Sound and fury, signifying nothing

Rating: 4/10 (20 June 1999)

What a disappointment! Yes, the special effects were sensational and the production quality was awesome, resulting in a visual and auditory feast (which summarizes every compliment anyone here has given the movie), but so what? People seem to think that's all a STAR WARS movie should be, but it's not. If the first movie hadn't had memorable characters, mythic overtones, and a bunch of great lines, it would have been just another mediocre sci-fi special-effects movie, rather than the classic that it is.
So what does this movie have? Memorable characters? There are only two non-cardboard characters in this entire movie: Anakin and his mother. Everyone else is just a chess-piece being moved around as needed. Mythic overtones? This movie felt like a video game with speaking parts. And forget about the memorable lines.
Even the special effects seemed lacking at times (blasphemy!). Isn't it amazing that the ships can land in a forest without disturbing a single tree? Then you have all the CGI characters, who end up looking exactly the same--not exactly a way to achieve suspension of disbelief.
I thought George Lucas was special because he had figured out that fights, battle scenes, and pretty scenery are meaningless if you don't care about the characters and what's happening to them. I'm sorry to find out that I was wrong.