clunky, insipid, and illogical space soap opera

Rating: 3/10 (23 May 2005)

Though science fiction requires a willing suspension of disbelief, this film requires a suspension of logic and common sense.
As predictable, Lucas did a clumsy and awkward job of trying to splice the tail of this story to SW Episode IV. Some glaring disconnects:
1. In a society with advanced medicine, doctors let a young healthy mother basically die on her own will? Also, instead of plastic surgery and prosthetics, they encapsulate a burn victim in walking "Iron Lung"?
2. A Jedi "defender of the helpless" literally walks away from his young apprentice who nearly burns to death? You wouldn't treat a dog like that.
3. A lifetime of Jedi training is overturned after a couple conversations with the creepy old Chancellor?
4. Why go horror-show and disfigure Palpetine so that he looks like he needs an exorcism? He could simply have aged to look that weird and wrinkly by the time Luke Skywalker grows up.
5. Where did Anakin's Edifice Complex come from for suddenly wanting to rule the Galaxy? his Dark Side flirtation started out as altruistic.
6. It's going to take 18 years to build the Death Star? Must be a NASA project.
7. The light saber weed-whacker, General Grievous, needs an organic heart? Who made him, the Wizard of Oz? And what with the wheezing, is he overdue for an oil change?
8. The Jedi's are so ineffectual they can't use The Force to figure out what all audiences deduce  with their eyes closed -- about the identity of Darth Sideous? This is more transparent than Superman disguising himself with eyeglasses. The Jedi win the galaxy's version of the Darwin award. They are light-years from what I imagined during Obi-Wan's solilquie in SW IV.
Only George Lucas could turn what started out in 1977 as a fun-filled Saturday matinée film genre and turn in into a gloomy, self-indulgent and pretentious faux Greek tragedy.
Good-By Star Bores