YMMV / Revenge of the Sith

• Accidental Aesop: Many fans make the joke that one of the messages of the movie is the importance of getting proper sleep, making the observation/joke that the entire plot of the movie only happened because Anakin was sleep deprived due to his nightmares. This aesop is even emphasized in some of the film's various novelizations. This is of course also something of a Space Whale Aesop: If you don't get eight hours of sleep, you won't make good decisions, the evil space wizard will win, you'll murder children and your wife, and then you will fall in lava.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Nute Gunray wasn't well liked as an antagonist in The Phantom Menace, with the questionable stereotypes doing him and the Trade Federation no favors. Still, it's hard not to feel a smidgen of sympathy as he pleads for peace and an end to the war, right before Vader brutally cuts him down.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page.
• Angst Aversion: It wasn't meant to be a secret at this point that this is where Anakin finally becomes Darth Vader, and that it's as much of a tragedy as it sounds. This being Star Wars, there's of course going to be fans who would find it hard to watch knowing what's supposed to happen.
• Award Snub: This is the only live-action Star Wars film not to win or be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. John Williams' score also wasn't nominated.
• Badass Decay:
  • Many see Padmé's role in this theatrical film as a severe let-down after the previous two films, considering she spends most of the time moping about in her residence, denying Anakin's crimes and the infamous "dying of a broken heart". To be fair to Lucas, though, a) it would have been pretty hard for her to play a very action-oriented role as she did before, considering she's heavily pregnant throughout the story (pregnancy hormones may partly explain her crying, depressed mood, etc), and b) scenes which were left on the cutting room floor showed that she tries to curtail Palpatine's power, and has a hand in the beginning of what will eventually become the Rebellion.
  • General Grievous gets this in an odd way. In Star Wars: Clone Wars he was a badass unstoppable Jedi killer. However, at the end of the series, his few remaining internal organs were severely mangled by Mace Windu, resulting in him gaining a chronic cough and seeming much weaker in the film, as he was intended to become a Fallen Hero and a precursor of sorts to Vader.
• Base-Breaking Character: Grievous is either an awesome four-lightsaber-wielding cyborg or an ineffectual wuss of a villain, with many of his detractors likening him to the Dastardly Whiplash archetype (for an example, see this YTMND). It doesn't help that he gets severe Badass Decay after the non-canon Clone Wars micro-series, where he was slaughtering Jedi left and right. His status as a Fountain of Memes does help endear him to some however.
  • People who have been watched the end of miniseries are also still liked him, then going to make an excuse how he become weak.
• Cargo Ship:
  • Obi-Wan and the High Ground.
  • General Grievous and his lightsaber collection.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars gives Dooku's death this. Yes, it's still tragic in the context of pushing Anakin to the dark side and somewhat presented as an Alas, Poor Villain moment, but after all the horrible things Dooku did throughout the series, it can feel gratifying knowing Dooku gets what he deserves.
  • It's similar with Grievous too. After watching The Clone Wars and seeing him escape capture, death, or any sort of retribution for his actions time and time again, it is quite nice indeed to finally see him get his comeuppance in this film.
  • Say what you want about Anakin, but watching him slaughter those cowardly slimy Separatist bastards is immensely satisfying. And he does it all silently while epic music plays. Unless you consider the Separatists too pitiful at that point.
  • Even if you do pity some of the Separatists, it's still undeniably satisfying to watch Wat Tambor in particular get killed after all the horrible things he pulled and got away with in The Clone Wars.
  • Palpatine's duel with Yoda. It is incredibly cathartic to see Sidious being brought down to earth and seeing him, not only manhandled (thrown away, disarmed, and electrocuted) but actually scared for his life (he clearly would have preferred not to fight Yoda), after all the monstrosities he committed, and him acting like he is invincible. Even if he "wins" the duel, he gets a rough beating by his equal in power.
  • If you dislike Anakin, or consider his crimes too monstrous to make him sympathetic, being mutilated, burnt and locked in his Darth Vader suit for the rest of his life might do the part. It helps that Vader has none of his previous arrogance from when he was Anakin after this point.
• Complete Monster: Palpatine, General Grievous and Wat Tambor. See their entries under Star Wars films here.
