Got better with each viewing

Rating: Null/10 (16 July 1999)

Ignore all of the hype, either positive or negative, and it boils down to this: this movie is mean, mean, mean!! People keep saying that Lucas went too far in making this a kiddie movie, but I don't see it; yes, you do have Jar Jar ( who gets better with time) and some young lead characters, but really, the tone of this movie is somewhat bleak in the way that ESB was bleak. The Hitlerian overtones surrounding the ascension of Palpatine, life and death struggle over galactic trade routes (with Palpatine taking advantage of this behind the scenes), and the rise of an ancient, supposedly extinct enemy: this is heady stuff, well beyond the Independence Day/5th Dimension kind of junk I've seen it compared to. I guess that when people think that a plot is "difficult", that means it stinks.
Effects=wicked. Lightsaber duel= unbelievable, even after 4 viewings. Acting= Everyone works for me except for Lloyd, but what do expect from a 7 year old. Everyone keeps complaining about the lack of character development, but last I looked, the title of this movie wasn't "Moby Dick" or "War and Peace". Do you really need more than what you're supplied with to "get" these characters? Yes, it would have been cool to see Maul a little more, but lets face it, in the broad scope of the trilogy he is a footnote character, APM's Boba Fett. Go ahead and cry and be disappointed; me, I'm going to see it again!!