Following on from my initial reaction in yesterday's entry...

I cried at the opening crawl, as I have for all of the movies since after the first time I saw the original Star Wars.

The opening space battle was extremely well done, and the banter between Obi-wan and Anakin really set the scene. After the extraordinary detail in the book I was rather surprised by just how quickly this scene went, though, as well as the whole time in the Invisible Hand. I am looking forward to seeing the movie again to get a better idea of exactly what happened in a lot of it because it all went by so fast.

Then when what remained of the IH landed there was a braking-type sound effect that gave me quite a jolt because ... well ... that thing was never meant to land, so how/why would it have brakes? And that in turn made me annoyed with myself because I get really annoyed with people who question this sort of detail in any movie, let alone star wars movies.

The rest went by far more quickly than I was expecting at a far more superficial level than I was expecting leaving me feeling rather flat when I came out of the cinema. A part of that might have been because my 12 year old was miserable with a cold, but I couldn't help thinking I wish it hadn't been cut so much. I know that he didn't want the movie to go for too long, but an extra 10-15 minutes wouldn't have gone astray.

The visual effects were spectacular - generally clearly better than either of the previous two episodes, although I was surprised that there were still a few bugs, especially with the boga. I wasn't as taken with General Grievous as I should have been - but then again I've never been overly impressed with him as a concept and the trailers, photos and narrative in the book and screenplay hadn't warmed me to him at all.

The make up was generally better done than any other episode with the creature effects being much more believable than before (the Pau'an Tion Meddon was probably the best example of this that I've seen with there being no sense at all that it was a rubber mask in contrast with the Neimoidians, although I suppose they are in part limited by the appearance of the Duros in the Cantina scene in the original movie).

The acting was once again clearly what GL wanted and I think they did a magnificent job performing as directed - Natalie Portman's role was obviously limited but she did an excellent job with what she had, and SLJ was marvellous in his relatively subdued role. Ewan McGregor hammed it up a little more than I was expecting in places - at first seeming to overplay the humorous parts, which gave me quite a jolt at first. However he performed excellently when emotion was required, and his body language references to Alec Guinness were well done.

Hayden Christensen and Ian McDiarmid performed their hearts out. They did a magnificent job doing what was asked of them. I'm still not completely sold that what was asked of them was quite the right way to go, though. The narrative in the book gave us much more understanding of them, and in contrast there were times that their character development in the movie seemed rushed or overstated ... but this is a movie, and I am hoping that I won't feel this way after my second viewing.

I was rather surprised by the location of some of the music which also perhaps affected my view of it all - I'm glad that I knew going in that some of the music was in different places from having read Gazelle's review, but there were times when I was so incorrect about when a piece would be played that it affected my absorption in the movie. An example is towards the end when "Padme's Destiny" plays - I had been expecting that the music that had previously been behind Qui-Gon Jin's funeral would be behind Padme's funeral, but instead it played at an earlier point in the birth of the twins and Darth Vader.

This leads me to another point - the scene where Darth Vader leaves the table. I can understand that GL wanted us to see that the suit was something completely new to Anakin and that it would take time for him to be comfortable in it, but to have him looking like the awakening of Frankenstein's monster simply stunned me and left me cold.

I cried again at the end because it was all over - but nowhere near as much as I expected.

*sigh*

Even with all of this I really loved the movie and can't wait to see it again. I am really hoping that familiarity will let me sit back and enjoy it for what it is without any expectations.

I'll write more after the next viewing...