• Contested Sequel: Like the other two Prequel Trilogy theatrical films, though leaning more towards the positive end of the spectrum. Many fans regard the film as a Surprisingly Improved Sequel to the previous Prequel Trilogy films, although opinions are all over the place. In general, Revenge of the Sith is one of the most polarizing of all nine Star Wars films, from both ends, only behind The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Some fans love the film for its Darker and Edgier tone and multi-layered, intriguing and tragic plot. Others hate it for the craploads of narm and bad acting and dialogue and idiotic character decisions that it retains from the other two Prequels, as well as for trying so hard to make Vader into a tragic figure when many people come away thinking that Anakin was bad news all along and he had little to redeem himself (most notably killing children and his wife). Others Take a Third Option and state that while the film definitely falls short compared to the Original Trilogy and has plenty of narm to go around, it's still the best entry in the Prequel Trilogy and is fairly enjoyable in its own right.
• Critical Dissonance: It gets enough flak from the fans that its Rotten Tomatoes rating of 80% might surprise some people, especially considering this was nearly identical to Return of the Jedi's former score of 79%. The score of the latter film has since gone up, but it doesn't make much of a difference. Though for what it's worth, even the film's haters usually concede that it isn't as bad as the other two Prequels—see Surprisingly Improved Sequel below.
• Cult Classic: While it was always regarded as the best of the prequel trilogy, many fans still thought it was inferior to the original trilogy. Over the years it's gained a cult following among Gen Z-ers who view it as one of the best movies of the franchise for the strong writing, iconic heartbreaking scenes, memorable fight scenes, and Character Perception Evolution of Anakin Skywalker as a Tragic Villain.
• Designated Hero: A blunt and unusually literal example in the opening crawl. We're told that "there are heroes on both sides" of the Republic-Separatist conflict, which is a very generous interpretation of the few Separatist-aligned characters this might apply to. Its shadow leader has an entry under Complete Monster, its public face is fully complicit in every bullet point of that guy's Evil Plan (other than his own death), its general is an Ax-Crazy cyborg who (at least in canon) is also a Complete Monster, and its council of leaders is completely unsympathetic to a man. The epithet probably applies best to Dooku, but even then mostly in a Tragic Villain and Alas, Poor Villain kind of manner.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Anakin displays signs of Borderline Personality Disorder, but since his mental health is never fully explored, it’s impossible to know for sure.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Darth Plagueis proved to be a tremendously popular character without even appearing in the film, based solely on the story Palpatine tells to Anakin (which is often regarded as one of the best scenes in the entire prequel trilogy). His presence in both the Legends continuity and the Canon continuity is extremely limited, but there has been no short order of fascination with the character.
• Evil Is Cool: Palpatine/Sidious is widely held as the best aspect about the film. A number of critics claimed that he filled the hole the other Prequels had been lacking with an effective bad guy. Even the vast majority of the film's detractors will traditionally concede that he is an excellent villain. This is due to the convincingly sinister atmosphere of all of his scenes, being endlessly quotable and Ian McDiarmid clearly having the time of his life playing such a deliciously evil character.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Palpatine is often called "The Senate", after his I Am the Noun line.
  • The roaring, spinning dive Palpatine does at the start of his duel against Mace Windu became affectionately known as "the Sheev Spin" after Palpatine's first name was revealed.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: There were two scenes that many felt should have been retained. The two being "A Stirring in the Senate" and Exiled To Dagobah. Largely due to both scenes being important scenes that tied into the original trilogy, with the former scene planting the first seeds for what would grow into the Rebel Alliance (on top of fleshing out Padme and Bail's characters) and the latter scene showing Yoda's exile to Dagobah.
• Fanon: Many fans like to believe that Darth Plagueis' life-creating experiments caused Shmi Skywalker's unexplained Mystical Pregnancy, and that Anakin has abnormally powerful Force abilities because he's essentially a Human Weapon created by a Sith Lord. This used to be considered a semi-official theory because Lucas counted it as a possibility in an interview,^note "There is a hint in the movie that there was a Sith Lord who had the power to create life. But it's left unsaid: Is Anakin a product of a super-Sith who influenced the Midichlorians to create him, or is he simply created by the Midichlorians to bring forth a prophecy, or was he created by the Force through the Midichlorians? It's left up to the audience to decide. How he was born ultimately has no relationship to how he dies, because in the end, the prophecy is true: balance comes back to the Force." George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine, 2005. but reality was ultimately ambiguous. It ceased being so when the 2012 Legends novel Darth Plagueis suggested the Force itself created Anakin in response to what Plagueis was doing, but with its de-canonization, it remains contained only within that continuity. The comic Dark Lord of the Sith from the new canon suggests that it was actually Sidious who created Anakin, due to a vision Vader had of him appearing behind Shmi Skywalker, although Word of God has clarified this only reflects what Vader has come to believe.
