'Revenge of the Sith' Explains the Enduring Power of 'Star Wars'

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Star Wars isn’t just one of the biggest franchises of all time. It’s the bleakest. For nearly 50 years, much of the interstellar mythology has revolved around ominous imperial forces overtaking a democratic Republic, an evil empire that devours whole planets and enslaves every race in the galaxy, not to mention plenty of seemingly righteous soldiers lured by the Dark Side. After the initial trilogy established the main backdrop, many of the ensuing installments fleshed out a timeline informed by eerie inevitability. We often know how many of these battles will end, and that they don’t end well.

However, the shadowy intrigue of Star Wars reached its apex two decades ago with Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, in which the tragic circumstances of the earliest movies come to fruition in spectacular fashion. It’s here that the once-promising Jedi Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) finally falls prey to the Sith Lord and becomes Darth Vader, as the Empire overtakes Galactic forces and sends the rebellion into hiding. From the opening scrawl of 1977’s Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, it was always clear that these circumstances wouldn’t end well, but it’s still shocking to watch them get there.

With its rapid-fire lightsaber battles and force powers galore, Revenge of the Sith delivers on the fantastical ingredients that turned its mythology into such a ubiquitous pop culture staple. At the same time, it underscores these elements with a gut-punch about the fragility of democratic ideals. After Disney acquired Star Wars in 2012, its later installments brightened up, but the first two trilogies stand apart from that due to the singular vision of George Lucas.

Revenge of the Sith was the last movie Lucas directed in a career that began with a very different dystopian undertaking, the slick Orwellian escape story THX 1138. From that early starting point, Lucas demonstrated a trenchant preoccupation with the pratfalls of oligarchical oversight. With his prequel trilogy, he shows how that happens. Fans were divided on these entries as they blended cartoonish swings with dense exposition (especially the tariff war at the center of The Phantom Menace, which now looks downright prescient). Yet Revenge of the Sith outdoes the other entries because, around the 70-minute mark, Lucas unleashes a dizzying spiral of societal collapse.

The Emperor’s disturbing “Order 66” – which he claims is because the Jedis themselves have gone corrupt – leads to a mass execution of virtually every heroic character in the universe. The Emperor weaponizes fear and consolidates power so quickly that even the wisest of the Jedi must scramble to keep up the chaos. It’s a remarkable cautionary tale clothed in spectacle, a brainy blockbuster designed to unsettle audiences and reexamine the stakes that come next.

In 2005, I emerged from Revenge of the Sith in a daze, jolted into the realization it was always going to end this way. There was a certain irony to watching the first appearance of Darth Vader in all his asthmatic glory as hordes of audiences cheered him on. Lucas’ ability to play to the crowd, while forcing them to question that very response, ranks among the most transgressive achievements in Hollywood history. This movie goes hard. Yoda (voiced as always by Frank Oz) isn’t a cute or quirky puppet, but a ferocious warrior whose small size means he catches his foes off guard, much like Revenge of the Sith itself.

Revisiting A New Hope later that day, I understood the stakes of the battle – and the pervasive futility of life under empirical control. Lucas had imbued every facet of his imaginative world-building with a cohesive indictment of militant extremes. From the images of Stormtroopers walking in lockstep to the fascist prattle of the Empire’s backroom strategy sessions, his entries in the Star Wars universe take big ideological swings that endow them with lasting resonance.

“All of Star Wars is reasonably political,” he said in the Revenge of the Sith director's commentary. “One of the issues in all of this is that the bad guys think they’re good. … There’s a certain inevitability of it all, and a sadness to it.”

It might be better to put it in different terms that don’t contain such depressing implications, but Revenge of the Sith deserves better. The Lucas era of Star Wars has soul. That’s what galvanized generations of fans more than anything else: For all the groundbreaking technological wizardry of Industrial Light and Magic, nothing in Star Wars matters more than the high stakes. Things don’t exactly end badly with Revenge of the Sith so much as they set the stage for a war worth fighting even if so many of its soldiers have already lost.

In more recent years, the substance of Star Wars has returned to the franchise thanks to Tony Gilroy’s riveting rebellion backstory Andor, which just launched its concluding season on Disney+ this week. Star Wars fans already know that the moody resistance fighter played by Diego Luna in this masterful series is barreling toward the grim fate shown in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but it’s nevertheless a profound and gripping process to watch him and his cohorts prepare for battle. Revenge of the Sith sets the stage for those efforts.

Last week in Tokyo, the annual Star Wars Celebration convention included news that Hayden Christensen would return as Vader in the upcoming season of Ahsoka. Twenty years down the line, Revenge of the Sith continues to influence the future trajectory of the franchise. Most audiences know that things work out in the end, but time and again, they’re compelled to revisit the darkness, and consider what it’s trying to say.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith screens April 24-30 at the Southampton Playhouse. Tickets are available here.