Star Wars was the first movie I remember seeing as a kid back in 1977, and I remember the rest of the originals from my childhood as well. Oddly enough, my experience of them goes way beyond the movies. Since I didn't have a VCR until the 1990's, I probably read the novels more than saw the movies. I also eagerly listened to the radio dramas as well, and all of those sources are kinda combined in my head.

And then in 1999 came TPM. Yippee! A Star Wars Movie! But like many of us, it wasn't the Star Wars Movie I was hoping for. I even got the books for the first couple, like I did as a kid. And if you think Jar-jar was bad on screen, try reading a page of him...

But on to what I liked.

John Williams's Score - even if there was that issue of the soundtrack for TPM having a track called the death of Qui-Jon, which got out before the movie. Still, it was great to have that type of music again.

Eye candy a plenty. This lead to problems in pacing, but it in certain moods, it is great.

Acting wise, I liked Ewan McGregor's Obi-wan, with the major exception of how dense he was with the mystery in AOTC. Ian McDiarmid was great as well, especially as the tempter in ROTS.

I think there is a quite interesting story in Anakin's tragic fall - namely his warped love. As a rather traditional Christian, I want to see it more along the lines of the way Augustine talked about the death of a loved friend in his Confessions than the probably more Buddhist conception probably behind the story here, the twin stories of Anakin's fall because of desire to save the ones he loved and his redemption through discovering his son's love is an interesting idea. The problem is that GL did so bad with the Love story that it gets in the way of this.