on balance not as bad as I expected, but...

Rating: 6/10 (19 May 2005)

Don't get me wrong. I am a fan of the original Star Wars movies. This effort is however not in the same league.
I have read other users comments and find them quite frankly amazing. The "slow transition" and "moral dilemma" of Vader's turn to the Dark Side is utterly laughable. Science Fiction can do credible political philosophy, but quite frankly George Lucas cannot - Darth Vader was a far more credible character for me before I had seen this film.
What is most worrying is that in recent interviews George Lucas has been making all sorts of allusions to how the fragility of democracy and republics is highlighted in this film, but Anakin's transition is so unbelievable and so sudden. We see the seeds of doubt being sown, and then suddenly he turns into a Sith, no questions asked.
There were at least a dozen times when half the cinema was laughing, especially sadly in the supposedly serious moments like "Oh good. We had always wanted to adopt a baby girl." The visuals were of course spectacular, but on balance there was no reason to make the prequels apart from greed - they add little to the story, and whilst they tie up loose ends and mysteries in the plot of the first three films they take away a lot of the magic.