Great Fun, but glaring errors...

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2005)

Contains Spoilers!!! Padme dies! Anakin is Darth Vader !!! This movie was misnamed -it should really be "Darth Vader Begins"
Here's my 2 cents...they did not have too much in the way of plot twists to work with since we knew how it began and how it was supposed to end, but they seemed true to the story. It was a lot of fun and the action sequences were awesome. Best fight scenes yet! I thought Ewan dummied his acting way down when he was in a scene with Anakin -I though he was plain bad at times. I was disappointed in that. I though Natalie Portman did a good job. I thought everyone else did a decent job though - of course Yoda deserves the Academy :) So here are my discussion points:
1) I could have ended 10-15 minutes earlier - we did not really have to see Luke and Leia get dropped off, I don't know why we needed to know that folks were making contact from the dead etc. I did not think any of that stuff was necessary. I think it should have ended with Darth's mask going on, some breathing a "yes master" for James E.J. and DV's theme music.
2) I don't like how Padme died - I don't think it fit her character very well.
3) I don't like how one minute Anakin has killed one Jedi master, is crying "what have I done" and then the next minute he starts killing younglings - maybe if Christiansen could act, I could by it, but in the movie it did not flow. I would have thought a more gradual evolution of/to the dark side would have worked better. If I did not love these darn movies so much, this could have ruined it.
4) I don't get how Sen. Palpatine could make Anakin question Obi-Wan's loyalty and motives. Obi-Wan was his lifelong mentor and teacher. If Palpatine had stronger evidence or used serious trickery to convince Anakin that the Jedi's could not be trusted , that would have been better. (He did use some trickery, but it still seemed weak to me -although I know it was Anakin wanted to hear)
5) I liked seeing Chuy, but really - do we have to hook up with everyone from Episode 4 20 years earlier?? I'm not even sure we needed to see the wookies. The only person we haven't met is Hans.
6) At the end when we are down to the last few Jedi's - why split up to fight the Siths??? They should have taken out Anakin together and then gone on to Darth Sidius.
7) Seems like Obi-Wan went to the dark side a bit - he watched Anakin suffer a great deal instead of killing him mercifully. Of course, if he had done that, there would be no Episodes IV - VI
8) Why did Darth Sidius tell Vader that he killed pad-me - that was not entirely true. Did he tell him because that added more fuel for the dark side or did he really believe that? Does it matter?
9) It amused me when Palpatine said that Siths get their power from their passion, -which seemed ironic to me, because that is what Christiansen lacks the most! Gosh he is painful to watch!
Anyway -would love to see it again. It was a lot of fun and time passed very quickly. I wasn't thinking about all this during the movie so I enjoyed it a bunch. Now that's it over I began to dissect it and that's fun too. I give it an A-