This prequel trilogy has had a fair old pasting to be sure and a lot of it is completely justified. There's a lot of scenes that would be better off in a trash compactor - particularly almost every single one between Anakin and Padme. God they make me cringe. But apart from the glaring badness I think a lot of people miss the best aspect of the series which is Palpatine's rise to power.
I genuinely believe the story arc that Lucas came up with of how the Emperor manipulates everyone and everything around him is borderline genius. Forget Darth Vader, the real star of these films is the wrinkly old dude in the black hood.
Away from the Machievellian plotting (that took some typing), there's so much else to enjoy as well. The opening sequence is a whizzing rush of space battles leading straight into lightsaber duels and finally on to thunderous crash landing. I could watch it on loop all day. John Williams' score is as awesome as ever - it never lets you have any doubts as to the motives or emotions of the characters. And you get to see a lot more worlds in this film too, all of which are brilliantly imaginative and vividly realised by the ILM boffins (now there's a word I've not used in about 15 years!).
Order 66 is still chilling. Luke didn't like the 'death sensations' (as he put it) of this sequence - good phrase that, would make a great band name. That was the only time he flinched a bit during the movie though so he's reached another stage in his movie watch career. Might have to give Lord Of The Rings a go soon.
Revenge Of The Sith is a great film and provides thrilling links for Star Wars geeks between the old and the new. It really stitches the two trilogies together and I enjoyed this viewing as much as ever - it flew by in way less than 12 parsecs.
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