It's been a long journey for Lucas and the audience

Rating: 7/10 (27 June 2005)

It's 1977 and I'm 15 years old when on a hot summer afternoon I ride my bike to a local theater to see the big summer smash called Star Wars and naturally there was a long line to get in. Hard to believe that 28 years later I'm still going to a movie theater to view the latest entry in this remarkable series of films and that it's taken this long to almost come full circle to where we originally started. In this film we see how young Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) save Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and bring him back to the Jedi council.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** What everyone doesn't know is that Palpatine is a Sith Lord and it is he who encourages Anakin to come over to the dark side and become Darth Vader and the first person to find out is (of course) Yoda (voice of Frank Oz) who has the unfortunate task of telling Obi-Wan. Padme (Natalie Portman) is now pregnant with twins and she doesn't believe Obi-Wan when he tells her that her husband has gone to the dark side but eventually she finds out and there is a final fight to the death with light sabers between mentor and protégé.
This may or may not be the last Star Wars film (I think not) but I did find this entry to be satisfying in the way that viewers are allowed to watch first hand how everything happened to where we first picked up the story with Luke and Princess Leia. Let's face it though, there are so many annoying things in this chapter that one can't help but re-think just how good of a director George Lucas really is. I've seen better line readings in Ed Wood films! To say that it appears that the actors are just reading their lines is a complete understatement. I kept expecting to see a script in their hands as they all stiffly and without emotion just blandly drone on. Portman tries but it's to no avail and the only redeeming performances come from McGregor and McDiarmid who make the best of the few takes that Lucas gave them. McGregor has the voice and mannerisms of Alec Guinness down pat and McDiarmid is downright spirited in his evil role but let's not forget about Yoda who displays more facial expressions than the rest of the cast! A couple of things come to mind from this and the first is a question...why does Yoda need a cane? Yoda gets involved in fierce fighting and is falling off of 50 foot ledges where he lands and then just dusts himself off and gets ready for more fighting! The second thing that comes to mind is that it's hard to imagine that two extremely good looking people like Christensen and Portman would have kids that look like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. That's like if Cindy Crawford and Tom Selleck hooked up they would have children that look like Janeane Garofalo and Paul Giamatti! But the granddaddy of all complaints (for everyone else too!) is the casting of Christensen. I'll just come out and say it that I think this is arguably the worst job of casting in cinema history! All the whining from this bland pretty boy...he's supposed to be Darth Vader with James Earl Jones voice?
But, I did enjoy this film and I can't help but admit that I felt a bit of nostalgia and sorrow as the film ended and I even stayed until every single credit had rolled across the screen. I couldn't help but think that this may be the last Star Wars film I'll see and it's been so many years since I was 15 years old and peddling my bicycle to the theater to view a film that would go on to be the start of the most successful franchise in history. Lucas undeniably has his flaws but he's created something with these films that is very hard to explain to those that are not fans and he's tapped into the conscience of those willing to come along for a long and fun ride.