Episode III versus Episode V: Which is darker?

I don't think anyone thinks TPM, AOTC, ANH, or ROTJ are the darkest Star Wars film so which of ROTS and ESB is the "darkest"?

Empire seems darker emotionally while Revenge is - well - darker physically.

 

ROTS is darker in every way.



Darkness is unpleasant
/LM

 

Empire still is the darkest and the best, Nothing can beat it

 

Revenge.

Empire is not really that dark in the context of the saga, it's the first half of the resovling third act. Even ANH can be interpreted as darker than ESB.

And before this derails into another ESB chest-beating contest:

"darker" does not necessarily equal "better".

 

Though ESB is not my favorite, it is the best. And IMHO the darkest of the bunch. No stupid attempts at humor with those ***inine battle droids. UGGHH they were worse IMHO then Jar-Jar Binks. At least ESB had a more constant line tension to it.

 

Nothing in all of the saga compares to Empire. The whole movie has this looming threat hanging over it. If your watching it for the first time you dont realy know what it is but you know its there. Not to mention Luke meets Yoda for the first time. And everything on Bespin is priceless.

 

I like how The Empire Strikes First evokes an image of gray, dreary, cold, harsh, graininess, and gloominess. The context of the film is dark and brooding, as well. The end makes the viewer feel hopeless.

The task of defeating both the seemingly indomitable Darth Vader and Emperor seem impossible, Han is sealed in a slab of carbonite, the Empire has gained the upper hand and the Rebellion is on the run.

Revenge of the Sith, on the other hand, is brimming with just as much angst and emotion. Anakin poignantly does what he sees as for the best interest of his lover and the galaxy by wiping out the Jedi Order.

It evokes infernal and destructive images as the entire Republic cracks and breaks at the seams. The whole galaxy is subjected to the evil tyranny of Palpatine. His devious smirk pervades the film.

They both are dark. Very dark.

<[-]> Saber

 

ROTS is darker in the scope of everyone involved. Even the greatest in the galaxy (Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin, Mace, etc.) fail. Completely. This is the film in which the free republic plunges into "the dark times"...into the Empire. All of the noble Jedi are slaughtered like the Five Families, even the children, and the death of Padme (esp. her funeral, of course) is heartbreaking. (The only way one could be turned off in that scene is by way of the terrible extras that played her emotionally apathetic parents.)

It is just that the film is more vibrant in color and action than ESB (though not in all the acting). ESB is a very tense film, where we wonder if Luke will truly overcome his temptations or will succumb to them, as Anakin did.

By the way, how exactly can one argue that ANH could be darker than ESB? I'm not seeing that one.

 

I believe that Episode 3 is darker:

It is based on the fall of Anakin and how he becomes the heartless Sith Lord he is portrayed by in the OT. It is about the end of an era where the government has become corrupt

"This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crush a thousand years of peace."
-- Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, a novel

After all it's a story about betrayal of the jedi and how anger and hatred lead to the death of thousands. It is where everything comes crashing down...

Not only is is phyically darker it's emotionally darker and the mood is too. Just the look on Anakin's face as he fights Obi-Wan and when the little kids are hiding in the council room and Anakin ignites his lightsaber the mood portrayed there is evil

 

I think ESB might be a little darker in terms of tone and mood. It probably possesses the greatest tension out of all six films. But ROTS is much, much darker in terms of story. It's the point in the SW Saga where everything goes straight to Hell (or Mustafar, if you will!).
Special mention should also be made of AOTC. It's neither as tense as ESB, nor as tragic as ROTS, but it's got this wonderful sense of nervousness and uncertainty about it.

 

you beat me to it Darth_Pazuzu

It depends on point of view. Empire Strikes Back is darker for the audience, Revenge of the Sith is darker for the characters.

I think the mood also greatly depends on the level you identify with the characters. That makes Empire Strikes Back darker to me.

 

I agree, i_dont_know. For those who feel more of a connection to the charachters in the OT, ESB is darker because the charachters you care about most are miserable. However, I indentify more with the charachters in the PT, so it's the opposite for me.

 

Episode V is dark in an 'ominious' but more subtle way (with the exception of the end and beginning), Episode III is dark at the second half of the film in a more apparent and 'tragic event(s)' way.

 

Revenge of the Sith by far

Younglings being killed is enough right there

 

How is Episode V dark ????

Give me a list...

S-3

 

There was the attempt at humor with 3PO and his paranoid ramblings... I, for one, was thankful that he was switched off.

 

let's start with the settings ...

Hoth -- a dead, lifeless wasteland

Dagobagh -- dark, gloomy and depressing

Bespin -- parallels Luke -- beautiful city in the clouds, but like Luke's destiny could be as the Emporer's apprentice, Bespin's bowels are a metaphorical hell (the carbon freezing chamber)

 

Well I would say ESB because great lighted sets were not as sophisticated as today.

Seriously, I think it would be ROTS.

 

I guess it all comes down to how you define "dark"...

 

Definitely ROTS. Most of the heros are dead or seemingly useless and the bad guys win.

 

Nothing compares to ROTS in Darkness, from the time Dooku losses his head to when we see Vader and Palpatine looking over the Daeth Star.

