Silly triteness spoils the technical effort

Rating: 1/10 (8 June 2002)

I had the luxury of seeing this film in apparently one of the only theatres playing it digitally in Toronto. Had I NOT seen it in the digital theatre, there would have been absolutely NO redeeming value to my having seen it at all!
The acting made me want to cringe - and, although I have heard much about George Lucas's specific decisions to film the romance segments in what he considered to be an old-fashioned "Golden Era of Hollywood" style (quotation not actually a quotation of his, but essentially equivalent to something he said to that effect), it simply comes across as weak writing, poor direction, and, I'm sorry to say it to all those fans of Hayden Christensen (and I must admit that I have NOT seen him in Life as a House), poor execution on the part of the actors (specifically Christensen and Natalie Portman). Not to say Portman isn't beautiful - she is, and that certainly makes for something good to look at. But THAT, my friends, is essentially the epitome of this experience - a beautiful film to LOOK at - especially digitally (although I have not seen it projected on film, so I cannot say for sure whether it is better one way or the other, but what I saw WAS really smooth) - and that's it!
But SO MANY lines, especially near the beginning of the film, just made me want to cringe! I couldn't believe my ears! The writing was just so poor! It's such a shame... I don't know... I have never been the biggest Star Wars fan, and perhaps this IS up to standards for the Star Wars films, but if it is, I'll have to re-assess my opinion of the Star Wars films!
I read an article lately that had the opinion that the new films aren't as good simply because they do not have a character like Harrison Ford's Han Solo (PRE-Special Edition Greedo-shoots-first edit) - something to do with the edginess (and Harrison Ford-ness, I would say!)of his character, or something! Well, I don't know if this is altogether true: Anakin, of course, has a "dark side," although it is marked by a whiny-ness that Solo never had! But SOMETHING is missing in the new series. Be it STORY or ACTING, or simply the fact that it is, by definition, a PREquel first of all (already setting it at a disadvantage), and second of all, it is directed by a director who had not directed a single film between the original Star Wars and Episode I! Why was The Empire Strikes Back such a success? Many continue to say it was due to the presence of Irvin Kershner as director, and that there were huge fights between Kershner and Lucas. Well, I don't know if this is true, but if Kershner did challenge Lucas, and what we see in Empire is the result of such a challenge, it certainly paid off, and maybe that is exactly what this new series needs: someone to stand up to Lucas, and FIGHT him! Not physically, but with the guts to tell him that what he is doing is WRONG, and his product is simply POOR! There is a rumour that nobody at Lucasfilm says "no" to George Lucas. Well someone ought to -- maybe that's what it would take to at least allow the third movie to make up for the previous two! How CAN he get better if no one is willing or prepared to give him the news? And if he HAS listened to negative reviews, it's important to realize that somewhere along the line even the MOST creative people need to accept some input! Someone really ought to say something to him... or else the third movie will be just as bad as the last two! Sadly, at this rate, it probably will be, anyway.