I saw the midnight showing of Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. I'll say up front that I was very pleased. There's no question this is the best of the prequels, and might possibly become my favorite of the entire series. I'll have to see it a few more times and get the DVD to be sure though. I will white-out anything in this article that might be close to a spoiler for Episode III. You'll see SPOILER, and then a bunch of blank space. If you want to read what's there, select the hidden text and paste it into notepad or something. Credit to Cari-Elf for that idea

Alright, it's been 28 years now since that Rebel blockade runner flew onto the screen, being chased by the simply monsterous Imperial Star Destroyer over the planet Tatooine. Thus began the story of the Rebellion against the Evil Galactic Empire, the Good Guys fighting for freedom, justice and democracy against the vile Emperor Palpatine and his minion Darth Vader. We learned about The Force, we learned that Luke and Leia were twins (Incest is Best...) and we learned the shattering truth that Vader was Luke's father! In the end the Good Guys win out, Palpatine is destroyed and Vader finds redemption through his son. Green muppets speak in riddles and fade into nothing, a droid becomes a god, and little furry people take on a trained military force with nothing but sticks and nets and somehow win. A planet gets blown up along the way, and Han shoots first.

That little journey took us from 1977 through 1984. There was the VHS release (which is how I became a fan, being too young to see them in the theaters), and then in 1997 they were rereleased in theaters as the Special Edition set. Better visuals, some questionable edits (Damnit, Han shoots first!) but generally a hype builder for the return of Star Wars to the big screen. Episode I was coming, and they wanted to get everyone warmed up before it hit.

So then we get a little kid who has a messiah complex, an annoying fish thing that makes poop and fart jokes, a demented clown with a lightsaber, a queen who needs a new makeup person, and a lot of droids who are in a really bad mood. Boy loses mentor, becomes jedi padawan against the wishes of the Little Green Muppet, Sammy L and the rest of the enigmatic wise ones. Annoying fish dude gets fewer and fewer lines (but is blamed for the Rise of the Chancelor's power... Jar Jar gave us the Empire!), little annoying boy grows up into older angsty teen that can't use contractions or woo a girl properly (sorry, saying how you think a dictatorship is better than democracy doesn't win over the ladies and is generally considered "bad form"). Evil Sith Lords wreak more havoc. Psychotic clown is replaced by Dracula (err... Christopher Lee). War fought with a million Boba Fett clones. Sammy L goes bad-ass on Jango, lops off head. Lots of Jedi, lots of saber fighting. Good guys sorta win.

That takes us up through the end of Episode II. Several years pass between II and III, in which time most of the Clone Wars actually take place. There is a lot of story that takes place in the gap that helps make Episode III make a lot more sense. If you haven't already, check out The Clone Wars cartoon from Cartoon Network before seeing Episode III. You can get the first 20 episodes on DVD right now, and the remaining 5 can be downloaded if you know where to look. It explains a lot of what happens right before this movie begins.

[SPOILER- Clone Wars Series] In short, General Grievous, a half-droid creature is now the leader of the droid armies, with Count Duku still leading the separatists forces overall. Grievous is an excellent Jedi killer. He collects the lightsabers of those he defeats and is trained in their use. He can use up to four sabers at once. The series ends with the droid armies invading Coruscant itself, blockading and landing on the planet. Grievous and his elite droid guards go down to the planet and kidnap Supreme Chancelor Palpatine. They succeed, but while they're trying to get back off the planet, Master Windu (Sammy L) force crushes Grievous's chest cavity, which is why he's wheezing and limping around in the film. This explains why the army has made it all the way to Coruscant at the beginning of III as well. [/SPOILER]

Alright, that catches us up to the final installment. We know how Vader starts, we know how he ends... but what we don't know is how he goes from a hero with good intentions, to the embodiment of pure evil in the galaxy.