• Fight Scene Failure: This was the effect when the film tried to show how easily the Jedi go down when it had previously been established that every last one of them is a One-Man Army:
  • The duel in Palpatine's office starts with him pausing and taking his sweet time to stand still for a second, doing an incredibly awkward looking spinning jump (it really is a good trick) and then stab one of the four Jedi Masters (Agen Kolar) who doesn't react at all, then cut down the second one (Saesee Tiin) with an Offhand Backhand (this guy doesn't even move). Meanwhile, the third one (Kit Fisto) just waves his saber around, managing to clumsily parry once before getting stabbed. Only then does Mace Windu, who has been standing quietly to the side, join the fight. It becomes hilarious when watched on slow motion.
    • There's a reason for this: for reasons known only to George Lucas, much of the fight was filmed with Ian Mc Diarmid - a 59-year-old Shakespearean actor with no sword-fighting experience - instead of his stunt double, with only five days of practice. Footage with the stunt double can be found on Youtube and it looks much better.
  • The executions shown as part of Order 66. Jedi, the best of the best, are assassinated in seconds without at least taking one clone trooper with them. We're also supposed to be impressed that Yoda sensed the two troopers standing right behind him to shoot him at point blank, and decapitates them. It becomes hilarious a while later when a Padawan puts all the Masters to shame and manages to kill no less than seven clone troopers in a few seconds before he gets gunned down.
• Fountain of Memes:
  • Palpatine is by far the biggest, even by Star Wars standards. Half of what he says or does in this film has become a meme, such as DO IT, The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, "I AM the Senate!", and the Sheev Spin.
  • Obi-Wan and Anakin are also big providers of memes.
  • General Grievous deserves a mention for density. He's only in a handful of scenes, but practically every single line of dialogue he has in them is a meme ("Your lightsabers will make a fine addition to my collection", "General Kenobi, you are a bold one", "I have been TRAINED in your Jedi arts... by Count DOOKU!", etc.).
• Ham and Cheese: Ian McDiarmid's over-the-top performance as Palpatine is considered one of the highlights of the film.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "She has lost the will to live" is one of the most infamous moments of the Prequel Trilogy, but it becomes heartbreaking when in December 2016, Carrie Fisher's mother Debbie Reynolds said "I want to be with Carrie" shortly before her fatal stroke. Several fans reacted with the exact quote when they heard the news.
  • Order 66, while already bad enough on its own, becomes even worse once you've seen Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: The Bad Batch because the clones are being forced by inhibition chips to fire on those that considered them to be actual people and not expendable (such as Plo Koon). Twisting the knife further, is that most of them suffered PTSD as a result.
• He Really Can Act: Hayden Christensen is genuinely scary as Darth Vader... at least when he isn't talking. While this is also a polarizing performance, many fans who don't hate the film point out how the way Hayden Christensen acts is a lot more appropriate than in the previous film, where it was more narmy. It should also be noted that he's done films outside the franchise where he has garnered critical praise.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Was claimed about Mace Windu and Aayla Secura, even though they're both killed onscreen. Mace's survival is at least somewhat plausible. He loses his hand, gets zapped by lightning, and tossed from a significant height, all of which Jedi are shown to be able to survive throughout the saga (although never all at once). And, of course, Never Found the Body. Secura, however, gets shot in the back by at least a dozen troops at near point-blank range, and her body continues to be shot as the camera pans out. It helps that Jackson improvised Windu waking up after the fight in the film’s blooper reel.
  • After the announcement of The Force Awakens, a lot of people began to apply this train of thought to Darth Plagueis, based on Palpatine's comments that his old master was able to conquer death. The Tarkin book dropping a couple of details about the enigmatic figure into the canon also helped the theory gain some support. A number of people are convinced that he was somehow Faking the Dead and could be the Big Bad of the Sequel Trilogy as a way of raising the stakes from his apprentice. This theory gained greater credibility when fans found that "Snoke's Theme" from Episode VII's soundtrack sounded very similar to "Palpatine's Teachings", the song that plays during the scene he describes Plagueis in this film.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A scene in the novelization features Yoda during Order 66 catching some clones by surprise by pretending to be a baby. Perhaps he was counting on the popularity of Baby Yoda?
  • A few months after this film came out, Fox released Fantastic Four (2005) which also had a cloaked villain shooting electricity and talking about an unlimited supply of power.
