DR MattH: re: "Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith":
I need to say straight off that "The Empire Strikes Back" is my favorite "Star Wars" movie bar none, with the original (now known as "A New Hope") a very close second. I cannot stand "Return of the Jedi" and have not much use for the first two prequels.
"Star Wars: ROTS" is a wholly different film from the other two prequels and shares second place with "A New Hope" in my assessment.
I think it important to say that in the first two films (1977 and 1980), I continue to enjoy the films primarily because the characters and stories were nicely developed. I cared about Luke and Leia and Han very much. The plot twists and turns in "The Empire Strikes Back" were stunning and exciting.
Since George embarked upon the prequels, I've found no character worthy of my interest. That remains true, even having seen "Revenge of the Sith." I want to like them! Good golly, gee, but I do! But I just can't relate to their oh-so-important concerns.
Ewan McGregor is no Alec Guinness. These films should have had plenty of Obi-Wan development, but there is none. He just walks through the role. His accent is pretty. But there's no aura around him like that projected by Guinness whom you BELIEVED was a Jedi and a powerful one. And he gets no chastisement for having forced the council to accept Annakin when the council was very much against bringing him in as a boy.
Natalie Portman has been pretty much wasted in these films, too. She's pretty, but is given precious little character to develop. I cared about Carrie Fisher. She had a sardonic way of delivering a putdown, and then she could be all soft and sexy. I felt her pain when Han was encased in carbonite. I barely felt a thing when Padme Amidala passed away. Oh, well.
The less said about Hayden Christensens' apparent lack of acting talent the better. He glowered nicely and the special makeup was fun, especially the yellow eyes...and the final transformation into Darth Vader. He's a great mannequin, but the fewer lines he's given, the better he seems. (You may be surprised to learn it, but the ONE character I truly took to was the boy Jake Lloyd who portrayed Annakin in "The Phantom Menace" -- compared to Christensen, he's Haley Joel Osment!).
I also admired Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn in "The Phantom Menace," but Lucas dispatched him without provocation and left us with McGregor.
Despite all this kvetching about not giving a whit about the characters, the movie works VERY WELL. It's stunning to look at, it has a riveting story, and the action is breathtaking. I was very much into what was going on.
The movie belongs to Ian McDiarmid. He's BRILLIANT as Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious! He should be remembered at Oscar time...not with just a nomination, either.
One curiousity: Yoda's last comments to Obi-Wan before they both went into exile. Something about the spirit of Qui-Gon having returned from the netherworld...and Yoda offering to teach Obi-Wan how to communicate. There's no point of reference anywhere else in the saga about this, so it seemed strange. I guess it was a means for setting up Obi-Wan's exile as one of growth and introspection.
As for the DVD, it's stunning. The sound is spectacular, to my ears.
The only thing that puzzles me, and won't be noticeable to anyone watching it anamorphically, is that names keep appearing on the upper black bar throughout the movie....Coleman, Lucas, Guyett, McCallum....all the names of men involved in the film. The names just flash up there for a few seconds and then disappear...and this goes on and on.
It's most disconcerting and a puzzlement.
Oh, yes. John Williams' score is flat-out gorgeous.
So...that's what I thought.
I'll be watching it again.