m50d's Journal: Yet another ROTS review

Went to see it yesterday. Like AOTC, I feel it's worth watching once but doesn't stand up compared to the originals. Whilst I have attempted to avoid spoilers I make no guarantees.

The Good

Hurrah! Hayden has - just about - learned to talk! He still sounds flat and wooden, but at least it's a human degree of flat and wooden, not the previous computer-beating monotone. He's not up to love scenes but some of the conversations with Obi-Wan manage to sound almost genuine. There's a person underneath there, at least, and he seeps through occasionally.

The spaceships. At the start of the film we see a genuine fleet engagement, although mostly from the perspective of a few fighters one gets a sense of two full lines of battle, with ponderous cruisers exchanging tremendous firepower.

The Bad

"General Grievous". I mean, really. That sounds like the villian out of a kiddie cartoon. No, it's worse than that. It sounds like the villan from a set of action figures. Would it really have cost too much to get someone to find him a proper name?

Kenobi. He's now much nicer to Anakin, far friendlier. This is good, but it's happened at the wrong time. In the last movie he was patronising and didn't seem very close to Anakin, who nevertheless stuck by him. This time he really loves him, and yet he turns from him.

Portman's voice. Somehow she's gone from queen to council estate. Maybe it's just too much time around Christiansen.

The Ugly

The dialog. We know what to expect by now. Urgh.

The plot. The macro-plot is actually fairly good, with the collapse of the republic making simplistic but striking points about society. But anakin is just not believeable or human enough.