“There were siths and droids and glowsticks as swords,” she said.

Still, a majority of the crowd, including Alexander M. Hubbell ’08, appeared to have enjoyed the film.

Asked if it met his expectations, Hubbell replied, “Yes, definitely.”

“It was just as good or better than the rest of them. The action was much better and the love scenes were more bearable,” he said.

“Yoda rocks,” he added, referring to the diminutive but sagacious head of the Jedi Council.

Clay T. Capp ’06 said he enjoyed “Revenge of the Sith,” but not more than the original trilogy. “Episode III was the coolest one, but it lacked the evocative human element of IV, V, and VI, which I think is pretty important,” Capp said.

In Hollywood, many are counting on fans like Bolger, Shaw, Hubbell, and Capp to help pull the film industry out of a rut of low ticket sales.

“Hollywood seems to be pinning its hope on the Star Wars movie to turn this box office slump around, and I think it will,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the Los Angeles-based film industry tracker Exhibitor Relations. “Never have we needed a Star Wars movie so badly.”

But some have taken offense to what they interpret as overtly political messages meant to recall the Iraq war. Princess Padmé says at one point, “This war represents a failure to listen,” and later comments, “So this is how liberty dies—with thunderous applause.”

“I think this film was really an excellent representation of how rhetoric can be misused by a democratic leader,” Bolger said. He said he was unsure whether the movie was an intended critique of current Bush administration policy.

—Staff writer Sam Teller can be reached at steller@fas.harvard.edu.