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My biggest complaint about the prequels, other than their incessant childishness, is that they show the Jedis as idiots, whereas when they were just legendary figures in the old films, they had a cool mystique. Here we see they're a bunch of fools who deserve to lose.

Damon Knight used to warn of making subsidiary characters look stupid so the hero or villain will look that much smarter. It's far more dramatic to make all the opponents smart and skillful, that way the drama is more powerful.

Now, every movie has all the villains act like boobs, and in this case, Lucas is making the Jedi look weak. That makes their fall all the less meaningful than if they were competent, smart and powerful, and were simply betrayed. We should always understand why a movie villain does what he does, but in this case, we are inadvertently made to see that he is doing the RIGHT thing. Palpatine's only fault is that he's The Bad Guy, which is funny seeing how Lucas is supposedly so adamant against "absolutes". The Sith were wiped out by the Jedi, and now they're fighting back--precisely what the Jedi under Luke do in the original movies. The Sith's evil seems to consist of wanting order.

I hope Lucas thinks about that the next time he sues someone for copyright infrindgement, or calls the cops when he sees some psycho fan on his property--he's spent six movies telling us how bad it is to have a strong central government. In the "good" days of Episode I, Lucas's "good" guys allowed SLAVERY to exist!