Well the cool company I work for gave everyone the last few hours of work off to go see the latest Star Wars movie. They rented out a nearby theatre so we all tropped down there to see it. The good news about the movie is that it's a lot better than Episode I or II which were sorely disappointing. The bad news is that it still suffers from "George Lucas" syndrome. For those who are unfamiliar with George Lucas syndrome, it affects movie makers who like to make big special effects movies and throw the plot and dialgo in as an afterthought.
(BTW: If you haven't seen the movie yet and want to be surprised you may want to stop reading.)
Though I bought Anakin's reason for joining the dark side of the force, it seemed to happen way too fast. One's transformation from good to evil (or vice versa) doesn't happen in an instant. It takes time. Sure, Anakin's been leaning toward the dark side for awhile but the fact that he gets all sad about killing someone then suddenly decides that the dark side of the force thing is rather cool I'll go and kill thousands more. It was too easy. Too quick.
Then Lucas depicts Jedis being killed by a handful Storm Troopers. But during all the other movies, we see Jedis defending themselves against overwhelming odds and for the most part coming out OK. Suddenly two or three storm troopers can take one out in about five seconds. What happened to this force that Jedis are supposed to have?
Then every scene Anikan has with Padme is laughable. The dialogue is wooden and stiff. Everything they'd talk to each other I wanted to say "Married people don't talk to each other like that." No one talks to each other like that except when the writer (Lucas) is trying too hard come up with dialoged that tugs at our emotions instead of letting our care about the characters do that.
I'm not trying to come off as a Star Wars nerd here. My complaint is that Lucas has a tendency to create visually compelling movies while doing the minimal amount of work needed to create a believable (or consistent) plot, compelling dialog, or let the audience really care about characters.
Episode III? Better than Episode I or II. Visually stunning. Too bad the dialogue and plot were weak. If those elements were stronger, Lucas would have hit a home run. Stick to visual effects George. Let someone else write the movie.
Star Wars Episode III: 2 1/2 stars (out of 4)