You already know whether you're going to see this movie or not. If you've seen the other films in the series, you already have a good idea what's got to happen. Sure, I have some problems with this movie, and the entire series, but if you want to critique this film on an artistic level, well then, you're probably not going to see it. It's a popcorn movie, sci-fi not SF. You have to approach this with the same expectations you would have for a James Bond movie -- visually cool, but with plot holes you can fly a starship through.

Hard to say more without some spoilers, so don't scroll down if you intend to see it, and you don't want to know anything.

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The reason Annakin turns to the dark side was a dissapointment. The writer in me reasoned that something really big had to happen to make him betray the Jedi. We know that Padme Amidala has to die by the end of the movie, and Annakin already went into a murderous rage when his mother died in an earlier episode, so it was pretty easy to imagine her death would be blamed on the Jedi. But that's not what happened. Annakin comes off like a spoiled brat in this movie, crying that the Jedi didn't trust him enough to make him a Master. And then it was these bad dreams that make our hero turn to the dark side. And Padme's death wasn't some evil plan of the Sith -- no, she just lost the will to live. Oh, please. These plot points were so weak.

Yes, there's also some bad acting -- laugh-out-loud bad in a couple of spots. George Lucas is, I'm afraid, not a very good live-action director. He just lucked into something bigger than himself with Star Wars.

But go see the movie. Despite my criticisms, if you're at all interested in SW stuff, you just have to see it. Even with its faults, it's well worth the money.

Lucas says this is the end of the line (except for some TV things) for the SW saga. I don't belive it. This movie will gross about a half a billion dollars. Movie studios just don't drop sure money-makers like this, so they will be throwing money at Lucas for more. I distinctly remember him saying in interviews early on that he conceived SW as three groups of three films. He wanted to do them out of order so that the characters in episodes 4-6 could age a bit before finishing off with episodes 7-9 (so, perhaps, Leia and Han could have a grown kid, the next generation Jedi, in the last group).

But now Lucas says it's over. Maybe he's tired of it and has more money than he could possibly need. Maybe he's just pulling a Bill Parcells -- "retiring" for a few years, then making a spectacular comeback when he's rested up.

I think he should just turn his outlines for episodes 7-9 over to his friend Steven Speilberg and let a real director finish it up in grand style. The movie I really want to see this summer is his War of the Worlds.