Revenge of the Sith: Star Wars: Episode III

Matthew Stover (writer of Shatterpoint) offers up his take on the script for Revenge of the Sith. I'm not too much a fan of the original film and hoped this novelization would help ammend some of the movies issues and a lot of critics on here will tell you it does. I would say it's better than the film but it's no masterwork and still disappoints on a few levels. I would say mainly the romance is just as awful as ever, and the pacing is way off. The middle section is as slow and pedantic as in the film although it's manipulation of Anakin technically superior, it still houses some of the more notable plotholes featured in the film. Once stuff starts happening after the chapter called Revelation, I would say the blockbuster nature of Star Wars really peaks through and the book becomes an entertaining passtime. I found myself jumping from page to page during the last third. As a whole, the book is certainly better than the movie but lacks any real subtext as far as books go with mostly everything being quite literal or beginning level metaphorical language. An easy pageturner for anyone who likes Star Wars, but nothing to write home about. It's okay.

Stover's ability to bring the reader into the minds and emotions of the characters is amazing and really makes this story far more emotionally charged than the movie. (Granted that's not hard to do given that the movie was actually pretty terrible.) Despite the lackluster acting and directing, Stover managed to salvage the epic conflicts and vastly improved the character development of the prequel characters. Well worth the buy!

A fantastic retelling. The introduction alone is worth reading by itself, and it does not stop there. Glimpses into the POVs and heads of Dooku, Grevious, Palpatine, Obi-wan, and of course, Anakin Skywalker himself. References to Labyrinth of Evil by James Luceno and Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover.