Revenge of the Sith Blu-Ray

(Sept. 2011)
A lot less to say on this one, as the DVD was already pretty doggone sharp, and I have less overall complaints about the film (though I went into Phantom Menace reasonably satisfied even though I didnt come out that way). Here once again Lucas paints on a broad canvas, but again, with three more years technological sophistication, you can see a marked difference even between this film and the visually very sharp Attack of the Clones. The colors are deeper and more saturated (the whole room glowed red with Mustafar, and I leave lights on when I watch movies), and the dark scenes here show up even better than in Clones (although while in that movie there seemed to be a purple saturation in the dimmer scenes, here it was blue. Might just be my player, who knows). The opening sequence with all the ships fighting over Coruscant is still breathtaking, and the detail work everywhere is painstaking and especially visible, from every tiny little rooftop on Coruscant to the lush valleys of Alderaan. I did notice more playing with depth of field in this film in Clones everything was razor-sharp to the horizon, but here, elements in the background fade with distance, and not just in close-up shots. This brings a little added slice of reality to the film. I also noticed for the first time all of the shimmery heat distortion in any outdoor scene on Mustafar was that added or have I just never noticed it? In any case, very little if any content seems to have been altered with this film (which I have seen more frequently and more recently, and thus in theory would be in a better position to spot), and it is an even better transfer than Clones, which was itself pretty sharp. I think simply three more years of technological innovation and expertise just raised the bar that much higher. Were this team to make more Star Wars films (which I would not wish for), they would likely sear your eyeballs with sharp detail. I had less to bitch about in the re-watching of this film, although the dialogue is a little clunkier than I recall it being. Also Sith is just awash in Lucas recycling dialogue and even shots (the end of the Grievous duel mirrors almost exactly the end of the Darth Maul duel, down to the silly overdone ending); maybe you just werent supposed to watch these films that closely together (three years distance between the originals will diminish the ability to notice such repetition). I still enjoyed much of it the Kazhyyyk battle, the whole fall of the Jedi sequence, and for some reason I have an inordinate attachment to the Obi-Wan of this movie that is not matched by any performance before or after (I realize there is no after in a real world sense, but I mean Guinness portraying him as an old man). The last bit where Lucas reshuffles all the cards to try and quiet all the uber-fan complaining about plot holes still rings a little false (have only Threepios memory erased?), but theres still an unmistakable and welcome sense of nostalgia seeing prequel characters walking around on sets from Star Wars. Organa, Kenobi, and Yoda could have met anywhere, but it was neat that they met there, on that ship, where it all started. And the Star Wars fan in me will admit that invoking the best shot of all the films Luke out staring wistfully at the twin suns while Williams score swirls

about him at the very end of the last movie, while yes, of course, is simply one more repeated chord, well, this time I happen to like the note it strikes. This film is less of a jump in quality over the DVD version than the other prequels, but its still worth getting for the die-hard fan. Casual fans well, are probably disinterested in shelling out that much money for this set anyway. Now the real fun begins, getting to see just how much Lucas played with the original trilogies. September 19, 2011