In honor of Star Wars: The Force Awakens' release, we're rerunning our series from 2012 when I watched the Star Wars movies for the first time. Read my intro/explanation here, and here are my reviews of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, and Attack of the Clones.

And this is how the series ends, not with a bang but a "NOOOOOOOOOO!" I can sense in the Force that the fandom probably, rightfully, takes a great deal of issue with Revenge of the Sith, but I think it may actually be the strongest of the prequel movies.

The rise of Darth Sidious was perhaps the best plot of the prequels, since it was cultivated well from the beginning.  Anakin's development could have gone better, but I blame that primarily on Hayden Christiensen's lacking performance (particularly in this movie -- he was never as scary or as lording as he should have been in the end).  There was a lot of mythology though that a different kind of film could have delved into more deeply -- more about the Siths, the lightsabers, etc.  And though I think that digitalization can be a great boon to movies, I also think it can be used far too much and relied upon too heavily as it was here (and I for one was not a fan of digital Yoda, who was quite the hyperactive gremlin).