jimbo, you are definitly a unique individual. I never thought I would ever come across a person who called themselves a "Star Wars" fan that thought any of the prequals was superior to the originals. Or that I'd come across a person that thought the acting in the PTs was good.

Natalie Portman can act?
(After falling out of a transport and rolling down a sand dune)
Clone Trooper: "Are you alright?"
Padme (perfectly fine): "Yes."

The above scene was so bad that they edited it out for the DVD release and replaced it with a better acted scene. So, a) Natalie Portman is a crappy actress and b) ATOC had crappy editors.

No such thing as too much CGI? How about when you feel like you're watching a cartoon because everything in the shot looks fake and cheesy? Digital ships better than model ships? Every single ship in the OT looked infinitely better than every ship in PT, in my opinion. Maybe REALLY shiney fake looking cartoon ships look better to you than model ships that are actually real. I guess that's just you...

GL really does use CGI in order to be lazy. They could make models and have ships that look real, or they could take a short cut and use CGI. CGI was used. They could have actually shot a battle scene instead of making a battle scene completely out of CGI, again having the feel of a cartoon and looking and feeling really cheesy and obviously fake. CGI was used. So, is there really no such thing as too much CGI? When models looks better and more realistic and there is no real reason to use CGI except for laziness and ego, should CGI be used instead? Or go for something that looks better? If there is no such thing as too much CGI how come every movie isn't all CGI?

Your words:
"Van Helsing is a dumb action movie. It is basically an effects show." Does that mean it had too much CGI...?