The film was a positive suprise for me too.
However I still think it's not on pair with the OT - the reason is the murderous pacing from roughly 1/2 of the movie - during the exposition and the setup of the turnover the slow pace, the dialogue after dialogue is fine, serves a purpose and goes with the flow of the film.
The end is also well excecuted, though Vader's "NOOOO!" is way over the top - him screaming in agony would have been better, but alas that still passes.
What ticked me off was in the later half of the film - the hunt for Griveous, after the epic duel, during the duel there was way too much autopilot - scenes that are marvelous but beside showing nice scenery serve no whatsoever purpose. Moreover the whole editing felt amateurish compared to the OT - here comes a dueling scene, now a battle scene, now comes a talking scene, now an angry scene, now a grumbling scene, now an emo puppy-love snene.....the film hadn't had that "flow to it".
I don't say ROTS is a bad movie per se, it just could have been a lot better if it was better integrated.
Also what truely hurt me was Lucas seems to have run out of ideas - or doesn't have the courage to cross the borders he earlier set.
The whole dialog after the initial exposition between Kenobi and Anakin was flat - though that's not the right word. It was fitting, good; but I still felt a lot more could have been said - they throw insults at each other and simply put both of them are OUT OF CHARACTER of a Jedi or an ex-Jedi turned Sith.
For me it would have felt a lot more fufilling if instead mere threats and the obvious paraphrasing over who has more power would have been livened up with them pointing out the "true" problems with the other's ideology. (Jedi are insensitive, overltly high-handed, Sith are self-serving). Some of it was said, but I still found the dialog somewhat lacking.
Also the whole disposition of Jedi was disturbing - they broke their own code, and instead going into a little philosophical discussion to explain why and what made it necessary to do - which made KOTOR and KOTOR II an all time classic for me - , they merely throw bland phrases about following tradition and force Anakin to give into authority - which is exactly what a Jedi shouldn't be doing, a Jedi must be a knight of justice, and no ammount of authority grants justice, quite the contrary justice gives one authority to act - and go on doing their self-serving deeds (or more precisly in accordance with their "superior" idea of justice a lot of what the Sith do are valid, and Palpantine with all his megalomania is still a reforming figure).
Never the less in visuals we're given the damn best looking SW film to date.
The action is good - especially when Kenobi is on screen, though Yoda is also a lot better than in Ep.2.
At last as TopAce put it so well: humour is back.
The whole syrupy love is toned down to more manageable levels, though it still irks me.
For all its bad pacing I think the story is excelent - though my gripes about the "missing" dialogue renders it merly 'good' in my eye.
All in all if not the best or an excelent ground braking movie (visuals aside) it's one of those movies that you can fondly remember and watch again and again.
*The soldiers who were escoring the Jedi masters were the 'best' and top of the line. They were the elite - the same genetic code doesn't mean identical personality or abilities, you can think of the clones as a damn big family of twins - troops and its not suprising they manage to bag the jedies that fast. (Remember KOTOR II? Atton explains it very well why the Jedi are so valnurable in some aspects.)
**The same can't be said about the garrison troops who invade the Jedi temple.
***The reason why Palpantice kept Windu under lightning is that the lightning was the only thing that kept Windu's saber at bay - it's not portrayed that well, but Windu had to push with all his strengh to keep his ground.
****The Death Star we see at the end of the film may be the prototype. (I don't know the English name of the place in Hungarian it was 'Bednõ'). Then again I could be wrong about this one.
