Overall Rating: Pretty Good.
I was pleased with the Anakin/Obi Wan fight at the end of the movie. I like Obi Wan's line about the higher ground right before he cuts three of Anakin's limbs off, and then the way he yelled "But you were supposed to be the Chosen One!". I also liked how he picked up Anakin's lightsaber (remember A New Hope, "that was your father's lightsaber", sweet).
The initial scene was cool, very reminiscient of Obi Wan and Luke in A New Hope on the Death Star (as well as Quigon and Obi Wan in Episode I (Episdoe I will never be The Phantom Menace to me, just Episode I)). I liked the parallel of Palpatine sitting in the chair overseeing Anakin's decent, like at the end of Return of the Jedi with Luke. And asking him to kill Dooku, just like he does Luke with Vader.
Anakin's final decent was a little abrupt to me. I know it's been building since Episode I, but it seemed a little forced (during the scene in Palpatine's chambers right after they kill Mace Windu). He goes from arguing for the prosecution of Palpatine at the hands of the Senate to "Yes, my master". But I'm all right with it, it just left a little bit of a bitter taste in my mouth.
The dialogue was atrocious. Lucas should have really hired someone else to write that for him. It really sounds like what five year olds would come up with on the playground. The man can plot decently, he put a lot more intrigue into these first three than the originals. And he does an all right job of pulling all the continuity issues together and addressing them. But you cringe every time someone says something.
The Darth Vader "Noooooo!!!!!!!" at the end. It almost destroyed the character of Darth Vader completely for me. Very Frankenstein monster, completely unneccesary. He's already fallen. It would have had more power if upon hearing of Padme's death, he looked at Palpatine, didn't say anything, then swept around and walked off silently. And that would have been truer to the character that Lucas had created.
The Jedi council. What's up with their holograms fitting perfectly into their chairs? Do they bring copies of their council chairs out into the battlefield, in case they have a meeting and need their hologram to look like it's sitting in the chair? I know it's nit-picky, but it irritated the hell out of me.
Yoda teaching Obi Wan how to talk with Quigon at the end of the movie (or mentioning that he would teach him). All right, this would be more effective if any of the following took place:
1. Quigon was a part of the dead in the original movies, or even mentioned.
2. Obi Wan taught Luke how to commune with dead Jedi.
3. If Luke was powerful enough to do this on his own, so should Anakin have been. He was born of Mitoclorin (don't get me started on Mitoclorin, or whatever they're called). He should be more powerful than Luke, more pure of the force (or more pure of spirit, until he falls to the dark side). If Luke can just do this, then Anakin should have also, and he should have with Quigon during Episode II or III.
Instead it seems cheap and just tossed in there to explain away how Luke does it later. It wasn't needed. The way Luke does it later is handled fine in the original movies. There was nothing that needed to be "fixed", thus the whole thing seemed very forced.
The "love triangle" between Obi Wan, Padme and Anakin. I know they tried to hint at it, mostly Anakin's jealousy over it, even though it was nonexistant, but the only reason I knew that in the movie was because I'd read it beforehand. You couldn't really tell from the movie, other than Anakin freaking out on the lava planet and choaking Padme. There were some precursors. Episode II (I'm not big on the title Attack of the Clones, either) had Obi Wan pushing Anakin away from Padme, possibly leading Anakin to believe there was an ulterior purpose. Earlier in Revenge of the Sith, Anakin makes some remarks about Obi Wan being over to see Padme when he wasn't present. Then Obi Wan stealing away on her ship when she goes to the lava planet. But, as with many other things, it seemed very forced to me.
I guess a lot just seemed forced. It seemed like cheap writing to me. He needed this to happen, and instead of finding a way to make it work right, created a situation to make it work. I know it's fiction, and that's kind of what you do, but there are boundaries to suspension of belief. And I know he has time constraints to deal with, but I think he could have left some of what he put in out and added other things to make the story more cohesive.
But it was still worth my ten bucks, and I'm sure I'll see it in the theater again.
episode 3 - 3 out of 5.