When you watch it you don't get the fuzzy feeling of the good guys as you do when you watch the other 5 films, because besides Yoda and Obi-Wan ther all dead.

Another reason is because it is the end of the Jedi and the republic.

 

ROTS isn't dark until Mace vs. Sidious. Then the rest of the movie is quite a downward spiral of darkness. Order 66, March on the Jedi Temple, Birth of the Empire, Battle of the Heroes and Immolation. The beginning to that point is just a little more than AOTC.

ESB on the other hand has the Rebels escaping Hoth. Luke's training, though mystical does tap into the dark side of the Force. Dagobah is also a brooding environment. Then you have the whole trap and revelation at the end.

It's a toss up. ESB is still dark 25 years later. Can ROTS hold it's weight in 2030. If so, then I'll give it the upper hand. Both are definitely PG-13 material.

 

Not that it's the mark of a film's quality or not, but I'd say Revenge is much darker.

The only equivalent would be if ESB ended with the Rebel Alliance destroyed, Leia and Chewie dead, Luke gone to the Dark Side, and Han & Lando forced to go into hiding with Yoda

ESB's quality is much more than just the fact it's fairly dark. Some hold on to that aspect as the reason why it's better than ANH and ROTJ, in the old Classic Trilogy arguments, but the 'darkness' was never a paramount reason to me as to why ESB is an excellent film. It's certainly welcome, but there are other things to recommend about it as well.

 

This is a good point. However, we can try to take some distance and see it in a more "objective" point of view. Indeed, dark or not is not a question of how we appreciate the movies.

This joins my opinion. Because of all the deads, because of the turning of the main hero, because of the downfall of the republic into an evil empire, ROTS is a far darker movie than ESB.

Note than both end with a hope note, even stronger for ROTS (listen to the music at the end credits : it's the victory ceremony of ANH !). It is precisely because it is darker that the final hope message needs to be stronger !

 

I think ESB might be a little darker in terms of tone and mood. It probably possesses the greatest tension out of all six films.

I agree with this completely. Although I feel that "Revenge of the Sith" is a "darker" film overall (I will address that shortly), "The Empire Strikes Back" remains arguably the moodiest and most ominous picture in the six-film cycle. Irvin Kershner?s 1980 space opera opens with a torrent of action, like all of the films, but is nearly unrelenting in its successive layering of set pieces, all of which facilitate the gradually unfurling narrative; the intensity of the incidental material which occurs within Kershner?s filmic canvas serves as a means to cultivate a more resonant dynamic between the central characters. That sense of brooding is more or less maintained throughout the entire picture, and given depth by Luke?s discoveries on Dagobah ? "Empire" explores the underpinnings of the "Star Wars" mythology, and makes some rather dark discoveries which lend the saga an operatic quality that consequently expands its parameters beyond the more traditional "Saturday-matinee" trappings. Kershner does an excellent job of negotiating the more immediate threat imposed upon the occupants of the Millennium Falcon, with the parallel story arc which concerns Luke and Yoda on Dagobah; the two plot strands are tonally opposed in some respects, but Kershner manipulates the disparate qualities in a larger fashion, giving them a cohesion which ultimately feeds into brooding that is woven into the picture?s fabric. Therefore, once the director allows the two primary plot arcs (involving our heroes) to converge, there isn?t any narrative, character, or tonal disunity within the movie itself.

But ROTS is much, much darker in terms of story. It's the point in the SW Saga where everything goes straight to Hell (or Mustafar, if you will!).

Following the obligatory action sequence which opens ?Sith,? and Palpatine begins to lure Anakin with his honey-tipped, but poisonous, words, the movie begins to descend into a realm that is coated with tragic implications for all of the film?s central figures. Lucas purposely invokes "The Tragedy of Faust" (with Anakin positioned squarely as the tragic title figure, whilst Palpatine [brilliantly played by Ian McDiarmid] is the insinuating figure of Mephistopheles, speaking eloquently of the gift of eternal life), something which gives his film the sort of operatic grandeur that Kershner was able to achieve in the aforementioned "Empire." "Revenge of the Sith" is the culmination of the expository material that was woven throughout the previous two prequels; specifically, as it pertains to the topic at hand, it is the final component which details Anakin?s fall to the Dark Side. The theme of attachment and possession, introduced in "The Phantom Menace," and then developed in a more immediate sense in the subsequent installment, "Attack of the Clones," is now given a particular context once positioned within the Faustian entreaty offered by Palpatine, a supposed conjurer of metaphysical alchemy. Haunted by dreams of his wife?s death, Anakin recalls the manner in which similar visions of his mother?s suffering turned out to be prophetic; mired in uncertainty and confusion, Anakin submits himself to Palpatine, thus trading away his soul with the tainted prospect of being able to acquire the knowledge to control matters of life and death. With this one action, Anakin has alienated himself politically from the Jedi Order, and the repugnant activities in which he partakes also cause him to become divorced from deeper aspects of his person ? his capacity for good is buried beneath his growing immersion in the increasingly horrific nature of his deeds. It is therefore very appropriate that the film?s climactic showdown occurs against the Stygian backdrop of Mustafar, a world that is a fittingly emblematic extension of the Faustian arc that is built into the picture?s narrative.

In a sense, by enlisting Anakin to help purge the Jedi, Palpatine/Sidious