  • A character played by Samuel L. Jackson speaks on behalf of a council: "You are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of Master." Seven years later, another character played by SLJ defies a different council's decision: "I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it."
• Improved Second Attempt:
  • After complaints about how Obi-Wan and Anakin's relationship was handled in the previous two films (their interaction in TPM is minimal, and AOTC mostly features them being annoyed with one another), the first half of this film has them behave more as the close friends they're supposed to be (from the witty banter they exchange to more heartfelt moments).
  • A minor one, but the Neimoidian bridge officer on the Invisible Hand has an American accent rather than the Yellow Peril-esque accent (based on Thai according to Word of God) previous Neimoidian characters were criticized for, showing that it's not the only accent they can have.
  • The Trade Federation's battle droids got a lot of criticism in the first two films for being bland and not particularly threatening, with many fans viewing them as a Replacement Scrappy for the original trilogy's Imperial Stormtroopers. In this film, Lucas chose to embrace this, portraying them as pure Comic Relief characters—complete with cartoonish squeaky voices, and a few genuinely funny slapstick gags. The Clone Troopers, who become the first generation of Imperial Stormtroopers, end up getting much more focus as well.
  • Bail Organa ordering Captain Antilles to wipe C-3PO's memory at the end of the film clears up the continuity problem of 3PO not recognizing the planet Tatooine, Obi-Wan, Owen and Beru Lars, Luke, Leia or Darth Vader in the Original Trilogy despite experiencing all this in the Prequels. R2 was spared this fate since he's an astromech droid and can't speak, which is why he does vaguely remember Obi-Wan in A New Hope.
  • Anakin comes across as less whiny and more likable compared to his portrayal in Attack of the Clones. His complaining is more subdued and more justifiable (he feels alienated because the Council still don't trust him despite years of dedication to the Jedi and even Obi-Wan thinks they're being a bit unfair to him). The opening scene establishes Anakin as genuinely heroic; he wants to help the clone troopers when they're overrun by droids until Obi-Wan tells him to focus on the mission and he saves Obi-Wan multiple times, including disobeying Palpatine's order to leave him when he's knocked out and carrying him on his back. He also expresses remorse over killing the unarmed Dooku, feeding into his overall struggle throughout the film with deciding what's right.
• Inferred Holocaust:
  • The film starts with a massive space battle in low orbit above Coruscant, a world whose entire surface is essentially one ginormous city with one trillion inhabitants. In other words, there's millions upon millions of tons of metal being blown up in the sky in short order, and that stuff is very unlikely to stay up there for more than a few minutes after it's separated from whatever was keeping it airborne. Even if not a single stray shot is produced by all the More Dakka and Beam Spam being traded between the capital ships, the duelling fleets' falling debris will hit Coruscant like an entire barrage of meteor strikes, flattening huge urban areas and invariably killing countless millions in the process. Not to mention the other half of the ship that Anakin crash-lands on the surface. Nothing of the sort is ever mentioned on-screen, however, and scenes showing Coruscant after the battle depict the city as flawless as before, which makes this trope cross straight into No Endor Holocaust - oh, the irony. The novelization, however, follows through to the logical conclusion, stating that falling debris has caused a great deal of damage and civilian deaths.
  • Later materials retroactively explains the 'stray shots' issue, at least. Since Star Wars Legends was decanonized, ship-to-ship firepower has been drastically downgraded in canon (and keeping more in line with what's seen in the films) to basically on par with modern warship ordnance, fitting the aesthetic of World War II IN SPACE. Furthermore, turboblaster bolts are significantly reduced in power after crossing significant distances of even a few hundred kilometers in the Disney canon (which becomes a major plot point in both The Last Jedi and Thrawn), and being in orbit, all the ships exchanging shots were at least several thousand miles from Coruscant's surface. So it's unlikely their regular shots (as opposed to strategic bombardment weapons which aren't usually used in ship-to-ship combat, like giant plasma bombs) caused very much collateral damage at all. Star Wars Rebels further confirms this by showing the anemic effects of even sustained turbolaser orbital bombardment from capital ships on a planetary surface.
• The Inverse Law of Fandom Levity: Revenge of the Sith might be the darkest main Star Wars film in which The Bad Guy Wins, but the fandom just can't stop meming this movie. Most of the jokes that aren't directly based on movie quotes (most of which are entirely sincere in-context) are of the Black Comedy variant, especially since prequel memers collectively decided that the "Master Skywalker, there are too many of them, what are we going to do?"^note AKA the scene where Anakin slaughters a bunch of younglings in cold blood, which is explicitly portrayed as his final step towards the Dark Side scene to be the funniest in the movie.
