Too little too late

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2010)

When George Lucas announced he was to make a trilogy of movies that told the back story to the original Star Wars films I was delighted. After The Phantom Menace I was a little disappointed but I assumed he was trying to attract a new generation of kids to Star Wars and then move on with the story. Then Attack of the Clones happened, the worst Star Wars film. Terrible acting and again the story concentrates on the Clone Wars and not on the fact Anakin is supposed to be turning to the dark side any time soon. So two films pass and not much has happened, Palpatine has moved up in power, Anakin kills some sandpeople and falls in love during a terrible 20 minute spell.
So it leaves Mr Lucas with one film to deal with the really interesting stuff of Anakin turning to the dark side, the disintegration of the friendship of Anakin and Obi Wan, Palpatine becoming the Emperor, the birth of Luke and Leia and the exile of Yoda.
So it leaves around 2-3 scenes for Anakin to go from hero, noble Jedi with 'some' issues to become a child killer. It just doesn't work.
I think George left himself a little too much to do in one film. It also suffers from the fact he felt the need to have C3P0, R2D2 and Chewbacca included.
I think Mr Lucas needed someone to stand up to him a bit and tell him in the earlier movies that the plot was plodding along too much and the script was clunky. Who is going to do that though? its George Lucas baby and he can do what he wants with it. Fair enough I won't go into the acting - I don't really blame the actors, they were working in an empty blue room with a terrible script. One exception being Ian McDiarmid - his performance was brilliant. 7/10 is not a bad score for your average film. Its entertaining but you are always thinking it was too rushed and too little too late.