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Interesting thread. It’s funny, even as a 9 year old (when I first saw ROTS) who loved the film as much as any other (in my mind it was a masterpiece on par with the OT [I never thought TPM or AOTC were]), there were things I didn’t like:
- Some really poor and strange editing choices (I distinctly remember seeing the film opening night and thinking “what the hell?” when Anakin says “General Grievous’s ship is dead ahead” and then it awkwardly cuts to him in obviously another take that doesn’t match at all saying “the one crawling with vulture droids.”
- Stupid battle droid humor and voices.
- Palpatine cheering during the Dooku duel.
- The weird and unnatural balcony scene between Anakin and Padme.
- The lightsaber battle with four-armed Grievous is done as soon as it begins because choreographing it was too hard.
- Palpatine transforms into wrinkly face rather than slowly aging into it.
- Palpatine wrinkly face looks nothing like in ROTJ (and it’s not just different, it’s a lot worse).
- “Unlimited Powah!”
- There’s some really bad dialogue and delivery from Anakin on Mustafar.
As the years passed, I still regarded the film highly, but some other things started to bug me too:
- Visually the film is overwhelmingly CG and simply looks nothing like the much more grounded OT.
- The dialogue, in general, is stiff and overly formal in many places (nothing like the more casual, human, and humorous dialogue in the OT).
- Certain ways in which Lucas came really close to greatness but didn’t quite make it there (The Jedi are not at all perfect and the fact that Anakin doesn’t actually have any ideological differences with them and simply buys Palpatine’s obviously BS “the Jedi are taking over” line, Anakin is never explicitly revealed to have been created by Plagueis and Palpatine which could have been a really compelling part of his seduction, etc.).
- Everyone constantly flipping.
- “It can’t be.” COME ON Ewan. You’re better than this.
- Certain things that just don’t really make sense (Padme losing the will to live).
In recent years, my opinion of the film has really dropped. It’s basically gone from great to alright. Every time I see it again I find more moments that just ring false and don’t work for me. A lot of the dialogue sucks, a lot of the environments feel cheap and unbelievable. The structure of the film is weak, and, most importantly (the main reason I can’t in good conscience say the film succeeds), the whole point of the movie - showing Anakin turning to the dark side - doesn’t work. It’s too sudden and unbelievable. I don’t mind that saving Padme factored into it, but to betray the Jedi the way he does means there should have been some stronger motivation for him. Especially now that I’ve read the excellent novelization of the film (which also isn’t totally perfect but still miles better), it’s really hard for me to take the film and Anakin’s fall seriously. There’s still stuff that I can enjoy, but on the whole, there’s a LOT to dislike.