Not THAT bad...

Rating: 7/10 (27 April 2005)

I think people are overly harsh concerning these movies. A lot of people complain about the use of CGI vs. modeling in the original trilogy, but this is a bunch of bull. If Lucas had the capability to use CGI in the first trilogy, he definitely would have used it. The only reason that he didn't use it was that he couldn't, so instead he spent an inordinate amount of time creating set pieces and large-scale miniatures of ships (Milennium Falcon, X-Wings, Tie Fighters, Star Destroyers, the Death Star). This must have cost an absolute fortune, not to mention that the manpower effort to realize his visions must have been staggering. And while I agree that the use of models has allowed those movies to stand up to the test of time (I recently watched the trilogy on DVD for the first time in years), I still think there is a lot of good stuff in this installment. The CGI, even 6 years later, still looks as good as anything we have seen since. The concerns about jar-jar and the use of "accidental" actions helping to bring victory to the good guys? Hello, what about Return of the Jedi? Ewoks were easily as annoying as the gungans, and just as goofy in the battle on Endor. The acting - while Han Solo is undoubtedly one of the most charismatic anti-hero/hero characters in modern movies, people seem to forget that Luke was an extremely annoying character (especially in Ep. 4), and much of the other acting was not great (Alec Guiness excepted of course). I think Ewan McGregor, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L Jackson, and Liam Neeson more than constitute good acting for Episode I(Natalie Portman is pretty dull unfortunately). Set pieces. This movie has some unbelievable scenes in it, regardless of what its detractors say. The lightsaber finale blows away the originals completely both in choreography and sheer electricity. The pod racer scene is another excellent sequence, and considering that this movie is 6 years old it still looks great (and sounds even better). While I would not put these movies in the same class as the originals, I do think people are extremely hard on these movies because they try to compare them to the originals, which are absolute classics. This sort of relativism leads to unfair comparisons, which harm the votes. People were under the impression that these movies would be as life-changing as the first movies - but unfortunately, that time is past. STAR WARS - A NEW HOPE was essentially the first action movie to even attempt the sorts of things the movie displayed - it simply blew people away. Unfortunately, since then, we have seen numerous rip-offs which have steeled us against being blown away by SFX extravaganzas. For all its flaws, it is still an entertaining watch - 7 of 10.