The film opens with an epic space battle over the planet Coruscant (the Capitol of The Republic) . We see the precursors to Imperial Star Destroyers (Republic Gunships) and X-Wings (ARC-170 Starfighters) as they duke it out. To say the visuals of this movie are impressive would be an understatement. This movie is ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) really showing off what they can do.

Without really giving away the story (since everyone knows how it ends), Episode III is about the fall of Anakin Skywalker and his transformation into Darth Vader (and at the end into the black suited villian of our childhood nightmares) and how he and Palpatine bring about the end of the Jedi Order and establish The First Galactic Empire. This film ties in the prequels to the original trilogy, resolving a lot of plot holes introduced by I and II. You also get to see how Palpatine gets so old and wrinkly.

In terms of acting quality, this one is a mixed bag. The romance scenes with Anakin and Padme are STILL incredibly awkward and at several points the entire audience groaned in pain at the exchanges. There is one scene with those two that essentially boils down to "I love you" "No, I love YOU" "I love you MORE!" "I love you moreER" and so on.

Ewan McGregor does an outstanding job as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master and mentor to Anakin. He does an excellent job of capturing some of the mannerisms of Sir Alec Guinness and you can believe that he turns into the old wizard from the original trilogy. This is a guy that can give life to pretty much any character, regardless of how badly it's written. Definitely the shining star in terms of performance quality.

Hayden Christensen does a better job in this than he did in II, but he still tries to do a fake deeper more dramatic voice that just doesn't work for him. I've seen him in other movies, so I think this one is largely Lucas fault for misdirecting.

Natalie Portman does a much better job here. Despite the love scenes, she is actually able to convey some emotion that isn't wooden. I think she did an excellent job providing the emotion that would cause Anakin to fall to the Dark Side. It conveys well the idea that even the best intentions and the most wholesome feelings can be a path to evil if left unchecked and unwatched

Sammy L still manages to give a crappy performance. I think this is due to him almost never talking to an actual actor in a scene, but a blue screen where actors and CGI will be inserted later. Line of sight is never right with him, and you get the feeling he's almost reading off a teleprompter. His last scene in the movie though is excellent and almost makes up for it. It's also a bit unnerving... you'll understand when you see it.

The other performances given by Ian MacDiarmid (Palpatine), Christopher Lee (Dooku) and Jimmy Smitts (Bail Organa) were pretty damn good. MacDiarmid in particular is given a lot of room to shine in this one since he's finally exposed and gets to be all Emperor Palpatine on everyone's ass. Yoda is all CGI now, no muppet at all, so he loses a lot of his presence on the screen. He's still a fun character, but I feel he's lost a lot from what he was in the original trilogy.

3P0, R2-D2 and Chewie have very minor roles in the film and act as funny little reminders and ties back to the Original Trilogy. In fact, there are a lot of moments in Episode III that tie everything into the old movies. Why do Obi Wan and Yoda go blue glowy? Why are Luke and Leia separated? Why does Vader not know he has children? Why does 3P0 have gold plating finally (ok, that one is resolved in The Clone Wars cartoon) , Why does 3P0 not remember Anakin, Obi-Wan or anything that happened in the past and how do they become the property of Capt. Antilles? All these questions and many more are answered at last.

This movie is very fast paced with a lot of great action. Saber duels and space battles galore, this is the sort of thing Star Wars is really about. If you are willing to forgive Lucas for I and II, and go into III looking for a fun movie (not a grand cinematic masterpiece) you will come out very pleased. This is the movie I and II should have been. I'm glad Lucas finally got his ducks in a row and gave us a good one. Sad though that as soon as he got back into the swing of things, it's over. No more movies. A few TV shows maybe, lots of video games definitely, but no more movies.

The saga is now complete. We've now seen the complete arc of the life of Anakin Skywalker. Little scared boy, to ambitious teen who slides to the Dark Side to become Lord Vader, who eventually finds redemption in the arms of his son.

The force is strong with this one.