So, they mentioned that they removed most of the battle droid back and forth in the phantom edits…I thought that would have missed it, but if I hadn’t known it was gone, I wouldn’t have noticed.

But on to the second (edited) episode…

For my part, I enjoyed it. I remember, the first time I saw it, the ‘adolescents who are essentialy bundles of broken glass inside’ got a little much, but with the edits removing most of that, the parts that remained seemed to be well acted and genuine. Anakin is pretty creepy, but most 18 year olds who’ve been celibate for the past 10 years would be, too. (And the creepiness is well acted, too.)

S said she had issues with the CG, especially R2D2 (who is really easy to do as a robot, or with an actor). The factory scene (what remained of it) was also superfluous. (And they edited out C-3PO’s ‘getting grafted onto a droid’ moment, which considering I didn’t really notice it was gone, was apparently a good thing.)

But all of these were really minor things for me. What really bothered me were two things: Appalling Jedi tactics and CG of mammals.

Maybe the writer was trying to make a point about the decay of Jedi society, or their self-perceived invincibility, but seriously? Taking all of the Jedi you have and leading them into a trap where two thirds of them could die? You’d think they would have found a way to have delayed the ‘execution’ for a few minutes while they waited for Yoda to get there with his *army*.

Mace Windu, you’re kind of an arrogant SOB who just gets people killed. Like how you think someone would have gone and checked on Shmi at some point during the 10 years. Maybe if Jedi are really that uncaring and not noticing the small things, perhaps it was time for someone to bring some ‘balance’.

Also, if Yoda has the power to lift a *huge* stone column, to save Anakin and Obi-Wan, you’d think that he could also just push it in the opposite direction, into Dooku’s ship. Also, even if he couldn’t have done that, you’d think he could do *something*, if only with the *army* that they had on the planet to at least try to stop a lord of the Sith from escaping.

Which brings me to the CG of mammals. Interestingly, for me, the CG in the film was reasonable, most of the time. The robots acted robotically, the parts of the factory looked like a movie impression of factory parts, even R2’s flying scene wasn’t reprehensible.

But all of the little critters, both of the mammalian monsters in the arena were horrid. That’s no castigation of the CG experts…They were doing the best they could. But there’s something about gravity, or anatomy (I’m not sure what) that just still seems unreachable with CG. Interestingly, the crab/alien-like creature was totally believable. Maybe because it only had hinges and no visible musculature, so the limitations of CG were not limitations…

It reminds me of the Lord of the Rings, where they had a bunch of CG, but they used (as I remember) in places where you wouldn’t notice it (as much) when it become dated later.

But overall, I enjoyed the film, plot holes aside. As edited, 3 stars.