PT Revenge of the Sith 15th Anniversary Celebration

Huh, cool--I suppose if there was any time to be a projectionist, it might as well have been the seventies!

It might've been mentioned, but one amusing legacy of ROTS is Backstroke of the West. We all know the 'do not want' meme, but by sheer irony and happenstance, there's a couple of lines that work better than their originals--like Kenobi exclaiming 'This is your masterpiece!' to Anakin during their duel.

And, for actual official works, the Stover novel is great stuff. Lots of hard-hitting stuff in there.

 

Backstroke of the West is amazing. You’re right, some of the dialogue is actually better than the original. My favorite is when Anakin screams “I will ruin you!” instead of “I hate you!”

my favorite funny line is probably “the geography that I stands compares you superior.”

 

What tickles me is Anakin/Palpatine's obsession with being 'strong and big'. To the point where the former's motivation appears to be becoming absolutely hulked-out and Herculean.

 

My fave from that is probably Greivous being reduced to the purely basic 'Space General', like he's been consumed wholly by the archetype :

 

For me the wait between Ep II and III was frustrating. I knew what was coming storywise and could not wait to see how Lucas portrayed it. I remember sitting in the theater and barely taking my eyes off the screen. I just couldn't look away and yes, I did cry. The whole story of this tragedy cut straight to the heart and made me wish the ending would have been different.

Even with the heartbreaking ending, if I want to get a quick SW fix, this is my go to movie. I love the opening battle and Anakin and Obi Wan's banter. The reflection between Padme and Anakin while Anakin makes his choice was beautiful accompanied by Williams' soundtrack.

 

Reviving this thread as I've been feeling the nostalgia for the ROTS hype back in the day. Looking through the covers of these Insider issues, really would love to make a time machine to go back to the ROTS lead up hype.

 

Uh, I hate to say it, but all of those images are giving me blank links, sorry :/

 

How about now? @darkspine10

 

All perfect, wonderful

 

It's like you described myself, both in the upcoming anticipation (the very reason I first joined this site is cos I needed an outlet for my excitement during the lead-up to ROTS), and while sitting in the theater as I was about to see it for the first time.

In fact, I am in the middle of watching ROTS-just ROTS-right now, as I was feeling a bit of SW, and that is my go-to.

 

Happy Anniversary "Revenge of the Sith"!! When I first saw this film, I spent nearly 5-10 minutes crying while the end credits rolled. Very emotional ending for me.

 

I remember being both excited and nervous and dreading the final fight between Anakin and Obi Wan,cause I knew it wasn't ending well for little Ani.

 

Oh, the hype for RoTS was big in my country. Everything was SW then even the lifestyle FEMALE magazines which was almost unthinkable till then (and I'll say it again, PT attracted more female audience than ST not making any marketing in this aspect. It did it as the female vibe in the movies is strong, they didn't need feminist like marketing to do that).
Anyway, while I'm not from PT generation it was the prequel trilogy that made me a fan of the Saga. For various reasons ROTS was the first SW movie that I saw in theaters. While AOTC would be my all time favorite SW movie, ROTS is undoubtedly Lucas Opus Magnum: spectacular, fantastic and tragic. John Williams outdid himself in the soundtrack. Just amazing. I could talk hours about how great movie is ROTS so I won't discuss here the content, just my experience in the theater. The hype was so big that even when I went to see the movie (it wasn't on the premiere week!!!) there was no tickets left but for the last screening for the day (in 22h) only in the first row. Can you imagine that?! I went with a friend and we sat on the first row and the experience was almost 3D, although there was not 3D at that time: as between the first row and the screen there is nothing and we were in the movie. It cannot be described in simple words. When the battle of Mustafar began all people in the first row subconsciously lifted their legs: including me as the feeling of the lava spilling around was almost surreal. Exceptional effects and overwhelming experience for me.
While I knew that the tragedy was about to come, various times during the movie I said to myself: please Anakin, don't do that. It is the effect of the emotional impact that this movie had on me.

 

Anakin becoming Vader and the Jedi being massacred is the stuff of Star Wars legend and my head was spinning I'd actually see this play out, and just hoped everything would meet the expectations I had in my head. And it did.

 

Something that also really gives me the nostalgia for ROTS (which is still one of my favorite Star Wars movies and has been climbing up my rankings again) is the large push from Lucasarts to go all in with the hype. Can't be stressed enough how big 2005 was for Star Wars gaming and specifically for this thread all the games were helping the buildup for ROTS. The first big Star Wars game I remember seeing trailers for was Republic Commando with this killer teaser that I watched hundreds of times as a kid, via the Clone Wars micro series DVD.



Then you had the surprise hit of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game, which basically started a massive video game series based on the popular toy.

Right before release of ROTS, Lucasarts came out with the movie tie in game for it, with exclusive footage from the film itself. It must be remembered that there was nothing like Youtube to spoil everything back then, so this was considered a big deal for Star Wars fans. To the game's credit it ended up being pretty decent, better than most movie licensed games for certain.



Then we have perhaps one of the most beloved Star Wars games ever, Battlefront II. One of the most hyped games of 2005, with one of the key selling points of game being now you can play in the locations from ROTS such Mustafar or Utapau. I distinctly remember as a kid seeing Blockbuster having large posters of the excellent cover art in the stores.




As a gamer my hype was strong in 2005 with the release of ROTS, as we got several great games both in the leadup and aftermath of the film release. As a kid there's nothing cooler than reenacting the Battle of Coruscant in Battlefront II or defeating General Grievous as Obi-Wan in the ROTS game, especially someone like me who loved ROTS more than any other Star Wars film at the time.

