Same flaws as the second. Acting, dialog, action all awful, in my estimation. A couple MAJOR continuity mistakes, one that could have been fixed with dialog looping, one that's written in and completely contradicts something said in Jedi.

I liked the last 30 minutes, and, much like the second, I liked the underlying story elements and select individual effects/characters. But the movie around it was just as bad, Christiansen is still holding steady at one and a half facial expressions. As good as things got for the last half hour, not worth the first 2 hours of bad movie.

~Palpatine getting ugly.....his fight with Mace Windu kicked major bootie. I had goosebumps the entire time. The way Cass feels about Vader, I've always felt about the Emperor, so for me, I knew that watching Palpatine show his true colors was going to be major. And it was. I was completely enthralled. And terrified!

~Count Dukoo.....I love Christopher Lee. Too bad Dukoo had to go down so quickly.

~The Emperor and Yoda flipping all over the place. Awesome.

~General Grievous. As soon as I played with the GG action figure, I knew he would be cool.....and boy was he. I looooved him!

~The opening sequence. Holy crap. Humorous, exciting, beautifully executed.

~The Wookies. I was so happy to see Chewbacca. I knew he was going to be in it, but there was something so cool about seeing him.

~"Execute Order Number 66." Wow. It was so hard watching all the Jedis going down.

~Obi Wan and Anakin's fight. You know how it ends, but still, to see it happen was incredible. Obi Wan crying, "You were my brother!" Oy.

~Anakin getting his armor/limbs/helmet/breathing thing. Wowza. :snap: Well done. And I got goosebumps as soon as I saw all the guys in the uniforms at the end of the movie, while the Emperor and Vader looked out at the semi-formed Death Star. I was thrilled. Wanted to go home and watch A New Hope.

~Anakin and Padme scenes. I wasn't all that thrilled by them. The only part of their conversations I really enjoyed or found interesting was their first one, when he said, "This is the happiest day of my life." I was particularly disappointed in their last encounter. Bah. I wanted a little something more from them. She really disappointed me for some reason.

~There were a few CGI things that icked me. When they landed the 1/2 ship at the beginning, it was so cool to get the close-up of Obi Wan and Anakin in the cockpit of the craft......but damn, they looked like cartoons. Ugh. I almost started laughing. Come on! You do all that incredible computer work, and leave that a mess? It would have been such a cool shot!

Emperor? Emperor!?

Obi-wan and Yoda return to Corusant and head straight to the Jedi Temple. They have not been to the senate where, at the same time, Palpatine is busy declaring his new Empire. And yet, Obi-wan calls him "Emperor". Twice! In later scenes with Little Orphan Annie, he goes back to calling him Chancellor. That's just...how do you screw that up?

Issue #2: Does this sound familiar to anyone?

LUKE
Leia... do you remember your mother? Your real mother?

LEIA
Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.

Really, like the minute you were born? Man, she was one damned observant newborn if she could remember that her mother "was very beautiful. Kind, but...sad."

Grrrr. That one's particularly irksome because Padme dying is integral to the story of the movie, and yet it completely contradicts that line in Jedi. Leia's mother lives, long enough for Leia to have memory of her.

And on the mildly annoying front...Chewbaca is friends with Yoda, but years later doesn't put a good word in to Han for Obi-wan and instead makes Obi-wan bargain for a ride? I swear, Lucas just didn't think these things through, he was too busy pandering to people. "I wanna see Chewbaca, I wanna see Chewbaca!" These movies would have been so much better if he hadn't forced these stupid little tie-ins that were so unnecessary.

I've heard it defended that in the post-Rebellion books, Leia has the ability to communicate with her twins in the womb. It's been explained away that Leia's eyes were open when they were born, and Luke's were closed, and that Leia had possibly been "communicating" with her mother in the womb. Weak argument, but an argument nonetheless.