• Memetic Badass:
  • As far as the fandom concerned, Obi-Wan can defeat any enemy whenever he has the high ground. Even if the enemy had the high ground, he'd still win and tell them the high ground only belongs to him, as Darth Maul and General Grievous found the hard way. The reason why he's killed in A New Hope is because he and Vader are on the same level. Likewise, fans would often forget that Obi-Wan's Underestimating Badassery on Dooku caused him to lose after a short fight while dismissing Anakin (who actually killed Dooku on his own) as a Memetic Loser.
  • Mace Windu, due to Samuel L. Jackson's own Memetic Badass status. While a powerful Jedi Master in his own right, mans would often forget that Windu's rash and reckless decision to fight Palpatine is the final bait Palpatine needs to rationalize the execution of Order 66.
  • Palpatine is not only a Chancellor and a Sith Lord, he can act as the entire Galactic Senate. In more memetic conversations, fans often refer to Palpatine as simply "The Senate".
• Memetic Mutation: UNLIMITED MEMES!!!!
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • According to some fans, Master Ki-Adi Mundi becomes a droid-hating Knight Templar when it comes to protecting Wookiee. A meme depicts him in post-Face–Heel Turn Anakin's place while replacing the younglings with B1 Droids.^note B1: "Master Mundi, there are too many Wookies! What should we do now?" [Mundi activates his lightsaber]
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Season 7) retroactively turned Obi-Wan and Yoda into this when fans noticed their approach to Order 66 in contrast with Ahsoka: while Ahsoka tried to spare as many clones as she could while escaping from her Star Destroyer, Obi-Wan and Yoda had no trouble killing them by the dozens when they needed to infiltrate the Temple. The fact that Ahsoka knew that the clones were brainwashed while Obi-Wan and Yoda did not does little to dissuade some fans from portraying them as murder-happy psychos who don't give a damn about the men they used to lead.
  • Not that Anakin is exactly sane in this film, but fans like to take the scene of him murdering younglings and turn it into a character trait for him as a Child Hater of truly epic proportions.
• Misaimed Fandom: People sometimes argue in complete seriousness that The Extremist Was Right regarding Mace Windu attempting to arrest Palpatine ("You see, Anakin? I told you it would come to this. The Jedi are taking over!"), not helped by Palpatine arguing in the better-received novelization that merely being a Sith isn't a crime. The Jedi aren't arresting him for being just a member of a rival religious group, they're arresting him for (at a minimum) instigating a military occupation of a member state and the current rebellion against the Republic, and now for trying to overthrow the government.
• More Popular Spin Off: The film itself is generally the best-liked of the prequel trilogy, but still usually ranked lower than the originals. The Star Wars Legends novelization by Matthew Stover is widely considered be a better product than the canon film and is consistently ranked as one of the best single Star Wars novels ever, alongside I, Jedi and the original Thrawn trilogy.
• Narm: So much it has its own page.
• Narm Charm:
  • A good chunk of the dialogue between Anakin and Obi-Wan just before their duel at the end of the movie sounds awkward, but it manages to be gutwrenching and powerful nonetheless. It arguably wouldn't be nearly as memorable or impactful if it had been worded any other way.
  • "I HATE YOU!!!" Sure, it sounds ridiculous on paper, but it's still gutwrenching to see Anakin on the ground with his legs cut off, writhing in pain, unable to do anything to his former mentor and best friend other than scream at him in impotent rage.
  • Arguably, "Backstroke of the West," of all things, improves on two lines:
    • The above line, changing it to "I will ruin you!", as if Anakin is vowing that he'll have his revenge one day for what Obi-Wan has done to him.
    • The second being an earlier line, when Obi-Wan says "You have done that yourself!" after Anakin accuses him of turning Padme against him. In Backstroke, however, he has something more poetic to say.
      Ratio Tile: This is your own masterpiece.
  • On that note, "You were my brother Anakin, I loved you!" shows how heartbroken Obi-Wan is from everything and makes it all the more tragic for him.
  • Even if you found Yoda's famous "backwards talking" a bit cheesy and annoying,^note Especially since he didn't do it nearly as often in the original trilogy.… it doesn't make his final, defiant "Fuck you!" to Darth Sidious any less awesome. All together now...
