STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005)

Sometimes I think I could restrict my blog's focus solely to the two main pillars of my pop culture passions, STAR TREK and STAR WARS, and still be able to generate enough posts for several years. But of course, with so many weird and wonderful movie music gems to spotlight in all genres I keep it to a minimum; in fact the last time I wrote about a STAR WARS soundtrack was back in 2013, specifically about THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Seeing as how there's a new STAR WARS film, ROGUE ONE, being primed for launch this month, I figured I'd celebrate this with an appropriately themed topic. And considering the frequency, or lack thereof, of my posts, this might wind up as my closing thoughts for 2016.

I wanted to write about the final installment released in the series up until Disney, the new owners of all things Lucasfilm, inaugurated a new STAR WARS era with 2015's THE FORCE AWAKENS. In 2005, REVENGE OF THE SITH, otherwise known as EPISODE III, was released as the chapter that seemingly completed the saga's circle and it delighted, surprised and moved me in ways I hadn't anticipated. Along with this, John Williams provided the movie a masterful score that I've listened to more times than I count in the ensuing decade, almost more than any other soundtrack from the series.

On the day it was released, I wound up seeing it twice - once in the early morning on my own and then again in the evening with friends. From the opening space battle to the visually poetic closing moments, I was riveted.  As a first generation fan who caught each film from the classic trilogy in the theaters, I'd found myself fascinated on many levels by the era being presented in this second trilogy, the prequels.  It was akin to watching a "period piece" of our own history, when mannerisms, dress and behaviors might differ to the present, such as Elizabethan dramas compared to present day.  Not to everyone's taste, but I was digging it.  The world-building was imaginative and immersive, diving into other cultures and corners of the fictional galaxy previously unexplored or simply unknown.  I plugged into the macro/micro level of parallel storytelling on display throughout, noting how over the course of the trilogy we witness both a democratic Republic and a compassionate Jedi Knight named Anakin Skywalker be manipulated and corrupted from the inside out, all by the same person, that being Chancellor Palpatine.  Indeed, the fateful circumstances leading to Anakin's downfall constitute the component to which I unexpectedly connected.

As I've mentioned in a previous post (see STAR TREK GENERATIONS), my father passed away without warning back in November 1994, when I was twenty-one years old.  This tragic event cleaved a solid demarcation in my personal history, between my life with and then without a father. Working through this in the years since has been a convoluted process, as the emotional and psychological ripple effects are not always evident until much later.  And sometimes these unseen effects are uncovered by unpredictable means.  And so it was when watching REVENGE OF THE SITH.  I was struck by what was portrayed onscreen, the movie unmasking for me a truth that my fear of mortality and loss, stemming from my father's death, might negatively affect choices I make in life.

Anakin, as a young adult still figuring himself out, was plagued and emotionally crippled as a result of losing his mother in an unforeseen tragedy. Of course, his character's subsequent experience followed a much more severe path (cue the "Imperial March" here), but what hooked me was that his immense sense of loss over his mother had twisted over time into a need for control and an obsessive drive to prevent suffering any further loss. This pushes him into alarming and reckless decisions which lead to not only his own spiritual and physical destruction, but also ends the life of whom he most wanted to save. Akin to enduring Greek tragedies, Anakin echoes Oedipus by unknowingly fulfilling a haunting prophecy through the determined process of seemingly holding it at bay. There are also noted similarities to Shakespeare's "Othello", where we find good and kind qualities slowly overshadowed by hubris and greed, with a dash of a superiority complex from Anakin.  This is powerful, deep stuff, not often essayed in sci-fi spectacles.  Flawed, fictional heroes may tread on the edge of extremes, yet they normally refrain from fully falling in.

