Much much better, and surprisingly a satisfying conclusion

Rating: 8/10 (11 November 2012)

OK, I've given this a lot of thought. I haven't watched this in awhile, so I popped in my DVD copy and wondered if it would be better, just as good or worse than I remembered. After watching, I can say that it's actually pretty good. Is it perfect? No. There are times when the dialogue falls flat, and some of the acting is still generic. But the actors in this film have improved very much, which I'll get to in a minute, the dialogue while not perfect has also improved, and the story is actually more interesting than it was in "Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones".
As a kid, I mildly enjoyed the prequels, with Episode 3 being my favorite of the 3. Now that I'm older, I realize that the prequels are flawed, with "Phantom Menace" not very good, but certainly not terrible. "Attack of the Clones"... well there are times when I don't like it and there are times where I think it's okay. In no way do I hate the prequels as it seems a lot of people do, but this one I have to say is probably the best out of all three. Not as good as the original trilogy, but it comes close. And yes, like 99.9% of the fan base, I do not like the midi-chlorian idea at all! I don't care what Lucas says, they don't exist in my world!
Not much I can say about the story, but going in for the first time, I knew what was coming. The only questions were "How does it happen?" "How does Anakin get that suit?" or "How did Luke and Leia get separated at birth?" After seeing it, it all made sense. Seeing Palpatine manipulate Anakin by saying that he can help him save Padme from dying, seeing Anakin and the clone troopers kill the Jedi, Anakin being burnt in a volcano which causes him to wear that famous suit and mask up until the ending scene with Obi Wan taking Luke (who is an infant at that point) to leave him in the care of Owen and Beru. It actually for me was so satisfying. Not to mention that scene where we see the mask being put on Darth Vader's face, there was this strange feeling in the theater and I almost couldn't speak. It was so cool!
The acting has improved, and while I never hated the actors in the previous two films, I found most of the characters to be uninteresting in the previous two movies (minus Obi Wan and Yoda). While I found Hayden Christensen to be very shallow in Episode 2, in this one he's better even though he still overacts sometimes. He's actually very good at portraying Anakin's fall into the Dark Side. Ewan McGregor I always thought was cast well as Obi Wan. I liked him as Obi Wan in the other prequels, and this time it actually felt like he would become Alec Guiness. Natalie Portman I think did a lot better in this one than the other two, and I'm glad she's done great work like "Black Swan" "Brothers" and "Thor" in recent years. Ian McDiarmid I thought was awesome as the Emperor and I consider his character one of the best movie villains ever. Samuel L. Jackson, Jimmy Smits and Christopher Lee I also thought did good in their roles. Character-wise, I thought they were more interesting overall. Yoda was awesome in this one! I love the scenes where he uses his light saber against the clone troopers and the fight between him and the emperor.
The action is done very well as it was in the last two films, and fortunately the story actually serves a purpose behind the CGI. John Williams' musical score also is brilliant as always. Despite all the flaws the prequels have, his music has never been bad.
Overall: It seems like Lucas realized his mistakes in the first two films, and decided to put in what the fans wanted to see. Still not perfect, but this was executed much better than the other two, while still retaining some of the flaws from the other prequels. Does it have it's flaws? Sure it does. Is everyone going to like the movie? NOT AT ALL. If you don't like it, that's fine, but I think it's really good and it ties right into the first film of the original trilogy very well.