Reason? This is Star Wars. The reason is simple: There's a war on.

Good flick, bordering on great. Ranks as #3 of the 6 films.

I'd prefer extraneous action to Hayden Christensen opening his mouth.

Must be to balance out the first two: too much reason, not enough action.

re: too much action without enough reason

(1) What is the Sith? I thought about it and realized that "Sith" is "This" spelled backwards. So it's "Revenge of the "This""

(2) The real title of the movie is "This is Revenge".

(3) George Lucas is trying to get even with us for condemning him to a life of making Star Wars movies, even though he's made more money than anyone except, perhaps, Bill Gates.

(4) Kant would say that the Force and the Actions produced by Good and Evil emanation from the Force, are not recognizable a priori from pure reason alone, but must be assumed as immanent a priori realities, just as religion cannot be a product of pure reason alone. The interesting aspect of Star Wars eschatology is that there is no Manichean system; the Force is responsible for both good and evil, as in Christianity, God is responsible for both good and evil. Thus the allegory and metaphor in the series is much like Tolkien's and C.S. Lewis' fantastic trilogies.

(5) As everyone by now knows, the original Star Wars was a blatant rip-off of Akiro Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress. Lucas even says so in his introduction to the DVD version of the Kurosawa film. Nearly everyone he did in the first Star Wars film is anticipated by the Kurosawa film; and the concept of "Jedi Knight" is inspired by the concept of "samurai" in all of Kurosawa's films. Lucas began by trying to emulate Kurosawa; but became trapped in a commercial enterprise of satisfying fans.

(6) Therefore, This is Revenge makes sense as a title. He really just wanted to be Kurosawa in the beginning and make meaningful films about Samurai in the future.

(7) If it's an action film, it's because this is his "Ran" or his "Throne of Blood". Probably "Throne of Blood" because that's the Kurosawa film with the most gore I can recall. That film in turn was a remake of Macbeth. In the end, Star Wars could be viewed as the Shakespearean history plays at some level.

--AJK (thoughtfully)