W2waytoo is right ... these movies should make sense without comics, cartoons, and video games. They don't ... especially this new one. Worse yet, Sith doesn't try to fix most of the prequel problems, and when it does it fails.
The whole Qui-gon thing wouldn't even be necessary had the prequels not existed. Really: when Ben turned into a phantom in the original films ... hey, it just happened! I didn't care why. It didn't need an explanation. It was a "super-powerful Jedi thing!" It wasn't until Phantom Menace did we learn that not all jedi can do that trick. Now it's something that Qui-gon astrally trains Yoda to learn? What?
More gripes:
* "Miss you I will Chewbacca." (I think that was the line.) Ew ... that's so tacky. Not as tacky as the Tarzan yells ... oh my God, I can't believe they used the Tarzan yells. Even when I was a kid I thought the Tarzan yell in Jedi was stupid, and now they've taken the worst moment in Jedi and transplanted it into sith.
* Yoda's dialogue is awful in Sith ... his verbal dyslexia is nothing short of annoying and forced. I also didn't like the CGI on him ... the animators went overboard on Yoda's skin texture. I actually liked the cgi Yoda in Clones, so I was surprised how bad he looked here.
* So Ben shows up with a baby at Owen Lars' joint and no one thinks twice. Oh ... except Ben Kenobi never met Owen and Beru, did he?! Anakin and Padme went to Tatooine in Clones, but Kenobi wasn't with them.
* I agree with anyone who says Vader's "NOOOOO" is the worst onscreen scream since Luke yelled like a girl in the Sp.Ed Empire Strikes Back.
* I wasn’t impressed by the opening battle ... the final fight in Return of the Jedi is a lot cooler. I was REALLY underwhelmed by the lava duel … you could barely see what was happening. All of the artistry of the physical fighting was lost.
* Speaking of the opening battle, why was Ben so willing to give up when he didn’t even try to push those annoying little robots off the ship using the force? He barely tried to save himself.
* No explanation of who ordered the clones (I guess the "66" command was intended to show you that Palpatine was somehow in charge of their construction). A vague possible explanation for Anakin's father was offered, but it deserved more screentime than Chewbacca did.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that Revenge of the Sith was just as weak as the first two prequels … just a different kind of weak. A dark, disjointed “weak,” not a silly kind of “weak.” Revenge of the Sith was stop/start all the way through … you’d get a big, endless battle, then the film would stop in its tracks to show you static scenes from Padme’s apartment. The pace was totally off -- things that deserved explanation were breezed over or not addressed at all while battles went on forever.
The worst thing is: I just didn't care about any of these characters. No emotional investment whatsoever. Lucas had three chances to make me care and he squandered all of them.
As far as acting goes, I thought Hayden did a much better job with material that was almost as lame as Attack of the Clones. He *almost* pulled it off. Portman was sleepwalking, and Ewan seemed like he just wanted it to be over. Ian hammed it up way too much to be taken seriously.