tragic waste

Rating: 3/10 (23 May 2002)

I feel sorry for the occasional decent bits lost in this pointless, over-expensive mess. Those bits would include the Fett family (why, oh why did anyone ever cast a Jake Lloyd in a world where there's kid actors like this?!), Christopher Lee, a few short excerpts from the lenghty fights and the blade-runneresque scenes.
otherwise, this is awfully written and the direction is just plain miserable. the poor, poor actors. I had serious doubts about that soap-opera-style kid, but ended up feeling sorry for him. It is not really his fault this whole thing sucks and doesn't make any sense and doesn't matter emotionally and aims to please 10-year-olds. Forget the cheesy romance, as it is obvious the whole thing is only meant to weave together the silly cgi action sequences. which don't work out all that brilliantly either, because there's no tension and little suspense or interest in the first place.
it is MASSIVELY silly to tell a tale of galactic scale and ambition, that really only revolves around 20 or so beings and two increasingly annoying droids, who are all inter-related as densely as inhabitants of some sick little isolated trailer park.
if the script doesn't work, nothing works, no stars, no outfits, no effects, nothing, NOTHING. How many times must this be proved? and mind you, compared to prices of massive-scale CGI, the scriptwriting comes really cheap; so does great professional directing.
it seems Lucas really works like a tyrant who can't stand any criticism, and so none of his employees dare to say a word about his decisions, no matter how obviously dumb those be.
our world would be a much better place, if the amount of money wasted on this film (and the last one, and most probably, the next one too) had been spent on aiding the sick and the starving in IIIrd world, or saving the rain forests or anything in that direction.
3 out of 10