    Yoda: Not… if anything to say about it… I HAVE!
  • Pretty much every scene with Palpatine. Ian McDiarmid is devouring scenery left and right in his performance, and the delivery of some lines (such as the infamous "Do it" and "POWAH") is a little weird. But Palpatine is such a deliciously evil villain (and McDiarmid is so obviously enjoying himself in the role) that they end up as some of the most awesome and likable scenes in the whole prequel trilogy. And ultimately, he is still an utterly evil monster who proves to be quite dangerous.
  • Vader's much Memed Big "NO!" may be cheesy, but the tragic context and James Earl Jones 's delivery make it work for some.
  • John Williams' score is some of his most amazing and most overwrought work on the franchise. The music is essentially the orchestral version of Large Ham.
• Never Live It Down: Has its own page shared with the rest of the franchise.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The video game adaptation of the film for PS2 and Xbox was generally well-received, and is well-regarded over a decade later. Supporters cite it having decent gameplay, a well-polished lightsaber combat system, and of course letting you play as Anakin/Vader at his prime, complete with an alternate ending. The same goes for the GBA and DS versions, being fairly fun arcade beat-em-ups with genuinely impressive sprite work and chiptune arrangements of classic Star Wars songs.
• Older Than They Think: Anakin/Vader going on a starfighter mission to save an abducted Palpatine? That sounds familiar… Also makes it Hilarious in Hindsight.
• Once Original, Now Common: While it had highly polarizing reception, the film was considered a breath of fresh air at the time of its release for having a very dark tone and tragic plot that let it stand out from the other two Prequels, not to mention depicting Darth Vader on-screen as a villain for the first time in ages.^note While Anakin spends roughly half of the film as "Vader", he only appears in his iconic suit of armor for one scene at the end of the films. However, Disney's Star Wars films have caused the film to go through Uniqueness Decay; contemporary Star Wars films are consistently PG-13 and are less blatantly "toyetic" than the Prequels, and the suited Vader reappeared in both Rogue One and Obi-Wan Kenobi (the latter show even having Hayden Christensen reprising the role) with much more impressive and terrifying scenes than the one he was given in Revenge of the Sith.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Christopher Lee's scene as Count Dooku perfectly sets up Anakin's Start of Darkness. It also serves as retribution for all of Dooku's schemes in The Clone Wars.
  • Despite the cheesy Big "NO!", having James Earl Jones reprise the voice of Darth Vader was exciting for fans.
  • Plus Chewbacca, who's also played by Peter Mayhew.
  • Wayne Pygram's 10-second cameo near the very end as a younger Grand Moff Tarkin appearing alongside Vader was also appreciated by fans.
  • Boga, she giant, quadrupedal bird-lizard creature (known in-universe as a "varactyl") that Obi-Wan rides on Utapau and makes a distinctive, guttural, high-pitch squeal.
• Padding: The final Obi Wan vs. Anakin duel goes on for almost ten minutes. There's no denying that the film tries to make it interesting throughout the fight by constantly moving around the Mustafar mining facility, but the continued use of lightsabers clashing throughout became tiresome about half way through the fight. And that doesn't even include the fact that the duel was constantly interrupted by the Yoda vs. Palpatine fight that was going on at the same time, which adds around another five minutes of waiting for the former duel to reach its conclusion.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Your husband succumbs to all his worst qualities, becomes a monster, and when you refuse to go along with him, he assumes you've turned on him and physically assaults you while you're pregnant. Doubles as Does This Remind You of Anything?, particularly for viewers who have undergone or witnessed domestic abuse.
• Salvaged Story:
  • Many complaints arose about how Obi-Wan and Anakin's relationship was handled in the previous two films (with their interaction in TPM being minimal, and AOTC mostly features them being annoyed with one another), to the point where people were wondering how Obi-Wan ever saw Anakin as a "good friend" during the Original Trilogy. The first half of this film has them behave more as the close friends they're supposed to be (from the witty banter they exchange to more heartfelt moments).
  • A minor one, but the Neimoidian bridge officer on the Invisible Hand has an American accent rather than the Yellow Peril-esque accent (based on Thai according to Word of God) previous Neimoidian characters were criticized for, showing that it's not the only accent they can have.
  • The Trade Federation's battle droids got a lot of criticism in the first two films for being bland and not particularly threatening, with many fans viewing them as a Replacement Scrappy for the original trilogy's Imperial Stormtroopers. In this film, Lucas chose to embrace this, portraying them as pure Comic Relief characters—complete with cartoonish squeaky voices, and a few genuinely funny slapstick gags.
