After making the mistake of seeing Episode I at a Midnight showing, and then actually making the mistake of seeing Episode II in general, I was hesitant to even think about seeing Episode III. Then I read Kevin Smith’s review of a pre-screening and he said this was the Episode all the “haters” were waiting for. And I know he’s a huge Star Wars fan, but I was still skeptical. I was damned sure I still wasn’t going to see this one at Midnight, hell, I was pretty sure I was going to let all of opening weekend proceed without me attending the festivities. But, I couldn’t resist the pull, and I ordered tickets for the reserved seats on Sunday at noon.

Most people I have talked to have had the same reaction to the movie I did. Basically, the movie is pretty good, but George Lucas shouldn’t ever, ever, ever write any sort of romantic scene. I’ve been trying to figure out if Hayden Christensen is as bad an actor as Episode II and III have made him out to be, or if the writing and direction were playing a large part. I still haven’t seen him in anything else, but Natalie Portman is a decent actress, and even she comes off as very cardboard like in Revenge of the Sith. Basically, any scene with just them in it was painful to watch. Everyone else all had great performances, but most of them all are fairly accomplished actors.

The only thing that really bothered me outside of the Padme/Anakin interaction, was exactly how quickly Anakin switched to the Dark Side. Over the course of about an hour (in story time), he switches. That seems like a pretty short time to give up all the good in the world. And of course, he does it mostly for a woman. 🙂

Overall, I enjoyed this part of the story, mostly because it definitely shows us how Anakin got to where he was as Darth Vader in Episode IV and how amazingly badass Yoda and Obi-Wan are. If you hated Episode I and II, go see III for at least a little redemption.