I came to the Star Wars trilogy very late in life. The wife-object is a big fan and about 9 years ago, convinced me to watch them for the first time. I'm not a rabid fan. I don't dress up as a sith (sp?) or anything else, but I do think that the trilogy (IV, V, VI) made for a great modern fairy tale, despite some of the political incorrectness. A few years ago, some friends of mine had stood in line and got an extra ticket for me for the first showing of Episode I. I was caught up in the hoopla. I enjoyed the movie. I hated Jar Jar - as everyone older than 12 probably does. But for the most part, I thought it was a good job at a strange concept - the prequel.

Roll forward a couple of years and we have the release of Episode II. I had heard Howie Movshovitz (http://cpr.org/people/howie.htm) on CPR and was suprised at how little he liked the movie. Movshovitz had even suggested Lucas couldn't make films anymore and American Graffiti was just an accident. I thought, "he's just not into the story and doesn't give them enough credit for being pinned into a prequel where we already know what has come before and after."

Got tickets the other night and plopped down in front of the Continental (I think it is still the biggest non IMAX screen in Denver). One hour and 45 minutes into it, I was wondering when the misery would be over. This movie has about 25 minutes of worthy scenes surrounded by an additional 2 hours of crap. No one mentions that this movie is close to 2.5 hours long. There are a lot of things wrong with Episode II. I think the two that bother me the most are the recycling of scenes and the lack of mythology. There are portions of Episode II that are better and crisper in other versions of Star Wars (the bar scene and the christians versus the lion beast scene come to mind). There are only a few people that can be derivative of their own work and get away with it. Lucas doesn't seem to be one of them. Part of what I enjoy about the movies is the legend of the Jedi. They are a mysterious sect of warriors and we learn more about them in each movie. In Episode II, nothing new seemed to be revealed. No further discussion of the mitochlorians or anything else.

All in all, this is a bad movie. You'll see it anyways if you have any interest in Star Wars, but be ready for a long, dull experience.