Lucas' STAR WARS prequels comes to an end....thankfully!

Rating: 5/10 (18 August 2009)

So George Lucas decides to tell the prequel story to his original STAR WARS trilogy. Good idea, right? Think again! When the films started previewing during commercial breaks starting 10 years ago, I was sure to be pleased with the final product. Overall, thumbs down. I rather enjoyed the fast pace, energy and focus of EPISODE I:THE PHANTOM MENACE, which reminded me a lot of the original STAR WARS. But EPISODE II:ATTACK OF THE CLONES is a gawd-awful experience! To reiterate, MENACE is definitely the better than CLONES, and just might be better than this film STAR WARS, EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH. While SITH is a vast improvement over CLONES, that is not necessarily saying much as CLONES is about as bad as film-making (if that's what you want to call it) gets!
SITH concludes the prequel trilogy by showing how Anakin Skywalker (again played by Hayden Christensen from CLONES; it was Jake Lloyd in MENACE) turns to evil. Christensen redeems himself nicely here, although I thought that the overuse of CGI and terrible dialogue in CLONES doomed not just his acting in that film, but everyones! Anakin is a Jedi now, no longer an apprentice and he and his old Master and now best friend Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor looking more stately and dignified as we can see him morphing into the older Ob-Wan in the original trilogy) are on a mission to rescue Senator Palpatine (Shakespearean actor Ian McDarmid) from the clutches of Count Dooku (veteran Christopher Lee), the main villain who escaped at the end of CLONES. Anakin and Obi-Wan save Palpatine and Anakin kills Dooku cold-bloodedly, further moving him towards the Dark Side.
Back on Coruscant, Anakin and Padme (beautiful Natalie Portman) (who secretly married at the end of CLONES) reunite after his return from the Clone Wars and she informs him she is pregnant (we know where this is going!). Anakin has a dream that Padme dies in childbirth and gets advice from Palpatine on how he can save her using a power he learned from the powerful Sith Lord Darth Plageus. So this is how and why Anakin turns? OK. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is on a mission to stop separatist military leader General Grievous and Yoda on a mission to help the Wookies on their home planet. Both are backed up by the newly created Clone Army from CLONES.
Although SITH has a lot of action and is more cohesive than CLONES, I still find a lot of the CGI distracting at times and it all feels rushed b/c Lucas has to conclude the story here to set up the original trilogy. I actually think some of this should have happened in, or replaced some of the story in CLONES. A lot of it seemed rather pointless: Dooku, Grievous, and the separatist movement are irrelevant since Darth Sidious, AKA Palpatine, betrays the movement and destroys it in one fell swoop so the Empire can be created! This storyline was never really explored except near the end of CLONES. Feels like it should have been more developed and fleshed out and not treated as a sidebar.
Additionally, I realized that Anakin in both CLONES and SITH is not given much to do, action-wise. I think the boy Anakin from MENACE had more adventure and got into more scrapes than the teenage and young adult Anakin in CLONES and SITH combined! The Jedi are taken down way too easily by Clones and it seems like Yoda, the all powerful Jedi, should have seen it all coming. But the biggest letdown is how so easily Anakin betrays the Jedi and kills Mace Windu (commanding Samuel L. Jackson). That "key" scene really does not work.
The "final" battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan is long, drawn out, and generally exciting and their "final" confrontation has some sadness and power to it. Also Anakin and Padme's relationship is definitely more convincing than in CLONES and their end is kind of tragic. Of course the last scenes set up the events of the original trilogy. Overall, SITH is a good movie, but in terms of the STAR WARS saga, rather disappointing. Too bad.