One of the best films of the saga

It's certainly the best of the prequel trilogy.

All the boring and stupid political talk is left behind.

My biggest gripe is that Count Dooku dies too early and quickly. General Grievous looks cool but it's hard to care about him at all with his out of the blue introduction.

I rank it as the worst of all the Star Wars films. But, to each their own....

I liked all three, not as much as the OT, but horrible dialogue aside, they fit the universe Lucas created just fine.

The best memes are revenge of the sith memes

It's a good entry into the SW saga. It has perhaps the best opening of all SW films. Although nostalgically I prefer TESB and possibly even ANH. But let's take the nostalgia and sentiment out of it.

The opening takes us right into a full scale war that underscores the gravitas of the most basic theme of this saga: hello!... it is called Star Wars! It was done in a very balanced way where you feel both the scope and gravitas of the battle without sacrificing the personalization of the storyline at this point in the movie. Star Wars (being the fairy tale that it is) often presents the wars and battles in an idealistic fashion that centers around heroics and backdrops for the main plots and characters. But this opening balanced that against the more realistic portrayal of war (gritty environments full of sensory overload with random mass casualties) more than any other SW battle or movie!

Rogue One was done in a more realistic fashion or style, of course. But for some it scaled back too much of the idealistic heroism. After our heroes finally reach their destination by the skin of their teeth (which created great tension for the opening of the story), they face a gauntlet of problems and droids before reaching the point of the classic SW epic confrontation: the lightsaber duel. This is the only SW movie that gives us a genuine lightsaber battle in the opening. And it had plenty of gravitas with the seeming fate of the Chancellor at stake, and a life or death battle that almost spells the end for ObiWan and sees the end of the 2nd biggest antagonist "meet his destiny"! Not to mention that this is also the point of no return for Anakin's attraction to the Darkside. And where his Sith apprenticeship starts, even before he pledges himself to it.

The movie continues with a gauntlet of "minor" perils for the heroes and Palpatine before they confront Grievous, setting the stage for the rivalry with the antagonist of "the second act" of ROTS. After an action packed battle with Grievous and his bodyguards, the heroes salvage a very sabotaged situation to just barely save the day (in another tension filled situation). This all segways into 2 of the films continuous storylines: Chancellor Palpatine coming away looking like a sympathetic "damsel in distress", and Padmé's pregnancy.

Not to mention the music score behind it perfectly done. Need I say more...

I kinda feel the same way. After rewatching TFA, it did feel a little bit empty and dull. I love practical effects and sets, but they needed to blend it with CGI to spice up the frame. CGI is awesome and works well when it's used as a tool to enhance practical effects or add to the background imagery.

From the Star Wars Oxygen podcast:

"I think that this is the creator of Star Wars basically giving us the nucleus of his entire epic. You know? This is the Origin Story. We finally 'earned' this. You know, we watched The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but this is really where the galactic civil war is created, and this is where Darth Vader is born. It's where Luke is born; it's where Padme dies. It is such a critical moment in Star Wars, and this is the creator of Star Wars not answering to any studio, just creating what he wants to create the way he wants to create it."