This was a great movie. Lucas did just about everything right. The stories of episodes I and II needed to be told in order to set this movie up. Lucas is dealing with archetypes and the historical parallels are general themes that are only partially comparable to any particular case. Anakin goes through the heroic cycle almost step by step. As far as a reference to Richard III, the scene where Anakin holds the lightsabre to Palpatines's neck is right from that play. It's no surprise, however, that the neocons do not like this movie.