Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

After several years of fighting, the Clone Wars are coming to an end. As Chancellor Palpatine's influence grows, the Jedi Council become suspicious of him and both sides enlist the help of Anakin Skywalker to keep things under control. Meanwhile, Amidala (or Padme, depending on your preference... ahem) is secretly carrying Anakin's child, and the promise of preventing her death draws Anakin towards the power of the dark side.

R.O.T.S. gets off to a spectacular start with the opening space battle, but that soon becomes waaayy to confusing, hectic and ultimately pointless. Once things settle down the story does thicken up a bit, with the council's lack of faith in Anakin slowly pushing him away and into the Emperor's grasp. As the relationship between Anakin and Padme develops there is some actual emotion and empathy for the characters, and there are even a couple of scenes that step back from the CGI and just let the characters briefly live within the world of the film.

The potential for a great movie is there, but the film is still 30% fluff, which a better director (David Fincher was rumored at one point) would have stripped away. Things get pretty mechanical as Lucas whacks his square shape into a round hole, and we see things like the Wookie planet (and Chewie) for no real reason. General Grevious is a stupid chain smoking bad-ass semi-droid character, who just slows the plot down, before eventually we end up on the volcanic planet that everyone has known about since they were kids. The final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan is pretty ferocious and engaging and then things wrap up with a couple of quick Darth scenes.
"Where's me bird gone Palpatine?"
"Calm down Darth!"

The attempt to tie EVERYTHING up just serves to make the galaxy much smaller than it ever was in the old days, with much of this undermining the original films. Surely hiding Luke on Vader's home planet with Vader's only living relatives isn't very smart?