I saw this today, and went in expecting the absolute worst, and was pleasantly surprised.
The bad (for me) - The animation was the biggest letdown. Most of the scenes on the Republic ships were too dark and some of the characters were just plain horrid to look at...Dooku was absolutely atrocious. Definitely preferred Genndy's style to this one.
The separatist droids were too stupid. Why would anyone build an army of imbeciles?? Most of their shenanigans fell flat. My 7 year old found them funny though.
Certain plot points being shoved in your face, it was worst in the first battle, but came up again toward the end with Anakin and Ahsoka flying about in their little ship.
The whole first battle was terrible, random explosions, horrid direction, just all over the place for no real reason. I was starting to think it was going to be all terrible, but it seemed to calm down a little once Obi Wan and Anakin split up. Now I'm either getting too old or something, but boy was it loud in the cinema, even my kid had his hands over his ears.
The good! - I was expecting "skyguy this and skyguy that", but the kid said it twice! Big deal. Anakin endlessly calling her Snips was a bit old by the end though. I think they definitely went a step in a better direction with Ahsoka. She had a bit of spunk, although they seemed to Mary Sue her a little, getting Anakin out of a few too many jams. Baby Hutt wasn't that terrible for a plot device either, it could of been worse.
I really liked Captain Rex, I don't remember him from the movies or CW, but he was probably my favourite addition to the series. When he told Anakin "the mission comes first", aww, it broke my little heart, even if they are just clones. I thought a lot of the background chatter amongst the clones added more to the battle scenes than Obi Wan or the Sean Connery impersonator who played the commander of the droids at the start. Atmospheric even amongst the crappy battle sequences.
Ventress was smoking. Seriously, they really sexed her up.
I think there was almost the right amount of force powers on show. While it was fun to see the droids wiped out easily by Yoda in CW, the scaling back here felt realistic, if there is such a thing!
There was a little humour and not just the laugh everyone is bound to spit out when Uncle Ziro comes on screen. I actually out loud said OMG! and laughed my ass off when I saw him. He just wasn't in it long enough for me to be annoyed. The fact he was speaking in common, eh, he was in Coruscant, I can forgive him for learning the local lingo or whatever.
In the end, a lot of the complaints people have been going crazy about were small. I found this a step up from TPM and AoTC. No-one is in the same league as Jar Jar or Baby Anakin anyways. Does it in the end matter we all know the main guys are going to make it? It's no different to reading the comics or novels or whatever, it just adds more to the story as a whole. Personally, I hope we see a whole lot more of how and why Anakin falls to the dark side. At least small pieces of the puzzle that will slot in well.
Perhaps the biggest fault is releasing it to big screens, when it would of been fine enough as a TV/DVD release. It's never going to surpass a childhood memory, but it was fun enough for what it was.
Whoops, ETA: And in the great tradition of the PT Animations, the romance between Anakin and Padme is light years ahead of the actual actors performance. They had one look in the movie but it said more than the whole 'sand' thing!
The episodes were five minutes.
