Almost everybody else in the blogsphere has commented on this so I suppose I’d better. Personally I quite liked the film – it had all the classic Star Wars strengths (cool characters, great SFX, amazing setting) and weaknesses (wasting the actor’s potential, duff dialogue, missing subplots).

The thing that was really jarred for me, above anything else, was the shear blockheadedness of Anakin Skywalker. Okay, he’s meant to be emotional insecure given his late entrance into the Jedi Academy (Yoda was right; the boy was too old), but he comes across as some sort of unsophisticated bumpkin who is out of his depth amidst the political mashcinations and grey areas of high political office. It’s something that’s meant to be part of the plot (at one point Obi-wan apologises to Anakin for never teaching him to think), but you never really want to believe it.

It wasn’t until later that I realised when the prophecy from the first two films meant. Anakin does bring balance to the force! At the end of Revenge of the Sith (and it’s no spoiler as it’s the setup for A New Hope) there are balanced number of Sith (Darth Sidious and Darth Vader) and Jedi (Yoda and Obe-wan Kenobi). Another thing I also realised is that the time between the two sets of films will now be properly open for exploration by the Expanded Universe.