 

I don’t think I have ever quite had a film going experience like I did for ROTS. It’s was just a confluence of so many elements I’m my life at once. And in a lot of ways the prequels marked some major transitions in my life.

I had been a SW fanboy since the re release in 1997. Then TPM came out at the end of 6th grade, which for me was my first year at “middle” school. The first year when the town would combine the two separate regions into one large class that you traveled throughout highschool with. It was intimidating. I had my friends but not many. I was a geek who was isolated from other geeks for the most part. I ended up bringing my best friend who was not much of a SW fan to TPM.

By the time of AOTC I was finishing my first year in highschool and went with the two best SW geeks I acquired since the last film. I bought the Obi-Wan lightsaber and would have fights in my buddies yard who had Dooku’s. The buildup for AOTC felt long to me, I marked off the last 100 days on a big poster I made and printed out with the days remaining until episode II was released. I rewatched this VHS copy of the trailer I recorded which aired on fox after the X Files over and over again,I loved it, and I loved the movie. I saw it 5 times which at that time for me was a record.

Episode III snuck up on me in a good way. It was Senior year and between graduation and prom and everything else that comes with it the final Star Wars movie ever (or so we thought) was coming out. Early May it hit me - no more highscool, no more Star Wars films, no more being a kid. Opening day me and everyone else we were going to see ROTS with, all 10 of us, brought our lightsabers to school- I again had Obi Wan’s. We fought during lunch in the parking lot, blasting Battle of the Heroes and Duel of the Fates from a car. As soon as school was out at 2:15 we all met at the local supermarket to carpool down to route 3 movie theater in Clifton, about 45 mins away. I made sure to see Sith in the best damn theater possible.

When we all got there we were second on line, only 1 guy in a lawn chair in front of us.
God that wait was long, we ate 1$ hot dogs the theater was selling for Star Wars fans and dueled some more, taking on other groups. Someone brought a small tv and played Clones, after that we played Shadow of the Empire on N64. A steady stream of people kept showing up as the line began to stretch around the corner of the theater. By nightfall the line wrapped all the way around the building to where it was doubling up past our group. Literally every single theater in Clifton Commons, all 16 of them, was playing Sith at midnight. The crowd was electric.

Since we were in the first theater group on line we went in first, to the nicest theater in the building, at around 9:45. I was so excited I started running once I got in the theater, the 1 guy in front of me threw a stiff arm so I couldn’t pass. He saved 12 seats in the front row where you can extend your feet on the railing, my row. I argued with him that it was bull****, that he can’t save a whole row with one person. My party was here, present, and deserved the row. The guy wouldn’t budge, he said he waited 25 years for this and and that was that. By that time many others were flooding into the theater so I had to make due and quickly grabbed spots.

The theater did trivia and gave out some prizes, of course I knew every answer but was not called on. It didn’t matter. It was starting soon. Trailers came on which I could care less about, far too many actually. And then.. the familiar music, the 20th Century Fox fanfare, the Lucasfilm logo, A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

I’m not gonna give my review. I’ll just say it was an experience unlike any other. And every other of the 9 times I saw it that summer I always had that same feeling: exuberance at the opening, followed by dread through the middle acts, that then led to heartbreak and despair, with a little hint of hope at the end.

I’m pretty damn sure I will never have an equivalent experience. I’m ok with that.

 

crazy that by 2025 this movie will be 20 years old

 

Great experience. You were the same age as me and had exams and stuff too! very cool!

I too remember the trailers before the movie annoying the **** out of me because I was so nervous and needed to see that movie so bad!

 

AOTC will turn 20 year old in 2022 very soon i hope we see more of this type of threads in the future the nostalgia is strong in this franchise

 

Soon these movies will be old enough to drink.

 

Star Wars Dark Side M&Ms got me into dark chocolate M&Ms and I have never gone back to "Light Side" milk chocolate M&Ms ever since. Strangely I dont like any other kinds of dark chocolate. I also liked the lava pop tarts. I dont remember the flavor the lava pop tarts were supposed to be, I will have to try to find out.

 

Damn. I want to try those Pop Tarts, but ya know, 15 year old Pop Tarts sounds scary

I remember lightsaber spoons were in several Kellogg's cereal brands. They repeated the gimmick in 2008 for Indiana Jones 4.

 

I remember being very fond of this mixed vanilla and chocolate ice cream in a cup they sold related to Crystal Skull, they came with little figures of the characters too Only ever had those summer 2008, while staying in the Ardeche in France. Never had any ice cream I liked since

 

Yeah I can feel that, it also helped that--as far as most knew at the time--this was it, this was the last Star Wars movie. Oh sure some vaguely knew there'd be spinoffs after this, maybe some guessed that at some far-off distant future date we'd see more on the big screen, but I do recall a feeling of 'well, this is it, time to savor things'.

And that final shot leaving on the twin suns was indeed just right for those sort of emotions.

 

The lead up to ROTS was amazing but also bittersweet because it was supposed to be the last Star Wars movie (and in a sense, it was, that is, the last work from the "Maker"). I remember at the time the movie was received much more positively than the predecessors, and was even the best reviews SW installment since 1977. Certainly it did well at the box office and later on the home video. However, the general public moved on to something else but the haters remained and controlled the "Prequels suck" narrative until the ST and the millennium generation coming of age. With that said, outside of the US it seems to be number one SW movie for many people (or at least, in top 3) and remains unique compared to other blockbusters and even the subsequent SW movies.