It dawned on me that I'd been struggling to keep from things changing in my own life. The further that time advanced into my father's absence, I think I unconsciously endeavored to control my surroundings, maintaining routines and who I was inside, even in small ways.  It surprisingly didn't stop me relocating across states, from North Carolina to Illinois and then California, which on a surface level absolutely seems like a willingness to embrace big changes.  Yet, if I lifted a corner and peeked below that surface, I found that the major moves fostered a distance away from what might affect me emotionally. Distance actually allowed me to preserve my inner self in amber, in a way. Instead of accepting and dealing with loss, I placed myself far from what would remind me of the absence of loved ones.  (I totally understand why Anakin as Vader never visited Tatooine again.) Feeling loss and change penetrates too deep. I unknowingly led my life in directions that would safely keep me from experiencing any further loss or calamity again.  In REVENGE OF THE SITH, when Anakin speaks to Yoda of his fears of losing someone close to him, Yoda advises him how death is a natural part of life and that he should learn to let go of all he fears to lose.  While counsel from Yoda isn't exactly approved by the American Psychological Association, it held sway with me, I felt I should heed this lesson.

It's funny that I share these thoughts directly following my prior post on the TV series LOST. Deftly delivered in its denouement to its lead character is a similar sentiment, that of learning to let go. There, however, it's tied to less catastrophic choices as made by Anakin in SITH and expressed more as an integral, necessary component for successfully transitioning beyond corporeal existence.  In LOST, Jack Shephard needed to learn to let go in order to forgive himself and grant his soul a sense of completion and peace.  In SITH, Anakin never learned to let go of his fear of loss and instead was seduced down a dark, calamitous path.  At a high cost, he'd been promised a power to prevent the deaths of those he loved and by extension, prevent himself from ever experiencing their eventual absence from his life. This revelation in Anakin's journey astounded me.  Never in my fan's eye view of what triggered the transformation of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader would I have imagined something so human and so vulnerable, almost uncomfortably so.  It endeared his character to my adult self, living on the other side of my father's passing.  In the life I lived that included both my father and STAR WARS, I most connected to Luke Skywalker.  Later, in the life without him, I seem most in tune with Anakin.

Regarding the music, Williams's score is an absolute treasure trove of gems, both major and minor. Bold new themes essay the tragic duel between Anakin and Obi-wan and mechanistic menace of General Grievous. Existing material, such as the love theme from EPISODE II, is often revived in melancholic tones. With this album, there isn't any interesting story about how I grabbed it, I think it was at the Borders on State St. in downtown Chicago.  I do remember being surprised at its overall brevity, that there were some marvelous cues from the film not included on the album. And, vice versa, I was surprised at tracks heard on the album that went unused or partially used in the film, but this is all old hat for an experienced soundtrack fan.  Williams' score for REVENGE OF THE SITH charts a varied path, from rollicking, 5/4 and quarter-time action material, to choral elegies, blistering brass fanfares and a 13-minute closing track that even encompasses the Throne Room music from the original STAR WARS. As soon as it wraps up, I want to listen to it again, but then I'm worried of wearing out its effect.

Now as fans and general audiences are being introduced to new stories and characters in the STAR WARS universe, the focus has returned to its origins, that being the tenets of the classic trilogy. I'm loving what's been presented thus far and am still in giddy awe of the simple fact that Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Millennium Falcon populate the THE FORCE AWAKENS. It almost feels like a missing cinematic artifact from the 1980's catapulted through time somehow. Nevertheless, my passion for the prequels, and by extension the long-running "Clone Wars" TV series, hasn't dimmed. I realize I might be the oddball old-school fan.  To me, it's like being a fan of the original STAR TREK series along with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - same universe, different flavors. Part of me enjoys delving into the fictional historicity of it, somewhat analogous to J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Silmarillion" providing background to "The Lord of The Rings".  Another side of me ruminates on the symbolism and mythology present in the story's undercurrents.  Then there is that other part that simply relishes seeing the adventures of young Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Of it all, REVENGE OF THE SITH remains a potent distillation of everything I love about STAR WARS, while also embodying an emotional truth personally relevant to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erwnbf42EOU