  • Bail Organa ordering Captain Antilles to wipe C-3PO's memory at the end of the film clears up the continuity problem of 3PO not recognizing the planet Tatooine, Obi-Wan, Owen and Beru Lars, Luke, Leia or Darth Vader in the Original Trilogy despite experiencing all this in the Prequels. R2 was spared this fate since he's an astromech droid and can't speak, which is why he does vaguely remember Obi-Wan in A New Hope.
  • Anakin comes across as less whiny and more likable compared to his portrayal in Attack of the Clones. His complaining is more subdued and more justifiable (he feels alienated because the Council still don't trust him despite years of dedication to the Jedi and even Obi-Wan thinks they're being a bit unfair to him). The opening scene establishes Anakin as genuinely heroic; he wants to help the clone troopers when they're overrun by droids until Obi-Wan tells him to focus on the mission and he saves Obi-Wan multiple times, including disobeying Palpatine's order to leave him when he's knocked out and carrying him on his back. He also expresses remorse over killing the unarmed Dooku, feeding into his overall struggle throughout the film with deciding what's right.
• Signature Scene:
  • The tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, both due to its meme factor and being almost universally regarded as one of the best scenes in the trilogy.
  • Kenobi greeting Grievous on Utapau with his signature "Hello there!"
  • The final duel between Obi-Wan vs. Anakin, especially because of the "high ground" moment.
  • Darth Vader getting his signature suit put on. His Big "NO!" sure helped.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The opening battle is very pretty and beautifully shot, but loses some of its impact when you realize as the beginning ship is traveling across the screen, Coruscant can be seen below it...and there is no battle occurring or any other ships visible, yet when Anakin and Obi-Wan's ships descend from above and cut across the ship before diving down, suddenly a massive battle is there with dozens and dozens of ships (which should have easily been seen before, but weren't).
  • At the beginning of the fight between Dooku, Obi Wan, and Anakin, Dooku's jump, backflip and landing was unconvincing. Later into the fight when Count Dooku drops part of the walkway on top of Obi Wan, it looks really fake. Obi Wan was just moved down on the screen when it fell on him without any of his limbs reacting to the impact.
  • During several shots of Dooku during his duel, such as when he drops to his knees after Anakin cuts his hands off, his face looks noticeably CGI, making it clear that they added Christopher Lee’s face onto a stunt double.
  • Palpatine's backflip during his fight with Mace is also rather unconvincing. In fact quite a lot of the duel comes off as a bit silly as Palpatine is supposed to be drawing on the force to gain incredible speed and strength, whilst Ian McDiarmid is quite clearly not, resulting in three apparent Jedi Masters all replicating Maul's snail-like reaction speed from The Phantom Menace.
  • When Grievous is getting his lightsabers out in front of Obi-Wan, it's pretty easy to tell that Ewan McGregor is looking at a green screen the whole time, as he shows little reaction to this and keeps his guard down the whole time, just awkwardly standing there. He doesn't even flinch when Grievous waves the lightsabers dangerously close to his face. This could be Justified as Kenobi's expression indicates this was not the first or second time Obi-Wan had faced Grievous in combat.
  • Grievous' fight with Obi-Wan is very poorly choreographed, with the cyborg only swinging with two arms at a time despite having four, acting like his weightless laser-blade would benefit from large downward swings with lots of momentum, and generally being very slow and plodding to accompany McGregor's movements (as noted, he couldn't see what he was doing), while also refusing to take several easy swipes that could have him won him the fight instantly if he had the chance. This is likely because Grievous's whole design is Awesome, but Impractical from a filmmaker's point of view and a Story-Breaker Power in-universe. Sure, it looks cool when he whips out four arms, and him being seven foot tall with strength sufficient to toss armored soldiers one-handed like hacky sacks and dent starship armor with punches adds to his intimidation factor, but it makes him losing any fight without looking like a putz impossible. If he had any sense he'd just swing from four angles at the same time and instantly win as Obi Wan would be unable to block everywhere. Or simply pin Obi Wan's lightsaber with two of his, then stab him in the back with his third, and through the gut with his fourth. The fight does actually pick up when Grievous is down to three lightsabers, but it doesn't last long before he's disarmed.
  • During the final duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin, when the two land on and fight between two platforms hovering over a river of lava, the green screen action is quite easy to detect.
