Not great, but better than the last two

Rating: 1/10 (26 May 2005)

I may anger many hard-core fans of the franchise, but I don't think the movie was as good as many claim it was. I, like a lot of SW fans, grew up with the original trilogy and thought it was ground breaking stuff (even though it was only 7 years ago I first saw Return of the Jedi). I loved the story and the whole sci-fi aspect to it. Yet I was deeply disappointed with Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, which had amazing CGI yet the plots were flat, as they tried to involve a child Anakin (which I assume was trying to appeal to younger audiences) and some romance garbage between Padme and Anakin. I don't think they should have included such thing in attempt to appeal more to females and children viewers. Though romance was in the original trilogy between Han and Leia, it was reinforced with good dialogue which made u believe their love was real, and didn't interfere with the story as a whole. Now with the newer movies, its pretty much just long, drawn-out scenes "I love you. You are so beautiful". With Revenge of the Sith, Padme and Anakin's relationship is not believable with their corny dialogue and no emotion to reinforce their love on screen. Personally, I think they should have left that romance plot out of the film and focus on what it's really about, Star Wars. Aside from the poor dialogue and acting (especially with Anakin), I enjoyed the back-drop to the story of the Clone Wars. The first battle in the movie was true eye-candy, though I think Lucas relied to heavily opn CGI, which is very noticeable at time, and at times is a distraction to what is really going on. Yet once the talking begins it goes downhill from there. What annoyed me was that Anakin was completely loyal to the Jedi, yet converts to the Darkside after a few lame conversations with the Chancellor, which seems to only take a week. Obi-Wan was Anakin's mentor for what I guess could be no more than 20 years, and it takes so little time for Anakin to change sides. It would have been more believable if we had noticed a significant decrease in Anakin's loyally to the Jedi in Attack of the Clones, or even Phantom Menace. As far as the action goes, it was entertaining and there were many thing I enjoyed about it. Though the fight between Mace Windu and the Chancellor was lame, leaving much to be desired in the way of fight choreography. Obi-Wan's duels with General Grievous and Anakin were nice to watch, but dragged on longer than they should have. And don't get me started on the CGI hopping-Yoda. At times like that the laughing audience in the theater made it seem like I was watching a comedy rather than the highly-anticipated new Star Wars. A main concern about the film is the amount of CGI it has. Even the storm troopers were CGI! Lucas definitely cut some corners compared to the original trilogy. Considering the larger budget he get to work with, I think he could have had a few props made to make it look for life-like, instead of trying to save money by doing everything by computer. And Yoda... he looked a lot better as a puppet in the original trilogy than he does now, as he looks like something out of a Shrek movie. I guess the main reason I was disappointed with this film was because I compare it to the original. I think I would appreciate it if I looked at it for what it has become, a movie for children. (Though I admit, I prefer seeing Jedi die a bloodless death instead of vanishing into thin air, like when Yoda and Obi-Wan died). A lot of the dialogue is so bad, its as if Disney wrote the script. Its really that bad, and I was getting annoyed after the sixth time of Anakin saying: "I am becoming more powerful" using different words. Also, the movie is diluted with too much political talk. It all Anakin and Padme talk about, not to mention the Chancellor. What made the original trilogy so good was that you had to look into it more to get a sense of the political situations of the galaxy. RotS leaves nothing to the imagination in regards to politics. "Democracy good, empire bad" was the sum of most conversations in the movie. Its as if the characters go out of their way to explain the political situation to one another. Especially with Obi-Wan and Anakin, who'se lines are so awkward that at times its as if they just met. And with the cinematography, it also left much to be desired. Many of the camera angles are just plain awkward, and don't blend well with the CGI elements. And the urban settings just looked lame, as Padme's room looked sterile and something out of the original Star Trek. The pillars at the entrance of the senate looked so fake that I thought it was straight from Wolfenstein 3D (a game from the early 90's). That's just my opinion though. Even Hoth from the Empire Strikes Back (1980) looked more realistic than a lot of the settings from a large budgeted movie in 2005. Overall, I am greatly disappointed with how the franchise was destroyed by greedy Mr. Lucas. If he hadn't decided to cut corners with overwhelming CGI garbage, the film would be a lot better and true to the originals. Then again, that's the price you pay for letting Lucas direct Star Wars movies. I just wish I could erase the memory of the last 3 film, for I really enjoyed the franchise (books, video games)before the Phantom Menace. I hope the kids out there enjoy it more than I did!
4/10