Lucas' Latest Belch

Rating: 1/10 (30 December 2005)

Now, don't get me wrong: I don't mind escapist entertainment  what the Star Wars universe is all about. HOWEVER, the narrative material that was dealt with here was indeed tragic. Come on, we knew what was going to happen in the end, we just came to see HOW it was going to happen. But was it appropriate to unfold this as hollow-like as possible?
Anakin is a classic victim of a divided heart  on one hand his wife, the other his duty (hello cliché!). One of them has to win out ornone of them. A loser is what he became  of humanity, purpose and happiness. These are excellent ingredients for a movie striving for pathos that can make one feel exultingly sorrowful and mightily satisfied. Alas, Lucas has more love for his parlor tricks than the people who are trapped inside them. Indeed, it's remarkable that the PEOPLE are the vehicles for the special effects.
Whatever happened to the people BEING the special effects? Has both filmmaker and film audience alike become so misanthropic that what's cold and lifeless rises above that which genuinely feels and struggles?
And what of the constant self-cribbing that I saw? Everything, from dialogue to hairdos, was taken from the earlier Star Wars features. The sheer LAZINESS of the storytelling nearly had me screaming out of the theatre. Is it that Lucas ran out of ideas or did he intentionally wish to feebly and unambiguously congratulate the geeks on their knowledge of Star Wars trivia? Does any of this even matter to begin with?
(groan)
I guess it is just to each his own. There are those who like the pretty shapes and colors alone. For myself, I prefer some FEELING from my characters in the movies. If all that's left of mainstream cinema is just a bunch of somnambulistic, spasmodic messes on celluloid then let it all burn in an apocalyptic fire for all I care.