Good movie...until the end

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2005)

Well first let me brag about the good stuff in the recent Star Wars: Episode III.
The lightsaber duels is the key fighting in the movies. The duels between Anakin and Dooku, Yoda and Palpatine, Windu and Palpatine, Obi-Wan and Grievous, and the finale Obi-wan and Anakin are the highlights of the film. The Obi-wan/Anakin fight at the end is arguably the best lightsaber fight in ALL the movies.
The SFX and camera motions were great. The fast, swirling, moving camera when one of our characters was in a ship was done great, it sort of pulls you into the film. And for the first time of the recent Star Wars movies I actually felt emotion. Episode I and II lacked that and the movies just sort of had a feeling of dullness to it, pile that up with the horrible acting. Episode III gets quite emotional once Anakin starts turning into Vader. I admit I started tearing up when the clones began turning on the Jedi, and you begin to see the once great and high-honored Jedi, start getting turned on, and a massive Jedi extinction begins, capped off with the death of the younglings. The last fight between Anakin and Obi-an also held some emotion for me. I think Mcgregor improved his acting then the previous two movies, he hits his lines perfect "I'm sorry, I failed you Anakin." For some disappointments...I was disappointed in the Wookie scenes. There's this big build up of getting to see the Wookies, and getting to see Chewbacca, but they're there for such a short time, you don't even get to really see how the Wookies way of life is.
The Acting is an improvement over the last two, but it's still a weak part of the film. Mcdiarmid is really the stand out actor in the movies (like Lee was in Episode II). Mcgregor as I mentioned did improve. Christiansen I actually could tolerate (maybe he's just a good bad guy) unless he was with Portman, and scene with those two I just wanted to throw up.
Then on to the last 15 minutes of the film. It seemed like Lucas was trying to hard to tie everything together to Episode IV and it just made a big mess at the end (atleast for me). Padme's in labor for 5 minutes, and she makes up names in 2 seconds. The Death Star is practically already half built. How does Bru and Owen know Obi-wan? I have no former knowledge of them meeting and Obi-wan just kind of is like "Here take this baby, bye." I think Lucas just tried to hard to tie it together to Episode IV. We already know what happens Lucas, you made a good film, but rushed through the ending with stuff that honestly could have been left out.