I’ve never been a huge fan of the Star Wars franchise – I don’t own any action figures and I’ve never had a toy lightsaber, and I’ve never camped out for any of the movie premiers. I do however feel that Star Wars is above average sci-fi, with grandiose ideas and believable, yet larger-than-life characters (even when saddled with poor dialogue), and I do own Episodes I and II and the original trilogy boxset, all on DVD (I wasn’t one of those who had to jump to get the VHS releases long before the DVDs were even available).All that said, I was entirely uncertain as to how I was going to like the latest and supposedly last installment in the series, but since I’d heard good things about the special effects, I figured it’d be worth catching a matinee at a nice stadium-seating theater to get the most out of it. Angie and I were going to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the theater at The Gateway outdoor mall when we were down in Salt Lake, but we realized it wasn’t out yet, so we settled on Episode III.
I have to say, I’m glad I saw it – Episode III is a far better movie both I and II by far, and I found myself getting caught up in the how of the change from a republic to an empire and from Anakin Skywalker, Jedi knight, to Darth Vader, Sith lord. Acting and dialogue are still painfully wooden at times, but it’s enough to get the job done, and the CGI special effects are finally good enough that it’s usually possible to forget just how much of the movie was created on a computer.
All in all, I’d definitely recommend Episode III. Heck, Angie even ended up liking it, and she usually makes fun of me for being interested in anything sci-fi.
