George Lucas redeemed the “Star Wars” franchise with ‘Sith’. The movie features an intriguing expository bulge topped and tailed by two swashbuckling action suites. There are a number of spine-tingling moments, such as Yoda battling Sidious, Anakin’s final, inexorable turn to the Dark Side, and Vader’s birth. The writing, acting, and directing is all a notch better than the first two prequel trilogy films. In many ways this is very much the movie I longed to see back in 1983, daydreaming of the pre-IV past.

In accomplishing this, Lucas left all the interesting ideas from Episodes I and II unresolved. My hope for “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack Of The Clones” was that the questions they raised would be answered in “Revenge Of The Sith”, retroactively improving them. In the event: no. Among the bigger threads, Qui-Gon Jinn’s death, Anakin’s creation by the Midichlorians, the Jedi prophecy, and the original agents behind the creation of the Clone Army go almost entirely unexplained. In a bittersweet irony, with this film Lucas muddles the entire prequel trilogy even as he finally arrives nearest to the tone and pacing of the originals.

After three more viewings...

Four viewings of this film have not inspired me to add anything to the capsule review I wrote above. Perhaps it’s because this is the last episode of “Star Wars”, or maybe, like the inevitability of Anakin’s downfall, there is no need to add anything. Whatever the reason, “Revenge of The Sith” resists heavy commentary. The depth of my analyses of the first two prequel episodes owed something to the flawed nature of the films. Digging and sifting beneath their flat, glossy, lifeless surfaces seemed to be the only way to get at whatever good Lucas had squeezed into them. Surely there were hidden treasures.

Turns out there was nothing but surface. “Revenge Of The Sith” finishes off the series in high style and searing emotion—but it’s also a final, unflattering verdict on the whole prequel trilogy. George Lucas made one decent film and two others that are more machine than human. If it can be said that “Revenge Of The Sith” is as good as “Return Of The Jedi”, and at times approaches the quality of “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strikes Back”, it’s only because, at last, our expectations are properly set. We can view all six of these films as the sporadically brilliant work of an ordinary filmmaker. Clearing the path for Spielberg and Cameron, Lucas benefitted from special effects technologies that were way ahead of everyone else. But whereas Spielberg and Cameron have a genuine feel for cinema, Lucas is either undertalented, cash-complacent, or so avant-garde he’s only capable of noisy abstractions.

In any case, now that a panoptic perspective on the series is possible, there is the simultaneous disappointment that these are not, as so many have claimed, sublime examples of modern mythology, but are instead a sextet smudged with the fingerprints of mortal craftsmen. No shame in that: the “Star Wars” saga remains a visually unique achievement that has successfully brought an entire fictional world to life. Lucas deserves reverence for his accomplishments. Millions love his films. I am, and remain, one of them. That said, whatever it was the prequels promised is now officially gone—and probably never existed in the first place.

The “Star Wars” Films: Ranking The Saga

1. Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
2. Episode IV: A New Hope
3. Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith
4. Episode IV: Return Of The Jedi
5. Episode I: The Phantom Menace
6. Episode II: Attack Of The Clones

A final question: would any of these films be loved as they are if Lucas had directed “The Empire Strikes Back”? The black sheep of the bunch, ‘Empire’ pushed the whole series into an emotional and dramatic depth the other entries never really approached on their own. Uncoincidentally, although it’s very much his film, it was the chapter with which Lucas was least involved as a filmmaker. Minus ‘Empire’, the other movies lose almost all their dramatic weight. They instead look like popcorn movies artificially rigged-up to carry faux-operatic heft. Does George Lucas bask in the glory of praise that should rightly be limited only to director Irvin Kirshner and his screenwriters? If Episode V had been a dud, would audiences care at all about the saga of the Skywalkers? Such questions are now as useless to ask as they are unfulfilling to answer.