One of the worst movies ever

Rating: 1/10 (1 December 2005)

Yes I am old enough to remember the first Star Wars movie, in theaters. It was an exciting ride, and a great story. The special effect actually augmented the story, rather than detracting from it. Sad to say that trend has flipped -- the series started downhill at "Revenge of the Jedi" and has swirled into the toilet of bad storytelling ever since.
This last installment takes the cake. George Lucas is a mature, adult man with grown daughters -- why on earth can't he write a female character with more personality than a paper bag? Natalie Portman's entire existence in this movie is to walk around, whine and complain, and be pregnant. Oh yeah, and cry. Nice job, George.
The Star Wars glamour and specialness is gone to a land far, far, away. Watch this movie again, and compare it to the first episode. Then ask yourself where is the humor, where is the high sense of adventure. You won't find it.
What you will find is a lot of whizz-bang, gee-I-wonder-how-many-computers-it-took-to-do-that-scene scenes. That's all they are, scenes with cardboard characters doing nothing you care about. And the Darth Vader "rise" scene was a ridiculous, unintentionally comic parody of some bad Frankenstein movie. I had to stifle a laugh.
This movie also tries to substitute a little extra blood and gore (Annakin the Amputee) to make itself seem more dark and "menacing" -- George apparently forgot how to do that with good storytelling. Far from a classic, this is a movie to forget as soon as you've seen it.