I just kept wanting to gouge my eyes out

Rating: 5/10 (16 June 2005)

OK, we have to set thing straight once and for all. I do not claim to be some sort of Star Wars purist, but I must comment on the visual effects.
While this movie (and II) represent some extremely well done animation, I have to say compared to the original star wars(s) the effects simply...suck. The originals used REAL models and REAL actors (not animation for every ship and stormtrooper) which made the characters and scenes seem somewhat real (as opposed to the 2 hour cartoon that is Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones). The fact that they did not build the complicated models and didn't use real actors for me really took away a lot of the enjoyment that could have possibly been had.
Second, and possibly more importantly, is the dialogue. George Lucas spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the movie. He couldn't hire ONE professional scriptwriter to look over the script before he filmed? In response to everyone who seems to say "Hey the originals were corny too". This is simply not true. I've re-watched them, and they don't have a millionth of the corniness of this movie. I mean c'mon, there are lines like "We're supposed to be smarter than this" "My powers have DOUBLED" (I half expected Count Dokoo - so badly played as an aside - to say "o yeah well mine have tripled so nyah") and the worst "NOOOOOO" in movie history. Seriously, the script sounds like George Lucas asked some first grader to write the script and than accepted it without looking at it.
All this is of course, is not to downplay the ludicrousness of the plot. "Woops killed Mace Windu, might as well wipe out the Jedi". And of course the fact that one storm trooper killed a Jedi Master, I mean c'mon Luke Skywalker killed hundreds of stormtroopers in ANH and he wasn't even a Jedi yet. They couldn't have had Anakin and the emperor hunting down the Jedi like Obi Wan actually says he did in ANH? In conclusion I am disappointed. It could have been so much better, but now...oh well...