So, you're probably wondering why it took so long for me to write this, aren't you? Well, I was taken a bit by surprise by the fact that I actually thoroughly enjoyed the third (sixth) installment of the Star Wars trilogy (the second, er, first one). I did find out some interesting stuff on IMDB about why that might be so.

I had some issues with Episodes I and II (the fourth and fifth movies), which included, but were not limited to:

• Flat dialog--too many lines were read like they were from a cereal box, not a serial movie
• Too little soul--you can do flat dialog (see Humphrey Bogart in many roles) if you have some kind of live fire in your eyes and your actions, but that was missing too
• Slow action scenes--not all of them, by any means, but there were some that looked like they were phoned in

George and crew have done a nice job at fixing these problems in this episode and have tied up things rather nicely (although, I'm still wondering how Obi- Wan worked under Leia's father in the Clone Wars--see the beginning of Episode IV for that reference, if you don't remember the R2-D2 hologram in its entirety).

Some interesting tidbits from IMDB, though, make me think that George might have seen some of his shortcomings and at least accepted help. According to the site, Steven Spielberg designed some of the fight sequences for III, and Francis Ford Coppola suggested a dialog coach so that George could pay more attention to the rest of the overall film. Maybe he needs to do that on any further movies he makes, because I felt that was the best improvement in this film.

It still remains to be seen for me whether slapping I,II, and III back-to-back will make them palatable, but I'll be willing to give it a try when III comes out on DVD (hopefully later this year).

Meanwhile, based on the trailers in front of III, we've got a lot of action flicks in front of us this summer.