I've been struggling to figure out how I feel about REVENGE OF THE SITH. It's of course "review-proof" because it is more event than movie, and as an event it was exciting and as a movie it was... well... flawed. It was like RETURN OF THE JEDI - half brilliant swashbuckling adventure and half kid friendly crap that made me wince and giggle in all the wrong spots. And before any of you decide to go off on me for being a spoilsport let me preface this with I went in with an open mind, and I am as much a STAR WARS fan as most people who grew up on the movies and books.

So what bugged me?
- R2D2 and C3P0 were not the robots I recall. They had super powers beyond anything in the original series, and I can not reconcile scenes of R2 taking out other robots and C3P0 being a pilot. I really think they should have used other droids for these sequences. I would have preferred they not been there at all, and maybe had Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker play other droids - like fathers or the generation before the OT droids. I know the grand plan to have them witness everything, but it really mucks things up to have them doing many different things.
- If you're going to make three movies about DARTH VADER give me darkness all the way through. Anakin's turn to the darkside here was too sudden to believe. I remember in the novel for Phantom Menace Anakin had some dark moments and some bad dreams - when the movie came out they were gone. Revenge of the Sith was too fast to turn "Annie" dark, and I wish it was more gradual.
- The Frankenstein scene and the "NOOOOOO!" had me laughing uncontrollably.
- Robot warriors should never talk - it's too Disney.
- Nice to see Chewbacca, but that could have been any Wookie. It really shouldn't have been him.
- Palpatine's dark side transformation was too sudden and laughable. And why would he retain power in the Senate when he looked so obviously EVIL? I could have bought a slight change, but to turn him into the same man we see in Return of the Jedi was too far.
- The plan to hide Luke was silly. Keep his last name, give him to his uncle, and send him to Vader's home planet. Yeah! Those Jedi sure are great at making plans to hide someone.
- Too many Siths hit the fan. In the OT we had Vader and the Emperor the whole time. In these 3 films we had Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and General Grievous all getting short stints as baddies we hardly get to know. I wished one would have made it through the prequels, and then have one climactic battle with a damn good reason for Anakin to hate and kill the Sith.
- Dialogue was rotten.

So what was good?
- George Lucas is a visual director light years beyond anyone else. The movie looked better than any film in the series. He can tell a story with a shot, and the best moments in the film are when the pictures do the talking.
- Man that first space battle was amazing! I got my money's worth in about 10 minutes into the film.
- Nice to see Tarkin and the Death Star starting up - one shout out that made a strong connection to the OT and did not muck things up.
- The fight scenes were all breathtaking. Space battles never looked so good!
- I really had no problem with the actors. Yeah, there were some wooden spots... but I thought everyone did fine this round.
- I loved the subtle things like the assumed creation of Anakin by the Sith. Finally we have some grace and light touch in the universe of hammer hitting plot points. Lucas resisted any urge to spell everything out, and that is a mark of a good director.
- Wookies rock! I just wish we could have a whole movie about them -- EPISODE 3.5: MAKING WOOKIE would rule. More please!

So I am ultimately torn. Half brilliant and half hackneyed. Revenge of the Sith was a great mind blowing event that finally lived up to the promise of more of this dazzling universe, but it's still a notch below those first three movies that had all the visual dazzle and some characters that were fully realized. The dark power of my imagination of who and what Darth Vader is was always stronger than what I saw on the screen.