Many people have asked my opinion of Episode III. I finally saw it on the big screen yesterday, so here's my review-

Not good. I'm still digesting it all, but right now I place it about the same as Episode II. Pretty cool visuals, bad writing and acting, some intriguing plot ideas but over all a sub-par story. Both are better than Episode I which was the exact same, except no intriguing plot ideas.

Let's look at the major points of the movie, what it was supposed to do, and see how well it did them both in this movie.

Anakin turning to the dark side- Pathetic. I had such hopes for this too because Palpatine was one of the few good aspects of the pre-trilogy thus far. I thought he would have a clever way of twisting Anakin. But it boiled down to "I'll save your wife if you kill everybody and everything you know." That scene where he kills Mace Windu? OK, the killing was fine, but then he just gets on his knees and says "I'm evil now". WTF? Anakin seems to have the will power and foresight of a 3 month old puppy. "Hey, we got chocolate over on the Dark Side! Come on over!"
The pre-trilogy as a whole is slightly better. We see Anakin is a whinny arrogant bastard, which I suppose is the path to the dark side. Still really lame.

Palpatine becoming Emperor- Decent. I definitely see that he's been working for a long time on an elaborate plot to seize power. I liked the scene where he declared the formation of the Empire. I little bit of a down step from the pre-trilogy as a whole, because I was really excited about this point at the end of episode II.

The Jedi dying- Decent. The way the killed the Jedi was very satisfactory. True, we didn't get to see Vader do any 'hunting and destroying'. But it was a very realistic way of killing alot of Jedi in a short time. I also (and I may be alone on this) like the way Yoda was saved by the Wookies. It again seemed reasonable and realistic, and was actually a good cameo for Chewbacca (I was so worried it would be lame). One problem I had was that none of the Jedi saw this coming. Couldn't they see into the future, even a little?

Other things I liked:

General Grevous- I liked him, good personality. But why do all these characters have such stupid names?

Anakin and Obi-Wan- I actually got a feeling of this "good friendship" Obi-Wan alluded to in Episode IV, whereas in Episode II I got no feeling of friendship, just Anakin being a dick.

De Ja Vu- There were many sets and scenes which were very reminiscent of the Original Trilogy, which I approve of. At the end I believe the ship Bail Organa goes to is actually supposed to be the Tantive IV (the one board by Vader at the beginning of episode IV). And Captain Antilles (captain of the Tantive IV, first guy who Vader chokes) was listed in the end credits.

Darth Vader- Even though the conversion was contrived and unconvincing, once he was evil, MAN was he evil. Beautiful scene as he was about to kill the padawans. It gave me chills.

Lava fight scene- Visually, it had a classic Star Wars feel to it.

Stuff I really didn't like:

Yoda's speech- NO! If anybody bothers to go back and look at Empire, they'll see he doesn't talk like that all the freakin' time, just sometimes to make him a little 'crazy'. Some of those speeches he gave to the Emperor sounded really dumb. One the other hand the speech he gives to Obi-Wan before he confronts Vader looked real good. CGI is improving.

Technology anachronisms- This was the worst of the three. Why do they have all these great weapons, buzz droids, homing missiles super-fast gyro cars, and not 20 years from now? Couldn't Lucas temper his enthusiasm with a little sense of perspective?

Miss-used characters- C-3PO presents was pointless, R2-D2 was way too powerful (see technology anachronisms), Amidala was lame, underused, and poorly acted (and I love Natalie Portman! Why does she forsake me!)

Planets- Throughout the whole pre-trilogy all very non-memorable (except the Lava Planet, well done. And Kimino was pretty good too.) A Star Wars planet is supposed to have one extreme, memorable environment.

Yoda vs. The Emperor- like Alien vs. Predator, ever fanboys dream that probably should have stayed there. It was more satisfying than the hedonistic pleasure of the Yoda-Dooku fight, and lead a new twist on Yoda's warning to Luke in episode VI to "not underestimate the power of the Emperor". But still, I don't like either of them with a lightsaber, or jumping around like a jackanapes.

And finally, the unanswered question:

Why in God's name didn't Obi-Wan finish off Vader? It would have made SO much more sense if, after he got his arm cut off, a wave of lava dragged him down stream, so it would be very reasonable for Obi-Wan to assume he died.

Please email me with your own thoughts. I look forward to debates about these movies for a long time to come.

-The Wandering Norseman-