At least not in some ways. I’d meant to post this a few weeks ago, after having seen Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith, but never got around to it.

In the Lord Of The Rings series, he played Saruman, one of the cooler villains. After making him a memorable character, Peter Jackson edited out his final scene in Return Of The King in the theatrical release since the movie would have been too long if it had been left in. This, despite the fact that many people thought he deserved to have his death scene put into the film. I personally think that Jackson could have trimmed some other things (such as the interminable series of “false endings” at the end of the movie) instead, and left in the character’s scene. I haven’t yet watched the extended DVD version of the final episode of the trilogy, but will be looking forward to Saruman’s proper exit specifically.

Then, we have the second and third installments of the new Star Wars prequel trilogy. Here he plays Count Dooku. In Attack Of The Clones, he comes across as another well done villain and there are a couple of memorable light saber battles, one where he cuts off a young Anakin’s hand, another where he fights Yoda and lives to escape.

But, in the opening of Revenge Of The Sith, he is summarily dismissed when Anakin confronts him again and, after a short battle, Dooku’s almost casually defeated. (This time around, Anakin cuts off Dooku’s hands; Lucas seems to have some kind of a fetish for this kind of result, because it happens more than you’d think would be “normal” – especially in the final movie.) The only explanation for how such a strong opponent (one who earlier defeated Anakin and fought Yoda to a stalemate) can be so quickly and easily beaten this time around, is Anakin telling him that he (Anakin) has simply become stronger than the last time they met.

So, let’s build up a villain as a worthy oppnonent – and then either exclude them completely in the end, or turn them into a relative weakling, undermining the story that went before. With Star Wars, I’m not suprised. George Lucas’s prequels were far from good. The last of the 3 was the best (and enjoyable enough at a certain level), but that’s not saying all that much. They did, however, fit right in line with his recent “revival” revisionism to go back and edit his films to remove references to any seriousness (E.T. gets the police officers guns digitally changed to walkie talkies, and the original Star Wars now has Han Solo only shooting Greedo second in self defence after, stunningly, Greedo misses him from only 2 feet away), and turning them into the kind of mind-numbing 3-year old targetted fare that ended up giving us Jar-Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace. (Does he, perhaps, have some sensitive grandchildren to whom he’s now trying to tailor and/or reimage his movies?) With Lord Of The Rings, however, it was quite shocking to have Lee’s character so easily mistreated.