George Lucas had a tough job...

Rating: Null/10 (26 May 2002)

Right...
Original trilogy - tiny underdog valiantly fighting against almighty intergalactic empire. Viz: Luke Skywalker, gazing at the setting suns from his Aunt & Uncle's farm, with Williams' French Horn suggesting future glories in a spinetingling way.
We then are led to understand that Episodes I, II, III deal with the decay and downfall of a once powerful and just Jedi Union. The very nature of the storyline is bound to be more depressing than the original trilogy. HOWEVER, even despite the fact they're not going to be as fun to watch, George Lucas has still mucked up these first two SO BADLY.
re. Episode II: Why does the Love scene in the middle need to look so unbelievably tacky, and why is Anakin's character turned into such a pathetic whingeing, moody adolescent? Why does Lucas need to pander to modern movie cliches, and protract the dogfight, factory, war scenes (i.e. all the ones with flashy special effects) on for so long? Where's the plot? Where's anything that's not CGI?
That said, the beginning "Blade-Runner" section had a very nice, dark feel. C3P0 and R2D2 (but especially C3P0's identity crisis) displayed just the right level of original Star Wars humour. As in the originals with Guinness & Earl Jones, the acting skills of MacGregor, Lee, McDiarmid & sometimes Portman try to distract us from just how very wooden Christenson is.
More C3P0, R2D2, Yoda & Kenobi(i.e. more interesting characters) and less oh-look-at-my-computer's-new-graphics-card, please...