Could this even have lived up to the expectations? Did they even try?

Rating: 2/10 (27 December 2014)

I guess I am in the same boat as many other reviewers. I watched ep. 4-6 when I was a child, and was totally enchanted by the magic that was Star Wars... how could I have not? I also read the novels based on the movies, and of course, I wondered about that fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin. I imagined it many many times.
Here now is the movie that is supposed to connect the prequels to the original movies. And it's odd... I didn't expect much. All those years, I had wondered what those scenes would look like, but watching ep. 1 and 2, I was worried that that pivotal ep. III would be a mess. And it was.
Anakin's turn to the dark side was so incredibly phoned in, it felt like a slap in the face. Yes, there is that scene in AOTC where he kills the Tusken, thereby courting the dark side. But instead of going from there, developing the seed planted there and in Anakin's past, here the tragedy, the whole inner conflict, gets buried in too many battle-scenes.
While his fear of losing Padme might be a contributing factor, just the dream of that shouldn't be enough to make him go from undecided to complete mass-murderer.
Lucas COULD have focused MUCH more on the inner conflict, the transition of Anakin. He didn't, it's just one of the plot lines here, in between a metric ton of overblown CGI battle scenes.
The acting, especially by Hayden Christian, was horrible. Yes, the acting in the original movies wasn't Shakespeare either, yet there was a tiny bit of warmth there. Hayden seems to blend right in with the "teenage hunk actors" so popular know, with the same bland and emotionless acting we have seen from the "Twilight"-cast. There is no sympathy at all with the tragedy of this young man falling from the most hopeful Jedi in a long time to a killing machine. None. And I have no idea whether it's just the bad acting, the horrible script and dialog or a combination of those things.
While the SW-universe is complicated sometimes, the amount of explaining and rectifying things that had to be done after this movie is mind-boggling. So many things didn't make sense or were never really explained. Mark how many reviewers are puzzled by the "coughing robot"... because its never explained to casual viewers that Grievous is no robot, and that he was hurt by Mace Windu, which is the reason for his breathing problems.
Why does Palpatine's appearance change so much? Is it the use of force-lightning or does the strain make a mask he wore fall away?
Why is the tech more advanced in these prequels? It later was explained that things like personal shielding, which is so overabundant in the prequels, is so costly and later isn't explained anymore.
The Jedis that get killed at the end.. one might wonder whether those were the only ones (5? 6?), or whether every Jedi really had a bunch of clone troopers next to them, so that they could be killed. It is explained nowhere that elsewhere, they were hunted and executed. It never is hinted at that there are Jedi left, which, in the years following the events in this movie, get hunted down by Vader and others (which is the reason he later is considered such an efficient Jedi-killer).
Apart from the focus on huge battles instead of the MUCH more important conflict inside of Anakin, the worst part probably is the death of Padme, who simply gives up the will to live. Which is not only a totally cheap way out, it also makes no sense, considering she just gave birth to two children... enough reason to live and fight on. A strong character reduced to a cliché "weak woman, Victorian style", simply dying of a broken heart (why not go the whole way and let her die of good old' tuberculosis, the classical killer in old operas and dramas?)
What strikes me the most is the lack of heart and warmth in here. Not warmth as in "in the story", as we all knew it would be a sad and dramatic turn of events. But cold as in... this is devoid of personality and any love by the people who made it. Gazillions of CGI-effects, "Twilight"-style unaffected acting esp. by Hayden C., phoned-in story developments, a lack of explanation, all flash with no heart at all.
It isn't enough to just put characters like Chewbacca (really? Of all the Wookiees, the one who later becomes a main char after being a smuggler's comrade, one of the military leader in this has to be Chewbacca? Why not just put them in there with a subtitle "For all the Chewie-fans, here he is for no particular reason so you can cheer"?) or C3PO etc. They can not possibly add the magic or heart of the original movies, no matter how much they tried.
This is a cold entry into the SW-universe, with a main actor who is disliked not for what his character does, but for the fact that he looks like Edwards even moodier and more sulky brother and displays acting-skills that easily get over-shadowed by a CGI-char (Yoda), with a focus on big battles instead of emotion, tragedy or inner turmoil. Even though the original movies were a space-opera, the development of Luke Skywalker throughout the movies has so much more depth and believability (cliche or not) than what happens with Anakin here.
Expectations were insanely high, and maybe nothing could have fulfilled them, yet it feels as if here, they never even tried. There is no love, no heart here, there is just too much CGI, too much bad acting, a lack of explanation and a lot of sadness for those that hoped for more.