Posted 24 May 2005 - 11:47 AM
The opening few minutes, before Anakin and Obi-Wan begin speaking, was very, very cool. That orbital combat, so huge and busy and titanic, felt like the Clone Wars I imagined when the phrase was first used in Episode IV.
I do have to say I liked the Order 66 montage. Very tragic, and I respect that Lucas didn't pull any punches with the destruction of the Jedi, showing that even the children were slain (by Anakin himself, no less!). On the other hand, the phrase "younglings" irritated me every time they said it.
The Wookiees were cool, but I wanted more of Kashyyyk than a few minutes (remember in the original trilogy, when characters would spend a third of a film on one planet?). Their stuff was just so neat-looking.
I liked every scene involving Palpatine. Ian McDiarmid was absolutely splendid to watch, and I believed everything he said. He was demure and convincing in his arguments for the Sith, which is exactly what he should have been. The Jedi arguments really didn't have any of the internal consistency that the Sith did.
I also liked the little bit with Yoda Force-punching the Imperial Guards. That two-second bit encapsulated what I felt Yoda should have been through the entire new trilogy - this calm little guy who doesn't do hyper-acrobatics or even use a lightsaber; he's so attuned to the Force that all it takes is a subtle movement to dispatch his foes.
I wanted to like the last confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin, but Anakin's lines were...just a tiny bit off. In that situation, I sympathized with him. He believed (or perhaps had deluded himself into believing) that he had chosen the best course of action. The Jedi Council were trying to take control of the Republic and assassinate the Chancellor; Anakin himself had long been subjected to their arrogance and duplicity. When Padme denounced him (and Obi-Wan emerged), I really thought that Anakin would have felt more deeply betrayed and abandoned by Padme, maybe even suspecting that she had been having an affair with Obi-Wan? I guess I wanted more pathos and less immediate anger, and maybe, as it all sank in, he'd lose emotional control and lash out with the Force, accidentally injuring Padme... I just didn't really buy that he'd start choking her like that, considering that his desire to keep her safe was his supposed motivation for everything he'd done [at least, immediately - it seemed to me that his motivation was to keep anything from changing, ensuring that everything would stay the same, comfortable and free from the fear of loss. Okay, enough analysis].
Well, that's how I wanted it to go, anyway. It was still a pretty good scene, though.