So, the prequel trilogy is over.

Rating: 5/10 (9 June 2006)

This movie basically did what is was supposed to do - end the latest trilogy with some serious action. Pretty much everything I wanted to see in this movie was implanted. Not with passion, not with surprises, not with movie magic but nevertheless it was there. I wanted it to be something more, but it is what it is.
This was a movie I would have loved to love, as well as the two first ones. The Star Wars - saga is so huge and means so much for me that at times I felt I truly loved this film. But that's just my love over the whole saga and the story, not the movie itself. It's the power of denial at work.
Many things were just wrong. I can't imagine how some of the dialoque got through. And the acting, well...I really can't blame the actors, because George Lucas is not a good director when it comes to acting. Ewan McGregor is a good actor, and he pretty much does what he can to keep things, if not great, then at least OK. Samuel L. Jackson also delivered what he could. Palpatine hammed it up, I enjoyed that. Many others, including Portman - ugh.
Also, many times it seemed that special FX were brought to the screen at the cost of the story. It didn't matter what happened and how it happened, as long as it looked cool and expensive. Again, many non-necessary and stupid scenes have found their way to the final version. It looks like a video game too often, and much of the potential and intensity is lost. It's a thing that happens without much effect on the viewer.
The last fight in the end was great at times, and not-so great at times. Although I really liked how it ended, the lava-stream scene where they jumped on floating things and tried to fight and "talk" at the same time, was pointless. It also didn't help how the final fight got interrupted about 15 times to show us something uninteresting. This should've been the most intense fight of the whole saga, but instead it felt like several scattered cutscenes of a video game.
Hey, this is Star Wars, at least on the surface. I fell in love with Star Wars as a kid, and I can't say that I'm angry. Disappointed with the prequels? Yes, but...I guess at this point I let the apathy in and I just took whatever Lucas threw at me. If I didn't have any feelings towards the whole original trilogy, I would say this is a useless movie. Somehow the greatness of the originals manages to lift this up from a well of feces into mediocrity. For others it's the opposite, and I understand them well.
Even if I hope that many things were done differently, I can still somewhat enjoy this. The child within me was at times satisfied, the adult version of me was bored and disillusioned. But hey, I got to see Obi-Wan fight Anakin, Yoda fight the clones and the Emperor, Mace Windu fight the Emperor too. That's something. Much of it is emotionless digital glimmer with a horribly written plot around it, but it's still something. I must have lowered the bar after episodes one and two.
I got what I expected. This is what the movie is. You will see what you expect. It is stale, it is passionless, but it delivers the scenes it needs to.
George Lucas, don't direct or directly influence any movie ever again - but thank you for what you did early in your career. Whatever fresh passion you had, you surely lost it. But without you we wouldn't have Star Wars. I would like to live in a world without these prequels, but I wouldn't want to live in a world without the 1977 film. Even if you tried to butcher that one too with the new "additions". Come on, man.