I HAVE KNOWN for more than 20 years that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, former master and learner, fight a duel to near death. I have known for a long time that nearly all the Jedi perish as the dark times begin. I have known since I was a kid that Luke Skywalker's mother dies a heartbroken woman, her husband having become a servant of evil. There are few surprises left in "Revenge of the Sith" that Star Wars fans don't already know, and yet I found myself crying as I watched these events unfold.

I've never cried before in a Star Wars movie -- not even as a kid when Luke lost his hand, or when Han Solo was frozen, nor when the Ewoks lay motionless on the forest floor. I've felt tense and sad and frustrated in these moments, but there was always a sense that everything was going to be OK in the end. Even in the prequels, where we know that everything is leading toward doom, I haven't welled up at Qui-Gon's death, Anakin's mother's death, or Anakin's killing of the Tuskin Raiders. I was prepared for more of the same -- a kind of detached shaking of my head as Anakin made the wrong choices, thinking "what a shame." But instead I felt a deep revulsion toward everything that unfolded. I wanted to make it not happen. I wanted to rewind time and tell the Jedi to wake up to their blindness. I cried at the slow slide into the inevitability of death and despair.

That said, I also felt let down by "Revenge of the Sith." There are questions I have been wondering about for 20 years that go unanswered in this film, threads that I'd wanted resolved but are left untied. I was generous with the previous two Episodes because I knew there was still another chapter to be told to the story, but now that the story is complete, there is no hope of deeper explanation. In particular, I wanted to know how it is that Obi-Wan and Yoda appear as "force ghosts" in the classic trilogy. Instead we are told in an off-handed manner (and from here on out I will be discussing SPOILERS) that Qui-Gon Jinn discovered the secret of immortality, and Obi-Wan should learn from him while he's holed up on Tatooine for the next 20 years. There's no discussion of how such immortality is attained, no regret that Yoda didn't teach it to the dozens of Jedi who just died, no mention that this might be the key to defeating the Dark Side. What's more, the use of the word "immortality" strikes us as odd since the Sith Lord earlier talked about the Dark Side's power to extend life.

After watching "Sith," I found on the internet a draft of the script that goes into this more deeply, but even that doesn't satisfy. It says that eternal life can only be achieved for oneself, not for others (presumably to counterpoint Anakin's desire to keep his wife alive), and that it takes "compassion, not greed" to achieve it. But how is it less greedy and more compassionate to desire your own immortality rather than someone else's? I thought Anakin wanting to save his wife was a good instinct that was taken advantage of through a bait-and-switch temptation of Darth Sidious. I am not sure I'm wholly in agreement with Yoda's advice to practice detachment or the Jedi Order's practice of forbidding marriage in general.

I've spent the last several days on the discussion boards for TheForce.net, where Star Wars fans seem to be largely pleased with "Sith" but are deeply involved in discussing these kinds of questions -- about whose actions they admire and whose advice they trust. Long threads have sprung up debating Yoda's advice, debating whether or not the Jedi are even a good institution in the prequels, debating how admirable or pathetic Padme is, debating whether or not we are supposed to feel sorry for Darth Vader. (Some people say they are finding compassion for Vader for the first time, seeing him only as a "badass" originally but now feeling sorry for how he enslaved himself to darkness. Others say they used to have compassion for him, but now are angry that he turned about to be a "no-good child-killing, Republic-destroying, wife-choking traitor.") Episode III is Lucas's "Hamlet," where we can endlessly argue whether Anakin was sane or crazy, whether he made his choices or he was manipulated into evil. Did he really love Padme or not? Did he regret his servitude to Palpatine or relish it?

If I was interested in answers, clarity, and completion, George Lucas was more interested in leaving the doors open for interpretation and contemplation. (Even this point is open for interpretation; I saw one post on the boards say that these debatable points are meant to keep us fans hungering for more Star Wars -- books, comics, TV shows, and every other derivation in the pipeline.) But the more I read the threads on these boards, the more I see that the conversation turns to real-world implications: of religion, of government, of the nature of evil, of eternal life, of predestination. The more I read, the more I see that people aren't just talking about a space saga; they are talking about their own lives, values, beliefs. If the original Star Wars trilogy was a strong lesson in what we should aspire to, the prequel trilogy is a blank slate onto which we project who we are now.

So how do I interpret the 6-volume series now that it is complete? To me, it has a lot to do with religion. My favorite episode is "The Empire Strikes Back," primarily for the Dagobah sequence where Luke receives his training. I like what it says about spiritual mentorship, about spiritual retreat, about striving to make a spiritual connection for oneself, not just hoping the Spirit will come upon you if you follow the rules. The Jedi Order in the prequel trilogy seems to me a critique of the church as institution: concerned with hierarchy and knowing one's place; forbidding certain feelings and opinions; wed to political concerns that make it open to manipulation. I see Anakin as the teenaged Christian who equates God with the Church, and since one is corrupted he throws away them both, and asserts his independence by doing everything that would anger the God he no longer believes in. Conversely, Qui-Gon Jinn makes the distinction between the Order and the Force, and he is willing to serve the Force even when it upsets the Council. His death in Episode I presumably eliminates him from the equation, but we now know that his spirit continues and instructs Yoda and Obi-Wan, presumably justifying his methods. Luke fills the role of the person new to the faith, who encounters the Spirit and its fulfillment before anything else, who is not dazzled by the power and trappings and sense of entitlement that come to many, but considers his own life expendable if it means escaping compromise. When Anakin sees the act of a true Jedi at last, he finally returns, as it were, to the faith.

