<\/em> meets <em>The Bourne Identity<\/em>.  Could be either fun or stupid beyond words.  Or, maybe, both.\n<li><em>War of the Worlds<\/em> &#8212; Might be as scary as it should be.<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Margie and I went to a nearly-deserted showing of Star Wars: Episode III &#8211; Revenge of the Sith last night (the multiplex was definitely not hopping on a Tuesday night,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[263,382,15,372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disney","category-lord-of-the-rings","category-media","category-star-wars-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3223,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/01\/10\/chum.html","url_meta":{"origin":8067,"position":0},"title":"Chum","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 10-Jan-03 8:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"USA Today is holding a \"Star Wars vs Lord of the Rings\" write-in poll. Let the bloodbath begin!...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Lord of the Rings \/ Hobbit&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Lord of the Rings \/ Hobbit","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/lord-of-the-rings"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7337,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/03\/28\/the_saga_is_com.html","url_meta":{"origin":8067,"position":1},"title":"The Saga is Complete133T","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 28-Mar-05 1:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, while the 133T-speak gag has begun to get a little old, the Star Wars Episode III Trailer (133T-subtitled) is pretty darned funny. (And the trailer is still pretty cool,...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Media &amp; Culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Media &amp; Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":373,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/25\/and_not_a_singl.html","url_meta":{"origin":8067,"position":2},"title":"And not a single grey hair","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 25-Apr-03 8:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Confirmed news for all your (remaining) Star Wars fans -- Episode III will feature an appearance by an original trilogy character -- and actor. And it's not one of the...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Media &amp; Culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Media &amp; Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5884,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/05\/gross.html","url_meta":{"origin":8067,"position":3},"title":"Gross","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Jul-04 5:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The top-grossing films of all time (as of some arbitrary moment). I've italicized (rather than bolding, due the current default font) the ones I've seen, so that y'all can stare...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;DC Media (DCEU, DCU)&quot;","block_context":{"text":"DC Media (DCEU, DCU)","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/dc-cinematic-univese"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7403,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/03\/14\/star_wars_iii_t.html","url_meta":{"origin":8067,"position":4},"title":"Star Wars III trailer","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Mar-05 1:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I hate George Lucas. Kottke nails it here. Once every three years, the first trailer for yet another crappy George Lucas Star Wars movie is released somewhere to great fanfare....","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Media &amp; Culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Media &amp; Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129184,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/19\/movie-review-revenge-of-the-sith-2005.html","url_meta":{"origin":8067,"position":5},"title":"&quot;Movie Review: &quot;Revenge of the Sith&quot; (2005)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 19-Dec-15 8:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not sure even another decade will make it worth rewatching this again. There are a few nice bits, but, like chocolate chips sprinkled in a past-its-expiry-date casserole from the bowels of the fridge, it's too little against the wobbly plot, crappy dialog, and bad acting by (and\/or direction of)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/EPIII_RotS_poster5B15D.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42795,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8067\/revisions\/42795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}