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EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH

Okay, let me try and sum this up as best I can. People e-mailed me to help out, when the movie came out, which was nice. The fact that I needed a whole team to put together one movie’s worth of hand chops should tell you that the boys were really working overtime to earn that PG-13. (And then the DVD came out and I found even more. Christ, Lucas, find a new gimmick. How ‘bout funny hats?)

First up is Dooku. Boy, I bet the eight thousand times he played Dracula never gave Christopher Lee this golden opportunity. He gets both his hands chopped off and it goes by so quick and then you see the burning stumps and it’s just, like, aaaaaah! I like the burning-stump effect the prequels give these sorts of events. Makes it seem all the more special, you know.

But if that wasn’t enough for one ship’s worth of merriment, a battle droid gets disarmed (yes, that way) in the cockpit. Right before Grievous escapes out the window. You get a nice look right at the molten burning circuits or whatever. It’s looking at me, saying, “Here, Adam. This is what everyone was e-mailing you about in 1999. We actually did it this time.”

While this isn’t quite what we’re going for here, it’s also worth noting that Grievous’ starship, the Invisible Hand, cracks in two. Severs or something. I dunno. Anyway.

Obi-Wan cuts off two of Grievous’ hands. But since Grievous has four hands, it's really just the equivalent of cutting off one person’s hand. You know, it's a question of ratio... one-half... what do you mean, you don’t get it? Of course, this is the series that started with the fourth chapter and finally ended up at the third. No wonder you’re terrible with numbers. Figuring out that sort of crap is exactly what made Grievous’ head explode. I heard they were going to sell an Exploding Head Grievous action figure but some stupid kid got hurt playing with it.

Mace loses a hand to Anakin just before he gets thrown out the Windu. Windu, get it? Ha-ha! I typed a funny thing on the Internet!

Moving on, some kind soul was nice enough to point out to me that right before Yoda throws his lightsaber into that clonetrooper's chest, he chops off one of their arms. It’s toward the right-hand (heh) side of the screen. Be quick on this one.

This one I noticed myself on my second viewing, which proves I have no life: when Obi-Wan and Yoda are scoping out the Jedi Temple, you can tell in the shot from above that one of the dead Jedi on the floor is missing a hand. Maybe this is how Yoda can tell they were killed with a lightsaber. (Especially since apparently he knows all about this crap, see previous paragraph.)

Finally, Anakin. Now, this is pretty cool, actually, because chopped-off hands were used to explain why Hayden Christensen has a different build than Dave Prowse, and up to nineteen people in audiences worldwide notice these things. Yeah, Obi-Wan chops off Anakin’s remaining human arm, plus his legs. Make your Monty Python Black Knight jokes here, folks. Still comedy gold after all these years.

And did you notice that the only reason Anakin survives is because he has his robotic arm from the last movie? Like, he uses his robotic arm to claw himself up and not get hit by the lava tide. If Dooku hadn’t sliced off his arm last flick, he'd have been dead and there'd be no Episodes IV-VI. Wow. And you think the only reason Lucas did this stuff was to entertain some fetish.

Anyway, I’ll update this page with more pictures if I get them, humor when I feel like writing it, and something else. I’m tired. Go read the next page, it's about my favorite movie of the saga and I even make a Mallrats reference.