I am not, nor have I ever been a Star Wars fan.  Having said that, I do enjoy the special effects and some of the characters.  I remember seeing the first picture in 1977 and thinking how unique it was and revolutionary to the science fiction genre.  We had never seen anything like it before in scale and imagery.  The old movie serials that I watched as a kid were once again jumping off the screen at me.  Evil was evil and good was best and we knew who was who at a glance.  George (Lucas) was probably sitting right next to me in the theater when I saw
them in the 50s and he remembers.

The one problem in making such revolutionary pictures is topping yourself the NEXT time.  Somehow he always did, but THIS time.....he completely lost his mind!  This thing was HUGE!  It just kept coming at us and dazzling us with action and effects that were fabulous.  We needed three more eyes EACH to catch all that was going on!  Maybe!  The characters that were old friends were there in all their glory and some of the new characters were just "bastard" enough to make us hate them.  Christopher Lee, as Count Dooku, was at his dastardly best (worst?).  Yoda however is the stand-out character and what he does "You astounded will
be".  Sam Jackson seemed out of place and struggling to be his character but it was nice seeing him anyway.  The kid that played Anakin Skywalker, Hayden Christensen, sucked and couldn't act his way into a dime novel
(sorry kid) and I kept wondering where the hell did they find this guy.

Those faults aside, I can't imagine a picture getting much "bigger" than this.  The scale, the scope and grandeur were breathtaking and amazing to watch.  HUGE PICTURE!!!  I just wonder what old George will do to top this?  I wonder...

RECOMMENDATION:  Grab up the kids, Mom, Dad, Granny and Aunt Lucy, shift into "light speed" and get there.  The journey of a lifetime!

TWO CLIFFHANGIN', "FORCE" FULL THUMBS UP!!!  (To be continued...)

Movie Review © 2002 by Terry Anderson