Lucas couldn't afford a competent screenwriter?

Rating: 3/10 (1 June 2005)

Such a disappointment! After reading initial reviews of Ep III I was looking forward to a film that would really bring the circle to a close. Instead, what we got was dialog so bad it wouldn't have been accepted on a day-time soap, a lead "actor" who was wooden, and endless light-saber duels that just filled out screen time. Worst of all, what should have been the pivotal moment when Anakin Skywalker abandons the Jedi and aligns with the Dark Side is so anticlimactic it almost gets completely lost. In fact, it's done so badly Lucas has to have the Chancellor actually *announce* that the transformation has been made. The result is that the back story for one of the cinema's great villains turns out to be that he was a sniveling, indecisive adolescent who just sort of blunders down the wrong path. Bleahh! The best course for the future is, I guess, to just watch Eps IV through VI and forget all about this wimpy prequel trilogy.