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I saw it yesterday. Twice.
I got to the the theater at 8am, and was person number 124. (A friend of mine was person 13--he'd been there since Tuesday.) The theater was rotating it on three screens, and had a show on the hour, every hour, from 3pm 'til 10pm. Going to the first showing was an experience in itself. These were the hardcores. The ones dressed up like Jedi and the like. (Earlier, some little girl had a Queen Amidala costume on, and Darth Maul was riding around on a motorcycle.) People screamed, cheered, clapped, yelled... it was exhilarating. I could scarcely sit still when I was preparing to go to the 7:00 show.
First and foremost: Yoda.
This 800+ year old muppet makes his way around with a cane. Then, he flashes a look that would make T-1000 shiver, pulls his robe back, and wields a light saber like no other Jedi you've seen. Yoda, ladies and gentlemen, opened up a solid-core can o' whoop-ass. But what really struck me was the almost humorous contrast between some m4d Force-enhanced swordsmanship, followed by gently using the force to pick up his cane to hobble away.
Another highlight was seeing so many Jedi team up together. It created an energy in the theater that you could nearly bite. And Ewan McGregor is one of the finest actors of our time.
The CGI was good. It blended much better than SWE1, but there were a couple flaws. This is where ILM is a little too arrogant. I've seen much better work before. Camino, however, was an achievement--it looked like they were walking around in the next generation Macintosh.
The characterization and casting was better, but I was nearly equally displeased with Hayden Christensen's performance as I was with Jake Lloyd's. Same story with the writing and dialogue: better, but still bad. The terrific action sequences made up for the lion's share of faulty acting, writing, and humor. (Good thing Jar Jar only had three scenes--with his accent severely cut back.)
All in all, I might venture to say that Episode II is the finest of the series so far, but that very well may be because my heartrate has yet to recover from seing it twice in one day after waiting for years. We'll see if I still feel this way when the next LOTR comes out.
I can tell you this much, however, skipping work to brave the wind and cold for hours on end while playing hacky with a bunch of people who had toy light sabers hanging from their belts was no mistake--it was an experience, punctuated with a great movie. I am very satisfied with the way Lucas recovered the essence of what it means to be a Star Wars geek.
See you again in 2005.
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