‘Revenge of the Sith’ Turns 20: Looking Back at George Lucas’s Last Star Wars Movie

Every saga has a beginning, so said the promotional material for ‘The Phantom Menace’ back in 1999, when, after a sixteen year absence, George Lucas returned to the Star Wars galaxy to make a new trilogy of movies which told the origin of Anakin Skywalker, from his childhood on Tatooine to his eventual fall to the Dark Side and rebirth as Darth Vader.

With ‘Revenge of the Sith’ in 2005, Lucas brought that saga full circle, and provided a complete story of the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, as he met his demise at the hands of his old master, and became the Sith Lord who would terrorize the galaxy for decades until he was saved by his son Luke.

It’s incredible that it’s now been twenty years since the prequels ended, being the last live-action project for ten years, until Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm brought in a series of new movies, beginning with ‘The Force Awakens’.

This movie was the last time we ever saw George Lucas have full control over a project. He would have some input on later projects, like ‘The Clone Wars’, as executive producer, tweaking stories and keeping the lore in line, but the actual creative efforts would be handed over to people like Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy, who developed a new era of Star Wars. But with Episode III, you see Lucas bringing an end to the story he started way back in 1977.

For better or worse, this is “The Maker’s” vision of what a galaxy far, far away should look and feel like. There have been hundreds of articles written about how the prequels failed, and thousands, maybe even millions, of hours spent on YouTube videos taking them apart, so there’s no need to go over them again line by line. It’s true that the movies had their faults, but with ‘Revenge of the Sith’ it felt like things were on a more solid foundation. Maybe it was that after two movies, Lucas had found his form again, but for certain this was a more focused movie, a much more dark and serious entry in the franchise. There are far fewer jokes, and certainly no scenes of outright comedy. Even Jar Jar Binks is relegated to just a single line of dialogue.

It’s not perfect by any means. It still suffers from problems with its pacing, and the ever present scratchy dialogue. There’s also the fact that Padme is almost sidelined after her importance in the previous two movies, and seeing the deleted scenes that involved her laying the foundations for what would one day become the Rebel Alliance should have been included. But even so, of the three movies, this is the one that’s aged the best.

Even before the later Star Wars movies had a worse reception, allowing for relativism and nostalgia to do their work on the prequels, it seems that ‘ROTS’ had a privileged place among the trilogy, with its darker tone and tighter script.

Indeed, it seems that Lucas had taken hints from the reception of the previous two movies and reverted back to a script that’s closer to ‘A New Hope’. Right away the movie opens into action, with the massive Battle of Coruscant, the largest space battle shown in the franchise up to that point, as the Separatists attack the center of the Republic. From that point on, there’s not much time to breath, as there’s always something going on, whether it’s Obi Wan Kenobi fighting the cyborg General Grievous, or the devastating images of Order 66. The talk is cut down, and focuses more on Anakin and Palpatine, as the secret Sith lord works away at the Jedi, pulling him over to the Dark Side, before it all culminates in the longest lightsaber duel ever committed to the screen.

‘Revenge of the Sith’ left a big mark on the franchise. Not only did it bring Anakin’s story full circle, but it provided the base for many of the shows that followed. Shows like the animated ‘The Clone Wars’, set between this movie and Episode II, which showed the conflict in more detail, and led to spin-offs like ‘The Bad Batch’.

This was the first real attempt to bring Star Wars to television. There had been a few things in the ’80s with the Ewok movies and a couple of animated shows, but this was the first series that really tied in with the movies and kept the continuity while expanding greatly on the lore.

Over its seven-season run, ‘The Clone Wars’ introduced characters like Cad Bane, Bo-Katan, and of course, Ahsoka Tano, who’ve now crossed over into live-action and become central to the franchise, leading shows and driving their own stories.

The other big contribution from Episode III was Order 66, Palpatine’s final plan to wipe out all of the Jedi by turning the clone army against them. It’s a tragic scene in the movie, as we’re shown a montage of Jedi being cut down all across the galaxy, as the troops who once supported them now gun them down, and is only made more brutal by ‘The Clone Wars’, which showed the relationship many of the Jedi had with their soldiers.

It finally provides an explanation for how Palpatine wiped out so many Jedi, and it leaves a lasting impact on the galaxy. Decades later, it still hasn’t recovered from the loss, despite the efforts of Luke SKywalker, and it’s unlikely it ever will. Despite their faults, the Jedi were still a force for good, and in their absence, many parts of the galaxy lose the only source of hope and moral good that they have, as criminals and warlords fill the vacuum left by them.

As we’ve seen in recent stories, Order 66 wasn’t as total as first thought. In ‘ROTS’ it appears that Obi Wan and Yoda are the only two Jedi to survive, but since then, dozens have been revealed to have escaped the onslaught and gone into hiding, or else turned their talents against the Empire.

Twenty years on from the movie’s release, ‘Revenge of the Sith’ still continues to have a huge impact on a galaxy far, far away, and it’s only likely to increase. As these movies age, the nostalgia for the prequel trilogy will continue to grow. Not only is this the movie that ends the story of Anakin Skywalker, it’s also the last Star Wars project to have total input from George Lucas, and also the last movie directed by the legend of cinema. For all these reasons, it deserves to be regarded as a classic installment in the greatest cinematic franchise ever made.