Star Wars

I am a big Star Wars fan. I've read a whole pile of the Expanded Universe books and even played Decipher's card game with a friend until the Tatooine expansion came out and blew everything away with how devastatingly powerful it was. Never got into the action figures or other toys though.

This post is about the movies though. I watched Episode III a few weeks ago and have generally sorted out my thoughts about this story now. Yes, I found the prequels to be a let-down, but there were definitely positives like the performances of Ian McDiarmid, Ewan McGregor, and Samuel L. Jackson. I heard a lot of reviews rag on Hayden Christensen's acting, but I'm willing to cut him a lot of slack after watching him in Shattered Glass. I guess he just does whiny and petulant better than evil.

Considered as a whole, the story was amazing. I can imagine Lucas pitching the idea, had it been conceived as a whole first. "Right, so this kid gifted with 'the Force,' a kind of magic, is taken to be trained in its use. Meanwhile, as the most evil person in the galaxy is secretly twisting him, his mother dies after he dreams of her terrible pain. Then, he begins to dream of his own wife's death in the same way. The evil guy promises to show him how to save her, and he falls to temptation. For a long time, the evil guy orchestrates a massive war, playing both sides to consolidate his own power and defeat the good 'Force' users. The final half will be both the story of this first individual's redemption, and his son's own touch with evil." If I respected Shakespeare's plots, this would certainly qualify as 'Shakespearean.' But I don't will have to settle for saying that it's a bleeding cool arc.

Problems cropped up though. The writing was terrible. 'Younglings?' Good grief. The love story was out there too. A Dork Tower comic strip, put it very well with the punch line, "No, you hang up first." Lucas went overboard on the computer effects too.

Originally, I was thinking Lucas was just good at the big ideas and sucked at the little stuff, but then I remembered that Darth Maul and General Grievous were just too cool. Some of the greatest villains ever.

Not sure what I think about R2-D2 becoming such a bad boy. It was funny, I guess, but really odd. I'm just not sure.

Still a fan, but don 't know what's coming up to look forward too. I guess there's always fan films. Watched Revelations a few months back and was blown away by the effort put into it. Simply amazing. Computer was too slow though and the video kept skipping and being stupid.