Three Times A Vader

If you came of age in the 1970s or early '80s, Star Wars commands a place in your heart like the Beatles did for baby boomers. Apart from glorifying Wookie-worthy haircuts, George Lucas' sci-fi saga has little in common with the Fab Four, but both united the young-at-heart like few other pop phenomena. "May the Force be with you" is every bit a generational touchstone as "All you need is love."

Compared to the first Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas' two prequels were more like a pale shadow of past hits. Fortunately, the operatic finale, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, nearly redeems the whole prequel trilogy by dramatizing the downfall of Anakin Skywalker. For its last film, Star Wars finally gets back to where it once belonged.

The initial Star Wars benefited from its nonstop, hyper-drive pace as much as its stellar special effects, and Sith marks the fastest-moving episode since 1977 - and maybe ever. Nothing could be more succinct than "War!" - the first sentence of the opening crawl.

Sith's first half-hour launches into a rescue mission amid a jaw-dropping battle scene, like World War II sea/air combat in a planetary orbit. As Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) swoop in to save a leader of the Galactic Republic, Sith jaunts from dogfights to cliffhangers to a lightsaber grudge match. Despite the destruction, spirits soar - McGregor may smile here more than he did in the prior prequels combined.

We meet a new bad guy, the robotic plotter General Grievous (voiced by Matthew Wood). You can tell he's a villain by the cape, the hunched-over posture and the hacking cough. Sure, it makes no sense for a droid to cough - can't someone just blow out his carburetor? - but I thought Grievous was great. I thought he was hilarious. The prequel trilogy finally achieves the fun of old-fashioned kitsch: It's not "camp" as a synonym for "laughably incompetent." Plus, Grievous swings four lightsabers at once, which is undeniably cool.

Lucas finally realizes that he's terrible at replicating human interaction, so he pares down those scenes to the bare minimum. Anakin greets his secret wife, Padme (Natalie Portman), with brief but predictably terrible dialogue (their exchange amounts to "I love you more!" "No, I love you more!"). Between Padme's surprise pregnancy and Lucas' inability to write women, Sith relegates Portman insultingly far into the background. Consider Padme's demotion across the three films: queen in The Phantom Menace, senator in Attack of the Clones, baby carrier in Sith.

When Obi-Wan and froggy Jedi master Yoda zip off to other planets to kill robots, ride dinosaurs and aid familiar aliens, Sith feels like a video game that provides new weapons and environments every time you move up a level. But the dark subject matter grounds the derring-do. Anakin, Darth-Vader-to-be, finds himself caught between the Republic's grasping Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and the suspicious Jedi. With McDiarmid's silky line readings, Palpatine tempts Anakin to consider the Dark Side of the Force, turn against the Jedi, and probably give the keynote speech at the Republic's National Convention.

Despite his glowering eyes, Christensen still lacks the gravitas expected in a young Vader. Like a Hitler Youth Mark Hamill, Anakin's soul-searching feels like adolescent anguish, but doesn't diminish the apocalyptic mood of the film's final hour. When traps spring on noble characters and two heroes duel atop a volcano, Sith touches on a tragic grandeur suitable for the Twilight of the Gods.

Plus, Sith's political context elevates it above sci-fi escapism: Two opposing leaders even clash in the chamber of the Republic's Senate. Lucas peppers his script with lines fresh from our present-day discourse, including "If you're not with me, you're my enemy!" and "He has control of the Senate and the courts - he's too dangerous to stay alive!" Post-9/11 politics energizes Lucas much like Vietnam inspired John Lennon.

Does Sith make the previous films better? Well, Jar-Jar Binks won't be any funnier in Phantom and the Anakin/Padme romance won't be any less stilted in Clones.

But Sith may help audiences appreciate the inscrutable plotting of the shadowy main villain (and Lucas himself). True evil comes not from costumed fiends like Grievous, but from misplaced trust and good intentions. Phantom's Naboo crisis provided a pretext to change the Republic's leadership, with ominous consequences. Clones showed how a trumped-up excuse for war turned a deliberative democracy into a militant dictatorship. The Emperor finally drops his mask in Sith, but only hints at some secrets, like the nature of Anakin's virgin birth.

Sith satisfyingly sets up the original films to be the true culmination to the prequel trilogy. Star Wars fans can sigh with relief that Revenge of the Sith proves so fun and so weighty as the series reaches the end - and the beginning - of its long and winding road.

curt.holman@creativeloafing.com