This obviously reveals more about me than it does about Star Wars or George Lucas. While it's true that Lucas has abandoned his Methodist upbringing and embraced a pseudo-Buddhist Universalist personal-style faith, I don't see that he purposely positioned the Jedi as an attack against organized religion. I think he just created his own religious figures and then didn't know what to do with them except to make them vaguely dogmatic and unfeeling. Lucas was always interested more in embracing the mythic archetypes rather than making any present political or religious or social point (despite the many who have found his movies to be for or against the Bush administration, or Vietnam, or various religious doctrines). The reason I feel the church angle so strongly in my reading of the films is that I have had a relationship with the church that mirrors the mythological path that Star Wars takes from Joseph Campbell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces." The last stage of the hero's journey is Atonement with the Father, where the "ogre aspect of the father" is revealed as a projection of the son's own ego; the hero "beholds the face of the father, understands, and the two are atoned." In other words, it's not that I reject church and embrace a spirituality of my own making, but that I've seen all the flaws in a church constructed of human beings, rebelled against it, seen the same flaws in myself, and been reconciled to it. It's not that I just accept the flaws in myself or in the church; I still find them irksome. Thus I still see Star Wars as a story of rebirth, casting off the staleness, the routine, the calcification that comes from in one's spiritual life. I am not so much anti-church as I am pro-God, pro-returning to the waters of life, pro-capturing the wind that blows from the Spirit. I am pro-rejuvenation, pro-forgiveness, pro-humility and -sacrifice.

Returning to Episode III in particular, there are many things I liked and disliked. While the overall story works well, I felt there were details that could have been better. The movie seemed too frenetic, jumping here and there very quickly. This may dissipate upon repeated viewings as everything becomes more familiar, but still, one of my favorite scenes was Anakin and Padme at windows across the city from each other, silent, feeling conflicted about the future and their place in it. It was a needed breather, punctuated by a haunting East Indian score that we've not heard before in Star Wars. General Grievous seemed to add to the chaos in a way that I didn't need, and I wasn't particularly engaged by the pursuit of him. It was exciting to see so many new planets in the film, but I really wish we had spent more than a minute on Alderaan, which is destroyed in Episode IV. I think it would have added more resonance to the classic trilogy. After reading some of the deleted script pages online, I now miss several of them, particular the Senatorial opposition to Palpatine that enlarged the roles of Padme and Bail Organa.

But there were many things about it I loved as well. Obi-Wan and Anakin come across much more as brothers-in-arms in this film, and have a warmth about them that Episode II had little of. Ian McDiarmid has several juicy scenes as he seduces Anakin to the Dark Side that are played just perfectly. I enjoyed the early scenes between Anakin and Padme, which captured the tone of a deeply loving but deeply troubled relationship; I was wondering what their early infatuation would mature into. And as I mentioned up front, the last half hour was extremely moving -- Anakin's betrayal, the murder of the Jedi, the duel of Obi-Wan and Anakin, the bitter separation from Padme, Yoda's self-imposed exile, the death of the Republic, the triumph of evil. I want to quibble about minor points -- especially the last few minutes where random decisions are made, many without explanation, to ensure that everyone ends up in the right places for Episode IV. But I think the movie delivers. I still believe that the Classic Trilogy is the best of the two -- that's where the meat of the story is -- but Episodes I through III did their job: season the palate, paint the backdrop, deepen the characters, increase the resonance. I am left primed to jump into Luke's story, to yearn for that thin sliver of new hope that he offers the galaxy.

Steve's earlier reviews on:
* "Attack of the Clones"
* "The Phantom Menace"
* Waiting in Line/Anticipation
* Merchandise Mania
* Opening Night Experience
* The Unfolding Saga
* "Starwoids" & Generation X-wing

Kris Steve, Thanks for bringing me deeper into the movie as you always do so well! I read the other two reviewers and was a little dissapointed. I think they have fallen prey to the "everybody likes this so I have to intelligently dislike it" syndrome that so many critics seem to follow. (The next step in the syndrome is to find wierd movies that nobody likes and call them wonderful and deep!) I loved "Sith" I have left the original series in my distant memory so I didn't have the loose ends that you did. I found it fascinating that in a couple of lines they could pull up so many of my distant memories from the older movies. Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful review. Use the form below to give feedback on this movie, or to respond to this article. Remember, we want to hear what your opinions are, not just why other opinions are wrong. Comments will be posted within 48 hours. NAME: E-MAIL: Would you like your comments posted? Yes No Would you like to receive our monthly newsletter? Yes No

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