Well, I have to be honest here. I really didn't get all that caught up in the the whole hype for TPM. I had pretty much tried to ignore it. I couldn't escape it as it was everywhere but I did try to look on the whole thing as just media blitz. Therefore my expectations for TPM were probably a little more realistic. I wasn't all that exicted by the idea of a new Star Wars film. Odd considering how much the original trilogy meant so much to me. I guess something told me that it wasn't going to be the same and therefore I shouldn't get too excited about it. And I didn't. Until I was sitting in the theatre and the opening crawl began. After that, things began to go down hill.

Since I had ignored the hype and reviews (and even though I had read the novel for TPM before I saw it) I hadn't been all that prepared for how annoying Jar Jar really was. On paper, he seemed like just a bumbler that was just a little missunderstood. On screen, he was a pestilence that need to be exterminated. This became true of most of the alien characters in the movie. They just came off as bafoons. But I was forgiving. After all, this movie was just to set up the whole saga and the good stuff would come in episodes II and III (I'm still holing onto a mere thread of hope for ROTS but it's getting weaker by the day).

So, looking back, what did I really expect? I expected to see a film that would set up what was to come in the later flilms. Did I get that? Yes, but it sort of left a bad taste in my mouth. And it took me seeing it 4 times before everything that was wrong with this movie began to really set it. There was too much extraneous dialoge and explanation. I understand the precarious position Lucas is in. Here he has the middle three parts of a nine part saga filmed and beloved by millions. Now he has to go back and tell the beginning three and everyone pretty much already knows what is going to happen. How can he make them more interesting and still contain some plot surprises? From my point of view, Lucas is still trying to answer those questions. With two of the three films completed, he still hasn't made them interesting and there isn't any plot surprises.

The main thing I like about the original trilogy is that Lucas is telling me a great story with really great characters. The prequals just seem to lie there like a $2.00 whore. Yeah you get off, but was it all that great?

Lucas has painted himself into a corner. He knew this going into TPM. It's only gotten worse with AOTC. While I am interested in how Anakin became Vader, how Palpitine becomes Emperor and how the Republic fell, I just thought that this would be a more compelling story. The prequals seem to act like a compass without a magent. They seem to just go off on needless directions and they never really get to the 'meat' of the story or the characters. Lucas himself said on the AOTC DVD that several of the deleted scenes were cut because they were nice character development but that they didn't move the story along. That in itself says more to me about Lucas' view of the prequals than anything else. He's sacrifised character and story to showcase CG technology. It's now all about 'look what I can do and isn't it spectacular!' 'Yes, it is but what you did back in 77 was specatular too.' Would be my answer to that.

I just expected more of a story and didn't get much. AOTC was a little better but not much.