Ooh-Surprise--Episode III too predictable

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2006)

Six given for visual effects. How about George Lucas for Rummy's replacement--now there's a guy who can "fight with the army he has." What is amazing is how the movie is put together. Lucas and his troops should be planning our military strategy.
It would have been better continuity with episodes 4, 5, and 6 to stick with "older" (70's style) costumes. Costumes and other styles too 21st century for a movie that takes place before (in sequence) with the 70's and 80's original three. Clones in ultra-modern suits become stormtroopers with worn-out looking garb in "later episodes."
Anakin's "conversion" is not dramatic enough. Palpatine should have brought him back from the dead or restored his hand--not just convinced him the Jedi were on the wrong side. Anyway, since we already knew this would happen, and that Palpatine was the hooded one all along,there is no surprise to all of this.
Padme's lines not sophisticated enough for the situation. She sounds like her boyfriend has revealed a drug habit when she says "you're going down (the wrong) path" rather than discovering that her beloved has become the E-villist being in the universe. She isn't terrorized enough by the events, and she is too cool when she confronts DV on the lava planet. Where is the raging emotion?
Ooh, surprise, Darth-V and Obi-Wan in a light saber fight. Gee, that should be written into episode IV.
The biggest trick is turning 34 year old Obi-Wan into Sir Alec Guinness in only twenty years. It must have been some "back of the desert experience" on Tattioon for 'Ol ObiWan.
The only way the full series could be convincing is if people born in 2005 never know the truth that the "last three" episodes were made in 1977-1980. In a sense, seeing 4, 5, and 6 "connected the dots" (as George Lucas says) rather than the other way.
Like my son says, the acting starts out bad, and gets worse. The only good actors are Frank Oz as Yoda and the Droids, C3PO and R2.