The Dark Side of the Internet Clouds Everything

Rating: 8/10 (23 April 2020)

The reason this movie gets so much hate is that people go on the Internet, see other people bashing it, and then join in to seem cool. (This is something that movie critics are great at; they see if a movie is popular or not and then submit a new review, a 'reappraisal'. Look up the original critical reception of any Kubrick movie after Spartacus if you don't believe me In fact, this movie was originally praised by critics until they saw how much people hated it. Will the same thing happen to the Last Jedi? Time will tell.).
The movie in actuality is not that bad, and in comparison to the Disney Star Wars movies, it is actually quite good. There, I said it. The acting is better-we can't really blame Jake Lloyd, because he's just a kid, and he does pretty well for a kid his age. All the other actors do just as decent a job as any other SW movie. Jar Jar Binks is annoying, but at the time he was actually a pretty advanced special effect, a motion-capture creation predating Gollum by a few years. As a side note, he isn't even as annoying as the Brownies in Willow, so he isn't Lucas' worst creation. Plus, I've met tons of people who actually think he's funny. (And, as proven in the final battle, he's even a better tactician then the Avengers when put in a similar situation in the movie Infinity War. You know that's right). There are more practical effects here than in the other prequels, and fewer green screens. The film certainly has better action scenes than the Last Jedi, and it's also much more creative. Midi-chlorians are weird, but they didn't really affect the story; they are a detail that can be easily overlooked. The final battle is actually quite good, with many interlocking fronts that the heroes need to fight on. The story is what people usually complain about, and it does have its flaws, but it mainly functions as a set up for what is to come, and at least we know that it is actually going somewhere. (As a kid I was never bothered by the trade routes and senate spheres, I thought that those elements made the world more like real life.) John William's soundtrack is iconic and you'd have to have a big chip on your shoulder not to praise it. (William's work on the sequel trilogy, on the other hand, was an utter disappointment. No new iconic themes there, especially for the last two.)
Is this movie perfect? No. Would it have been better to get a Clone Wars live-action movie instead? Most likely. Is it the worst movie in the series? No, that's the Rise of Skywalker or the Last Jedi, you pick. Just don't be one of those people who nearly drove the Jar Jar actor to suicide and who drove Jake Lloyd into schizophrenia. That stuff is worse than anything that happened to the sequel trilogy actors.
And to all the people who think that giving this a positive review means I don't know anything about film: arguably the most famous movie critic ever, Roger Ebert, gave this 4 out of 4 stars. Does he know nothing about film either? Maybe it's time to reevaluate your opinions.