  • During the scene where the medical droids start operating on the severely-injured Darth Vader, he can be heard making a series of grunts and screams of pain, which are undercut by the fact that his mouth is shut the entire time.
  • Also during the above scene, when the Vader mask and helmet are being placed on him, the "neck brace" part of the mask is absent while the mask is being lowered, then magically appears in the next shot.
• Superlative Dubbing: A minor example but many fans believe that the French dub of Darth Vader's infamous "NOOOOO!!!" sounds far more realistically agonized and tragic than the narmy original. Helps that the voice of the French dubber sounds a bit like Hayden Christensen in that moment, which makes it seem as if Anakin's final screams made it out of the suit before he dies and Darth Vader is born.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While generally not regarded as being on par with the Original Trilogy (much like the previous two entries), most fans agree that Revenge of the Sith is a significant improvement over The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones and consider it the best of the prequel trilogy. Some fans even consider it to be on the same level as Return of the Jedi, or even The Empire Strikes Back, in terms of quality. Much of this has to do with the significant reduction in focus on the slow-paced political drama, a greater amount of action-adventure and character study, and the actors having had enough time to figure out how to make their roles work within the confines of George Lucas's stilted writing and direction.
• Take That, Scrappy!: There is a huge Catharsis Factor to seeing Nute Gunray and all the other obnoxious Separatists finally get taken out, especially after how terrible many fans thought Episode I was.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Shares a page with the rest of the films.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Viewers in Mourning: Fan-favorites Mace Windu, Plo Koon, and Kit Fisto die in this film, much to fans' dismay.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Several moments aside, most of the visuals look gorgeous and hold up much better than the first two films. So much so that some were upset it wasn't nominated at the Oscars for Visual Effects.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?:
  • A lot of the "rise of the Empire" sequence was interpreted as references to then-contemporary politics (Revenge came out in the middle of the the Bush Administration), despite George Lucas having developed the basic plot when he was making the original trilogy in the 1970s (if not all the details).
  • Some people felt that Padmé's "So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause" line was a blatant jab at things like the Patriot Act and the overall culture of post-9/11 America. For what it's worth, George Lucas has implied that it was actually supposed to be referencing Nazi Germany.
  • Ditto Anakin's line "If you're not with me...then you're my enemy." This has been interpreted as reference to (one formulation of) the Bush Doctrine that countries that support terrorist groups are to be treated as if the terrorists are acting on their behalf. (It's also a re-phrasing of the classic liberal political saying, "You're either part of the solution, or you're part of the problem.") The line goes back to The Bible if not earlier.
  • It's also been noted that Palpatine's rise to power has more in common with that of Caesar Augustus, or Adolf Hitler. And George Lucas has admitted an American president is also one of Palpatine's influences… but it's Richard Nixon, not Bush.
• Win Back the Crowd: Fans who felt underwhelmed by the other two Prequels but enjoyed Revenge feel that this film justifies the entire Prequel Trilogy.
• Woolseyism:
  • In the Japanese dub, Obi-Wan's infamous line: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" was changed to:「シースの論理は独裁主義だ。」, which literally translates to: "The way of the Sith is despotism." Many fans familiar with both dubs agree that the Japanese line makes far more sense given that everything the Jedi do is also absolute (making his English statement wildly hypocritical), and helps to more naturally bridge Obi-Wan's previous line in favor of democracy with his subsequent declaration that he must fight Anakin.
  • The Hungarian dub was slightly liberal with its script, making the characters sound sassier or more personal.
    • Obi-Wan declares that to him and Anakin, Sith Lords are a delicacy. He later counters Grievous' boast of adding their lightsabers to his collection by proclaiming to be a trophy collector too.
    • After disposing of Grievous, Obi-Wan's "So uncivilized." line became "How does one make such filth?!"
    • The originally tragic line "I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you." is rewritten into a boastful taunt: "I taught you badly, Anakin. You remained weak."
    • Mace Windu's line "The oppression of the Sith will never return, you have lost." became "The world asks for no more of the Sith's oppression. Get lost, all of you, forever."
    • Palpatine calls Anakin "my son" multiple times as he reveals his identity to him.
    • Grievous' weird cadence is a change that didn't stick for later media. The dub gave him a somewhat shrill voice and an unidentifiable comedic accent that make him sound closer to his Backstroke of the West counterpart than the original Grievous. The dub of Star Wars: The Clone Wars replaced his voice to match the original and removed his exaggerated speech pattern.

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