> What WAS all that about?

The original Star Wars trilogy worked well - each film a story in its own right. I actually saw Return of the Jedi before Empire Strikes Back - which caused a lot of confusion to a child of 11 ;) I still maintain that all 3 work well stood alone.

The prequels however were (to my mind) rushed. Yes, those of us who were familiar with the first three films could easily see that Palpatine was the future emperor and yes we knew there would be some sort of long term friendship between Obi Wan and Anakin before Anakin fell to the dark side... but I was always led to believe that Anakin had fought for a long time in the Clone Wars alongside Obi-Wan and the jedi order... in the prequels we see he does very little other than wipe out the jedi order. The clone wars themselves now being run as a cartoon series as far as I am aware.

That being said... they did still try and cut off at a point where we had been told a story and were eagerly (in some cases) awaiting the next installment.

Unlike Matrix 2 & 3 - that "To Be Continued" is acceptable on the Television but not at the cinema.

Take Kill Bill for instance... the whole story could have been filmed as an epic but was split to keep the time down (and make more cash). And yet the second film failed to live up to the promise of the first. I still enjoyed it but the style and pace of the first film seemed lost.