Benedict Taylor: 0.0001% Dominic West: 0.0001%

After all the posters and hype about Ewan and Liam, plus the promise of some Blueshirters, I hoped that TPM would be as good as the original trilogy. My heart sank after the first 10 minutes. What with organising the special effects, creating alien worlds and getting the dust off Yoda, Lucas had forgotten to sort out a decent script. Gone were any attempts at Han Solo wisecracks or Luke's teenage sulking when he has to check the droids in th'top field. Instead there were boring exchanges about trade agreements and incomprehensible utterings from the awful Jar Jar Binks. Ewan, mindful of the fact that he grows up to be Alec Guinness, affected a clipped hedge of an English accent which rang totally false. Both Liam and the Tartan Terror valiantly tried to work with what they were given, but they were fighting a losing battle.

A more serious travesty was costume design. In a film with two incredibly sexy actors and lots of desert, there was ample opportunity for Lawrence of Arabia britches and leather. However both Jedi Knights were swamped with huge hessian cloaks! How they managed the light sabre fights without tripping up was beyond me. Samuel L. Jackson had the briefest cameo role and even the appearance of R2D2 couldn't disguise the fact that the magic had disappeared. I felt that was a cheap trick, borrowed from the original trilogy to make up for TPM's shortcomings.

The special effects were amazing and as a child's fairy tale, the film worked well but no way is it worthy to be compared with the other Star Wars films. And as for the Blueshirters? Well I had my eyes peeled, but their 15 seconds of fame eluded me. Allegedly Dominic West appears as Palace Guard for seven seconds (!) uttering the lines "The boy is here, your highness". Benedict Taylor is Pilot Bravo 2 if that's any help!