The THIRD best Star Wars!

Rating: 9/10 (5 June 2005)

I am sure many people reading this will by now have seen the film, however, I won't be adding any spoilers "just in case"
Several drawbacks in the film prevent me giving it a 10 out of 10, perhaps I am being too fussy, but there you go:
1: As in ep 1 and 2, there is large emphasis on androids: far more than in the later films (4-6). This in itself is not bad, but, as we know, Lucas did not make these films earlier because the technology was not available. Now, however we are faced with the Irony that films set later than 1-3 contain LESS technology - although it does not spoil them one bit, it does make a "seamless" transition from 3-4 a bit hard to swallow.
2: and this is the nub of my complaint: Episode 3 is a fantastic film, although if anything I would have liked it to be a bit longer - that said - we again "knew" the story anyway - and it is remarkable what Lucas has achieved in that the presentation is so good - BUT, for me, a longer build up would have been good. The film is very closely allied in some areas of scenery etc with Ep4, and the reasons are obvious. But the end of the film is actually a let-down. We all know Vader "appears", but, remember, this film ENDS a long time before the events of Ep4: this gap will apparently be plugged with a TV series, and this is what I dislike the most: there is a large gap - with a story WORTH telling still left - this SHOULD be a movie, not confined to low budget TV. Episode 3 (i would say 3A) stands alone as a brilliant film, and tells the story Lucas wanted, and that we wanted. But it IS NOT sufficient to "close up" to episode 4 - again, I think another film IS justified. Then again, could it be the film is so good that we don't want it to end?