Watched the last installment with the kids last night. My final verdict is that the first (last) three episodes are not any better than the last (first) three. Moving from big screen to small, the first Star Wars movies lose their visual splendor and the bad scripts emerge. I loved the original Star Wars (now episode IV) as a kid, and still enjoyed it on the big screen in re-release. On the small screen, however, I think it's actually the worst of the six. Acting: lousy. Script: worse. (As the rebels make their long strafing run toward the center of the death star, one pilot yells, "I'm hit, I'm hit!" "Eject!" advises his friend. Eject? Into the dead of space?) Vader: not the least bit scary (of course, that could also be because his voice is the voice of the phone company and his visage is on the morning Cheerios box). By contrast, the two movies in the second trilogy improve on the small screen. "Attack of the Clones," which we watched last night, is not so bad when you are not confronted with the awfulness of Hayden Christiansen's... ahem... acting larger than life. In a nice, tidy box where it belongs, you can focus on the rest of the movie.
Our 19- month -old was still up when we started the movie. Loved Yoda, did he. Squealed with delight and ran to the screen to point at him whenever he appeared.
