Um... Opinons... They're great, aren't they?
Anyway, for me:
Big opening - too much too fast. Rescuing Palpatine - very good, fun and adventurous with even some of the humor of the OT!
Then, everything went downhill. Padme is pregnant despite Anakin not being around (??) and everything starts happening BECAUSE IT HAS TO and not because it feels natural.
I basically wanted more: more depth. More of Anakin/Vader on fire (and how did he manage to put himself out????), more Yoda (none of this "there is no try, only do" stuff - he just gives up when he loses his coat!!), more of Vader's birth (we've been waiting over 25 years and it's over in a matter of seconds?!?! Where's the pain? The close ups of the machine being welded to the flesh?), more deciding on what to do with the kids (quick - we're near the end of the film, named 'em, ship 'em out!) and more explanation all around (why is Leia a princess when her father is a senator, why is Luke given the name Skywalker, when it should have been Lars if they wanted to hide him, why is C-3PO's memory ordered wiped - there's no reason apart from trying to fix the holes in George's ill-fitting puzzle).
Dammit, I wanted more of the so called EMOTION that they've been pushing in this thing, rather than the simply moodiness and puppy-dog tears that actually fills long, badly written and boring dialogue scenes.
Basically, this dropped the ball on too many occaisions to be a great film, and to call it a masterpiece is, well, I don't want to be rude, but it's foolish. Of course, mine is just an opinion as much as anyone else's, and I can see that many will/have get some kicks out of this.
But whereas we should ALL be coming out saying "Wow! Yeah! Man that was awesome! Fantastic!", the views are decidedly split - and some fns are even apologetically saying things like "well, it's the best of the prequels" (not saying much anyway) or "well, it's a good enough film, if not Star Wars".
The wooden acting, the simply poor dialogue, the cop-out writing that randomly hands out plot points to whoever's in the room/handy at the time, only for us to just get into it before moving on (too much to fit in to this one, George Lucas), is all here, but how come it wasn't in the OT? Could Lucas have struck it lucky first time around, and how lucky was he again to have Lawrence Kasdan on board for Empire? How crappy might Empire have been if Lucas had done it himself - seems it would have been a "clone" of the first, but Kasdan saved the day and is sorely missing on these prequels, which serves, Revenge Of The S**t especially, to simply get everything we ever wanted to see out there quick and cheerless.
Well, this is Star Wars, George Lucas, and it should be a lot better than this! ;(