samanthaig's review
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
5.0
So so so beautiful to read and see all the art!! They worked so hard on the film, it’s impressive to see!
dr_matthew_lloyd's review
4.0
There are few who would dispute that Revenge of the Sith is the best of the Star Wars prequels. Its success is perhaps in part because it presents a climax presumed by the original trilogy, even if the preceding two prequels completely failed to establish a route to that climax. Throughout The Art of Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith there are references to A New Hope, as well as ideas and locations which have been part of the Star Wars mythology for decades without being realised on film - Kashyyyk, Mustafar - and an accidental look forward to The Force Awakens on page 89, where Warren Fu is quoted as saying: "Star Wars is all about dangerous catwalks." But Revenge of the Sith is still a Star Wars prequel and is, thus, proverbially bad. There's so much still to get through that the film feels like a rush; I remember thinking back in 2005 that the film felt like a sequence of fights designed to answer variations on the question "who would win between..." - General Grievous and Obi-Wan; Mace Windu and Palpatine; Yoda and Palpatine; Obi-Wan and Anakin. To the latter, of course, we knew the answer - this time. The rematch would go quite differently. But how to get there? This film was supposed to provide the answer.
The Art of Revenge of the Sith suggests that George Lucas had no idea where he was going with the prequels. There are a few scenes and locations known, but the process seems to have been to throw an idea at the artists and see what they could make of it, then craft these ideas into a film. On page 81 there's a quote from Lucas: "By the third film you have a lot of characters left over from before, and they're all running around yipping and yelling and saying, 'What about me?'". There was no overall plan for this trilogy; he had seemingly no clue where most of these characters would be when he created them - there seems to have been a question at one point whether Padmé would even give birth. The film ends up like a series of events which seemed cool at the time - Obi-Wan rides a lizard and fights a cyborg! Yoda fights Palpatine and is friends with Chewbacca! - which ultimately fail to carry the unsatisfactory plot. This method does produce the best of the prequel trilogy, but that bar was low and the film is far from classic. But, as a method, it results in a lot of art.
In contrast to the arts of the original trilogy, The Art of Revenge of the Sith is huge, and detailed, and still needs to reduce some paintings to tiny thumbnails (despite page 165 being entirely devoted to a close-up of the floor of the Trade Federation Cruiser). There's not much description of what's going on - George Lucas asks for something, they paint it, he moves on to another idea - and because it's presented chronologically, the development of certain scenes requires looking backwards and forwards to follow to completion. There's a lot that's great, but mostly there's just a lot. It's characteristic of the prequel trilogy that digital creation reached a point where these designs didn't take as much time and money wasn't an obstacle so hundreds of them were produced. Many of them are fantastic. There's enough in here to have produced a couple more Star Wars films.
As a process, it seems wasteful and indulgent. Again, characteristic of the prequels. Rather than focusing on making a few things well it seems like the aim was to make a lot of things look cool. To be fair, this process is more successful in Revenge of the Sith than in the previous two films. Ultimately, The Art of Revenge of the Sith is overwhelming and exciting, indulgent and exasperating, filling in a universe with places and things, but without character or personality. It's good to look at, but I was hoping for much more.
The Art of Revenge of the Sith suggests that George Lucas had no idea where he was going with the prequels. There are a few scenes and locations known, but the process seems to have been to throw an idea at the artists and see what they could make of it, then craft these ideas into a film. On page 81 there's a quote from Lucas: "By the third film you have a lot of characters left over from before, and they're all running around yipping and yelling and saying, 'What about me?'". There was no overall plan for this trilogy; he had seemingly no clue where most of these characters would be when he created them - there seems to have been a question at one point whether Padmé would even give birth. The film ends up like a series of events which seemed cool at the time - Obi-Wan rides a lizard and fights a cyborg! Yoda fights Palpatine and is friends with Chewbacca! - which ultimately fail to carry the unsatisfactory plot. This method does produce the best of the prequel trilogy, but that bar was low and the film is far from classic. But, as a method, it results in a lot of art.
In contrast to the arts of the original trilogy, The Art of Revenge of the Sith is huge, and detailed, and still needs to reduce some paintings to tiny thumbnails (despite page 165 being entirely devoted to a close-up of the floor of the Trade Federation Cruiser). There's not much description of what's going on - George Lucas asks for something, they paint it, he moves on to another idea - and because it's presented chronologically, the development of certain scenes requires looking backwards and forwards to follow to completion. There's a lot that's great, but mostly there's just a lot. It's characteristic of the prequel trilogy that digital creation reached a point where these designs didn't take as much time and money wasn't an obstacle so hundreds of them were produced. Many of them are fantastic. There's enough in here to have produced a couple more Star Wars films.
As a process, it seems wasteful and indulgent. Again, characteristic of the prequels. Rather than focusing on making a few things well it seems like the aim was to make a lot of things look cool. To be fair, this process is more successful in Revenge of the Sith than in the previous two films. Ultimately, The Art of Revenge of the Sith is overwhelming and exciting, indulgent and exasperating, filling in a universe with places and things, but without character or personality. It's good to look at, but I was hoping for much more.
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