I had a bad first impression. I read the reviews on this site and my impression? Well...it didn't get better. However, seeing a movie is like meeting a person. We should all allow a person to stand on his or her own, even if our first impression isn't great and even if our friends tell us negative things. A film is not nearly as important as a fellow God-made human being, but it is made BY human beings, so it deserves a chance. At least, when it comes to a franchise you've known about since you were four (in my case) and saw at age five (in my case) and still are involved with (at least from a collecting standpoint) today.

Also, I have thought about making a movie. I have written a partial script and I have approached people for the purposes of getting them into a cast. I have recruited camera people and technicians (I didn't say they were pros), but I have never myself made a movie. The best critique is a peer review, but I am not a peer of Lucas when it comes to films.

Alright, so now the review (this won't be professional, but personal, and I'm going to shoot from the hip)--

First, I still don't like the animation. Most of the human characters end up looking the puppets in "The Sound of Music"--you remember--"What a duet for a girl and goat, etc etc". Also, most of it is dark and drab, not what I think children prefer to see.

And the theater was PACKED with children. I went at 12:30 PM today and I would say most of the children were around six-years-old. There were a few pre-schoolers and some who looked like they were about to go into fifth or sixth grade, but most of these kids were pretty young. I had geared myself up for this before I went. I reminded myself that I loved "Ewoks and Droids" as a child, but probably wouldn't be too impressed as a 34-year-old.

This movie, for some ways good and others bad, wasn't "Ewoks and Droids". I thought the plot and reminders about the plot weren't as bad as I would have thought or as inane as some of my fellow reviewers made it out to be. The music didn't bother me either, because frankly I felt John Williams could have been more original with the Prequel music or that Lucas could have found another composer (I loved the score for the Original Trilogy--I need to say that before some of you put a bounty on my head--but I thought we might go in a different direction with the new films).

It's interesting that I just saw Jerry Lewis in concert, because I thought this film was very Lewis-influenced. The Battle Droids were very Jerry with most of their dialogue and Ziro the Hutt was something like a character out of "Three on a Couch" (a shy Southern man who was bug crazy, but girl shy). Ziro was like a character out of "Designing Women" or something. I laughed every time I saw him, but no one else in the theater did.

As for the action. Well, I don't like non-stop action, but it was hard not to notice the children's reaction in a moment of even remote downtime. When Padme first appeared one chair in the theater started to rocked pretty hard, it was a boy of about ten who was bouncing in his chair, as if he had to do something in order to keep himself awake to get to "the good stuff".

I guess we lifelong fans have to get used to the idea that Lucas isn't trying to entertain us anymore. Hey, some of us got three films in the 70's and 80's, others have embraced all six films, but now he's going back to kindergarten for the girls and boys who's grandma and grandpa, aunts, and uncles, moms and dads, grew up with "Star Wars". And I did see grandparents bringing in grandchildren to the theater.

So for lifelong fans I think this movie merits a "B" ("Attack of the Clones" remains my least favorite "Star Wars" film). For the kids who shared the theater with us geezers, I'm sure it received an "A++". There wasn't any cheering, laughter, or screaming coming from the kids, but I've noticed that when children really like something they are pretty intense about it. You ask them later, "So, I guess you didn't like that film, you were quiet all the way through it." The reaction: "No! I loved it!!"