Hear that sound of a deflating balloon?

Rating: 5/10 (4 June 2005)

I'm REALLY disappointed. Taken as a stand-alone film, it's enjoyable nonsense; taken as the crucial link between the prequels and the original three episodes, it's frankly First Grade essay level. The dialogue is poor, Christensen again fails to convince except right at the end, and (very impressive) CGI is used too much to cover up the shortcomings. I wanted so much to have my faith restored after Ep. 1 and 2, but even ROTJ is better than this, and to say that the one with Ewoks is better sums up how disappointing this is. How is it that Anakin can decide to give up his years of Jedi training and switch to the Sith within one scene? There should have been more time spent on showing his emotional problems - Darth Vader is after all THE MOST EVIL villain - and they actually could have left out the Wookies altogether. There is more than enough of Chewbacca in the original films. And how do the Jedi all die so easily if they can use the Force to fly around etc.? Actually why do the troops suddenly turn on the Jedi when these guys have been protecting the Republic for so long? Some positive words, since I gave the film 5 out of 10: Ewan McGregor is good, Natalie Portman does her best with what she's given, and the planets are beautifully rendered. C3P0 is a bit player, which reduces the ham factor a bit, and there's no Jar-Jar. Christopher Lee makes the most of his few minutes on screen, and Ian McDiarmid is excellent as Palpatine. What a shame that the overall result comes up short. Mr. Lucas - there's only one thing you can do to redeem yourself now. Re-shoot the battle scenes in TESB with the latest CGI and take out the (impossible) sound effects in the space scenes. Then re-release it; it's still the best of the 6 by miles (in no small part thanks to Harrison Ford), and an upgrade on the FX would make it simply stunning. DO NOT even think about making any new ones. Enough is enough. Actually it would have been better in retrospect to have just had the first 3, but too late now! Nerd point: I may be wrong but I'm sure I saw the Millennium Falcon landing in the distance in one of the early scenes.