3. The Opera Scene Is Stunning
It's not often that a Star Wars scene stands out for what it says rather than what it shows, but that's exactly what happens with the "opera" (or "theatre") scene in Revenge of the Sith, which is actually gorgeous to look at as well, making it one of the stand-out single scenes in the entire series. One of Lucas' finest achievements in both directing and screenwriting, the scene sees Ian McDiarmid's (in what might be the finest piece of acting by anyone in a single Star Wars scene) Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious manipulate a disillusioned and vulnerable Anakin into joining the Dark Side, back-dropped by kind of liquid energy piece of performance art which illuminates the screen in hues of hyacinth and violet. Full of great lines and imbued with the disquieting mystery of the Darth Plagueis parable, we see Anakin as a man driven to hate out of sheer, irrevocable love, a love the chancellor exploits for his own evil (sure that Padmé will die in childbirth, Sidious alludes to a Dark-Side-only power which can prevent death). This is the beginning of the end for Anakin as Skywalker; he becomes Darth Vader not when he is fitted with that iconic mask, but here, at the opera, the theatre, a place of art in which Sidious creates his masterpiece.