Not again...

Rating: 4/10 (3 June 2005)

It's difficult to comment with originality about a film which has been so spectacularly derided in so many different ways; all focusing on one aspect of the entire series. Well, since George Lucas isn't big on originality, nor shall I be, so here goes - the dialogue is so bad, I thought I was watching a futuristic episode of the long dead 'Eldorado'. How is it possible to be SO bad at understanding what makes for interesting and convincing dialogue? How is it possible to come up with such a pathetic reason for Anakin joining the dark-side (oooo I had a bad dream so I'm going to be in a REAL mood now..)? How is it possible for an actor to be so wooden as to make Pinnochio actually look like a real boy with a few splinters? (and don't argue with the it's_difficult_to _act_properly_with_only_blue screens nonsense - I saw a one man rendition of Animal Farm with nothing but a torchlight at the Edinburgh festival - I think it was John Hurt and the whole theatre was transformed). How is it possible for a shabby screenplay to get past everybody involved with words like 'Younglings' ("Not even the Younglings survived" says a clearly embarrassed Ewan McGregor - WHAT!? YOUNGLINGS? Was that a flock of small brown birds I missed getting massacred?). Hang on, I know the reason why - it's because George Lucas has lost so much focus on the real world and has been so immersed in the pseudo-Greek_myth_meets_toddler_vocabulary world that he doesn't know a good line if he sniffed it. Still it's better than the previous two.