Boring, predictable, no protagonist, talking instead of images and real action.

Rating: 2/10 (31 May 2005)

The only reason why I was not as bored as watching Episode One is that I already had extremely low expectations. Okay, the SFX department did a good job, and I liked the surfaces of the spaceships, and some of the vehicles were funny and nicely designed. But Episode III has such a bad bad screenplay nobody ever would have accepted anywhere, even at 3rd class filmschools, if not attached to the "star wars" brand. The job to be done writing episode III was to show how anakin turns into Darth Vader. So as everybody knows the ending, the interesting question was HOW to get there. Do they come up with a good idea for the character change? And come on, whats on screen now is just a lack of ideas for that. Every star-wars-fan website has better ideas. In a good movie you have strong images that make you FEEL the conflict the protagonist has to deal with. Here you don't even have a protagonist! Anakin remains at a distance from the beginning. You always get the feeling: no, he's wrong, he's the bad guy. I stay on Obi-Wan Kenobis side. In a good movie we'd really feel: yes, I would have acted just like that if I was in his situation. there are so many good movies with dark evil heroes: gangster films like 'bonnie and clyde' or 'the godfather' or 'taxi driver' or Tarantino movies etc. Here you always think: ah, now he's acting stupid and has dark mascara makeup: guess he's on the dark side now... (yawn) Everybody's JUST TALKING ABOUT HIS/HER FEELINGS, especially Anakin. Nothing is SHOWN, nothing is believable. My only explanation for all these people who seem to like the film (8.0 rating on IMDb, I can't believe it!) is, that the basic setting of star wars, with funny creatures in space and the force and the jedi masters etc. is still so strong that it's enough to enjoy the images of aliens and spaceships between the stars, and imagine own stories that might happen there...