The Saga is now imperfect

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2006)

What's good: At long last the Sith stop being a "Phantom Menace" and actually come out and show their faces. One thing that made the original trilogy so great was the constant presence of a great villain. In the prequels, that villain is greatly lacking, until now. Ian McDiarmid gives a compelling performance, and the scenes between him and Anakin are the best part of the film (could of used more of that back in Episode I).
What's bad: The same big problems as all the prequels. Natalie Portman, though talented, isn't allowed to be. Ewan McGregor is uninteresting. The special effects are sensory overload, and more like a video game. Take for instance the opening space battle (shades of fighting the Death Star). Sure, it's fast and looks cool, but there's no emotion like in the original Star Wars. Yoda is a farcical parody of himself. And my biggest complaint: Lucas is trying to hard to explain things from the original trilogy. I didn't need to know that the force worked by microorganisms. It worked better for me as something mystical and unexplainable. I'd always imagined the Emperor became deformed after years of being too close to the dark side. Now I know it was electrocution. Did I need an explanation for how Jedis can come back from the dead and talk to people in visions? No. The biggest problem is that now whenever I watch the original trilogy I'll remember all of how the prequels say it happened. As such, the saga is now imperfect.