I'm not sure how I feel...

Rating: 7/10 (19 May 2005)

***SPOILERS***
The best of the prequels has arrived; and it's not RotS. AotC delivered and RotS followed through although not as strongly. I'd read so much about the 'poor lines and acting' and didn't swallow it because we'd heard all this before about the original trilogy. But after seeing the supposed 'stellar' performance of McDiarmid, I'm not so sure. Yes, he did well but then certain lines came across as very poorly delivered and/or badly written (Ewan McGregor is my personal pick for best acting of the films). The scene where Vader gets his armor should have been a classic knockout but was completely destroyed with the Frankensteinesque performance and far-too-human line delivery when he rises. I won't even mention the 'Noooooo!' bit...I'm speechless and I chuckled where a chuckle doesn't belong. In all honesty, the acting was the worst in this film than in the previous two. That being said, it's pretty exciting and visually stunning. The sound effects are second to none and you couldn't ask for more action than you get. It's also interesting to see Anakin's final descent to the Sith and how everything ends up on stage for IV, but again problems plague the movie there also. Leia talks about her memories of her mother in Ep VI, but we see that her mother dies in childbirth! And what is with Organa erasing 3PO's memory? Aside from it being a 'filler' of an excuse for the original trilogy, I don't understand why it was so? Further, why erase 3PO's but not R2s?! I guess part of the problem was that there was no anticipation; no buildup as one other reviewer mentioned (such as RotJ's Death Star attack or the first Vader/Luke showdown in ESB). Being that I am old enough to have seen the originals all in the theater, I guess the entire business of prequels was best left to the imagination although I don't outright 'hate' that Lucas made these movies. I'm not sure how I feel.