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Indeed. Clearly no one had the balls on these films to tell Lucas his scripts were giant piles of shite. The films tell us about Obi-Wan's and Anakin's supposed "friendship" through clunky dialogue, rather than showing us. The scene where Han saves Luke in the opening of Empire speaks volumes about their growing relationship. The best we get in the second prequel is a few awkwardly acted back and forths between Obi-Wan and Anakin telling us about some great battles they've been in. This was Lucas's poor attempt to convince the audience they really were friends.

This is all important stuff!

We've been down this road about a million times before.

There are several things not working properly in the prequels (black/white characters, the gaudiness, the dialogue, the cutesy factor etc.), but I like them nonetheless. I like the mythic scope, the political shenanigans, the effects/tableaux (which are at times gobsmackingly beautiful and detailed), some of the acting and places, the music (obviously), some of the confrontations and the forward "thrust" of the narrative.

And of course the fact that it expands a fictional universe I've always been in loved with.

I don't mind people enjoying, why would I! I just don't think anyone has a leg to stand on when people say these are a worthy addition to the Star Wars canon. (But I do think you're a bit weird for thinking some of the acting and narrative are actually positive aspects! )

Acting -- well, McDiarmid is wonderful. Neeson, MacGregor, August, Lee, Jackson are all fine actors doing their best from the often lacking material they've been given. Portman is one of my favourite hotties, so she could basically just stand there and be beautiful and I would still give top mark. Lloyd and Christensen are rather disappointing casting choices.

Narrative -- well, there's never really a dull moment, IMO. Some fine action setpieces change with intimate moments. New exotic locales keep the interest up. The films end in multi-climaxes and build up well towards that.

Whether it's a "worthy" addition is a different debate altogether. I don't think they're as good as the originals, obviously (and I say that with as much distance to my own filmatic upbringing as possible), and I would have preferred them to be better all around. But they have so many enjoyable elements that it wouldn't be right to brush them off with sweeping negativity.

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I thought Christopher Lee was very good in Attack Of The Clones as well (and woefully underused in Revenge Of The Sith). With his presence he pretty much owned each scene he was in, reducing the level of silliness to an almost imperceptable level. Now that's impressive!

Other excellent acting I thought was by Jack Thompson (Clegg Lars) in Attack Of The Clones (what's real acting doing in a film like this?) and Terence Stamp as the much-beleaguered Chancellor Valorum.

That's pretty much it, really.
Except I agree with Thor that Portman could just have slept through her performance and I'd still have loved her.

Oh, and I still think Revenge Of The Sith is an excellent Star Wars film!
I would have deeply loved to skip The Phantom Film and Attack Of The Clowns entirely back in '99 and '02 and jumped straight into this one.

Samuel L Jackson was terrible in these movies, largely because he was miscast and badly directed by Lucas. I think he did the best he could, sure. But it still didn't help matters when the directing and writing were so bad. McDiarmid was at least slightly more memorable simply because he was an evil asshole. But even then I cringed a bit at the hammy overacting, especially when he fries purple lightsaber guy whatshisface (Samuel L Jackson).

Fuck these movies!

Not if you like them for their pretty colours, no.

NP : THE GODFATHER II - Nino Rota



Sublime.

p.s. Does anyone know what was the first FILM* sequel to be titled Part II/2?

*amended to deter smart-alecs ( not that it'll stop the most determined )

Good call!

Wasn't it actually this one? I know that the studio complained about using "Part II", but - lo and behold - it became a trend.

That's what I was thinking too Pawel, it pre-dates The French Connection 2 by one year.

You're fecking kidding me!?

NP: Godzilla - David Arnold

An really good disaster film score. I don't really like the "awe inspiring" melody for the creature and much prefer the "nuclear horror" original take. The action cues are excellent, as expected. The mickey-mousey stuff, not so much. The whole score feels a bit like ID4: Monster Edition, but that's a fine metric by any standard.

Ugh. Damn kids.