The verdict is in: Fanboys SUCK!

Rating: 8/10 (2 June 2005)

I liked both The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones in spite of their obvious flaws. But even knowing that chances are I was probably going to like Revenge of the Sith, or at least give it more of a lighter critical touch, I had to shake my head and laugh at all the people who thought Lucas was finally going to put the naysayers to rest with this one.
Yea, right.
Just like I predicted, after an initial wave of accolades and applause, the haters are back in full force, chopping away at this film with every thing they've got, almost thrilled that they get the chance to make sure everyone in the universe who has an internet connection gets to see that they hate the movie, hate lucas, hate computer special effects, hate hayden christensen, hate, hate, hate, hate, haaaaaaaaaate. Just like they did with Episodes I and II, The Matrix sequels, The Two Towers, Hulk, Daredevil, Fantastic 4, X-Men, Narnia, King Kong, Land of the Dead, and on and on and on forever.
That's the problem with fanboys; they all think they are writers, or that the movies they see should be made to their exact specifications. And if they aren't, well you didn't just disappoint them, but you ruined their life.
On a long enough timeline, fanboys will tear down any empire they have a hand in building up. It's just their nature. Let me put it this way; A director or a writer who creates a fandom is like a god who creates his own society of worshipers willing to give praise at whatever he or she created. But when that god decides to take a break and leave his creation alone by stepping away and closing the lid on his little ant farm of fans, he doesn't realize that while he's gone, those fans in the dark have no new product to feed off of, so they turn on each other, cannibalizing the movies they are left with for food, and their fellow fans who don't agree with them.
So someday, when their happy god comes back with a NEW creation to drop in their midst, they find after they lift the lid that the once happy little worshipers are now feral mutants so changed from lack of attention that anything you feed them now will be spit back up in their god's face.
Now this may be a stretch to believe, but search your feelings. deep down, you know this to be true. You've no doubt taken a spin across the Internet and read the tons of pure hatred that these "fans" have for any number of product that doesn't fulfill them. Could any movie have made them happy? I suppose so, after all, Peter Jackson seemed to have survived this psycho ant farm phenomenon with Lord of the Rings (although just wait for what happens when King Kong comes out).
But please, scroll down through some of the user comments here. Page after page of one star invectives, with the writers almost THRILLED that they get to report that Star Wars is finally "Dead" or whatever else.
Obviously these people weren't going to like ANY Star Wars movie unless we pried Irvin Kirsner out of this little hole and broke out all the puppets, and had ILM spend millions of dollars building the greatest plastic models you've ever seen on screen.
That's not to say that ROTS is perfect; It isn't. Actually, it suffers from the same problems that the previous episodes did. But geez, don't trust the fanboy venom any more than you'd trust a slobbering 10/10 review either.
So, the film itself. Well, it is the best of the three prequels. It's certainly the most passionate, with moments of real fun and genuine emotion being on display.
Yes, there's lots of CG (check your calender, it's 2005), yes the talking droids are silly, yes the plot be-bops around a lot, yes the dialog flubs a little, but for some reason, none of this really bothered me that much, or at least not enough to shake my general impression of the movie as a whopping dose of space opera action. One that makes a connection to the original trilogy much better than even I could have expected.
I don't know how episode III will fare as the years go by, if it will be placed with the originals or spat on like episode I and II. But I like it, and despite what you may read from some fat naked guy on his computer with dogeared copies of Starlog and Fangoria around him, most people (and critics) agree with me.