This movie was worse than Mariah Carey's Glitter...
k just kidding.
I loved this movie. It trounces 1 and 2. I agree with pretty much everything said in the thread as well, so I'll try to be as non-repetitious as possible.
****ONOZ SPOILERZZZZZ!!!!!1*****
I will say one thing. People were complaining about the Emperor being over the top, but quite honestly, I thought it was nice. He was very serpentine and sly as Palpatine while still maintaining that nice old man persona. But once he revealed himself to Anakin and the Jedi came for him, there was no need to mask himself anymore. The only reason why he sounded over the top at first is because his whole body had just gotten fried with his lightning, including his voice box (which does raise the question though: why wasn't Luke deformed after ROTJ? He took a lot more lightning than Palps I think). But his voice did level out shortly after.
I liked a lot of things people had complained about. Like the space battle. I thought it was amazing, and it showed Anakin and Obi Wan's friendship and bond from the get go. I even liked the droid humor because it was a nice bit of levity before the udder darkness was to come (minus the ship somehow having gravity when turned sideways, but still forgiveable).
I don't know about anyone else's theatre, but when Yoda chopped off the two Troopers heads lickety split, and used the hand motion to knock out the guards when going in to confront the Emperor, the whole crowd was clapping. Soooo pimp.
The acting was superb almost across the board. I even liked Hayden's acting on this one.
There were still a couple of off deliveries from him, but it was nice. Padme....well she improved some...I guess. Very flat delivery still for her I think. Ewan = the shit as Obi Wan. Kudos to him on the performance. And as far as how quickly the change was to the darkside, yeah it was a bit rushed, but it still kept me along for the ride, because you saw with everything he did how it was more and more like quicksand, and how much more control of his mind he gave to the Emperor. His power craving and his want to save Padme did him in. The irony of him having the visions of her dying, then going through all of this just to kill her essentially was nice.
As far as downsides, I have one complaint and a couple of nitpicks.
Complaint: Darth Vader's "NOOOOOOO!!!" was terrible. I loved everything being crushed in the room, but man I wish they would have either use another take or changed the line, because it just didn't work.
Nitpicks:
a) Bail didn't even ask for Leia. "You're splitting them up? Oh, well we'll take that one." 8^|
b) C3P0 I thought was supposed to interject a statement about Padme before Bail requests the droids mind be wiped at the end. As it stands he didn't even pause upon requesting it to happen.
c) I wish that Vadar would have choked Padme a bit longer. Pretty terrible thing to say, I know, but it wo
d) I wish that Padme hadn't said "There's still good in him". That line should be kept unsaid until Luke says it. After all, she died because she lost the will to live. The Republic was now an Empire, and her husband had turned to the dark side and just killed several people including children. If she were still holding onto hope that he was still good, then it's no excuse for her dying, right?
^ While these are all nitpicks, it's still fine the way it is for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and my experience. It's nice to see others did as well.