The Circle is Now Complete
Ruthie and I went to see Revenge of the Sith yesterday, (thanks, Dana, for babysitting!). Observations:
**It's very, very good. Good enough, even, to justify Episodes I & II, which were, dollar for dollar, among the worst movies ever.
**I'll never understand why the Powers that Be cast as talented an actress as Natalie Portman and then wrote her such a boring character.
**Hayden Christiansen isn't likely to ever win an Oscar even if he lives to be as old as Yoda, but Ewen McGregor is wonderful.
**It's a happy thing to me that George Lucas decided to leave the opening graphics & music unaltered since the original came out. My memories of that first viewing in 1977 in Louisville with Drew and our dads are very faint, but sitting in a darkened theater as the 20th Century Fox logo comes on and then that old school Star Wars graphic with the music and then the blue lettering...A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...I'm five again.
**On a related note, it was nifty that they used lots of the same 1970's dissolves from scene to scene. Helped hold the whole arc together.
**Pure niftiness it was to see the X-wings and TIE fighters begin to be recognizable. Ditto the way that by the end of the movie the sets and costumes looked like the beginning of Episode IV.
**It was pretty wild to see X-wings and TIE fighters fighting along side one another and to see stormtroopers as "good guys." (Not that this movie lends itself to labels like that. "Only a sith deals in absolutes.")
**Ian McDiarmid was excellent as Palpatine.
**They really did wrap up everything nicely. It all made sense; it all worked. As I was watching it unfold, after waiting for the better part of thirty years, it was almost as if I'd seen it before. Anakin's betrayal of Mace Windu, his battle with Obi-Wan, the assassination of the Jedi, (which felt a bit like The Godfather, though that's probably giving it too much credit,) the hiding of the babies and the exile of Obi-Wan and Yoda. No loose ends. No more leaving questions unanswered for the next movie. Which creates an interesting sort of internal dynamic in me...
**Like I said, I was five when Star Wars first came out and from that first viewing, it was a big deal. We played Star Wars, we listened to the soundtrack, we reminded ourselves that it was called Episode IV, we played with the toys, we acted it out, recreating the scenes as if they were independent episodes, too young to understand how they were connected to each other. And then came The Empire Strikes Back -- 1980 now, and I'm eight and old enough to be developing into the nerd that you now see before you, so I'm reading everything I can get my hands on and still playing hard and wondering what the third movie would hold. Was Darth Vader really Luke's father? What was that about?! Couldn't wait for the next movie. What would they call it? And now it's 1983 and I'm eleven and we thought they were going to call it Revenge of the Jedi, but it's, Return of the Jedi instead, and yes, he's really Luke's father and apparently he's the Jedi the title refers to --get it? -- we were so into it. Bedspreads and wallpaper and lightsabers that actually glowed in the dark (have you seen the $100 versions they have at Barnes & Noble? Wow!). And rumors. Somewhere we got word that it was actually a trilogy of trilogies and that there were three movies to come which took place before what we'd already seen and three that took place after, and we were eager for them. And we waited. And we waited. And they never came. And life got all complicated. There were new schools to attend and treacherous, dangerous social choreography to learn there and people we loved died. There were girls and basketball and good decisions to make and bad decisions to make and there was Van Halen and there was football. We learned to drive and we got in fights and we tried beer and didn't like it and we tried it again until we did. We learned that lots of things could be smoked if you rolled them right and that that's not always a good idea. We learned that our parents weren't always right and somehow loved them more for it. And there was college and there were weddings and jobs and Responsibility and more people we loved died. Somewhere in there we grew up. But always, just under the surface of my subconscious, was the knowledge that there was more Star Wars coming some day. Even when I'd gone years without giving it a conscious thought, it was there. And then it was 1999 and I was so excited to finally have a new Episode that I couldn't admit out loud that it was terrible, but still we were eager for the next one, and then came 2000 and so much changed. A new Life, (a new hope?) a new home, a new job and out of nowhere here's Peter Jackson doing Lord of the Rings and he's absolutely kicking George Lucas's ass and why doesn't George hit him back and the Lord of the Rings movies come out a year apart and they're perfect, and now it's 2002 and Attack of the Clones is bad too, but it's better than Episode I and it's enough that we can't wait for Episode III. And if that one's good enough, we tell ourselves, if that one pays off, it'll make it all worth it.
And it did.
But now there's no more Star Wars to look forward to. For the first time since I was five, it's over. Lucas has been adamant that he's not making Episodes VII - IX. He's done. And it's not that big a deal, but there's a particular feature of my emotional topography that I've gotten used to since 1977 and I'm going to miss it, and that's why I was tempted to get a little misty at the end of the movie yesterday. The end of so much more than just a movie for me.
But hey, I cried at 50 First Dates.
**It's very, very good. Good enough, even, to justify Episodes I & II, which were, dollar for dollar, among the worst movies ever.
**I'll never understand why the Powers that Be cast as talented an actress as Natalie Portman and then wrote her such a boring character.
**Hayden Christiansen isn't likely to ever win an Oscar even if he lives to be as old as Yoda, but Ewen McGregor is wonderful.
**It's a happy thing to me that George Lucas decided to leave the opening graphics & music unaltered since the original came out. My memories of that first viewing in 1977 in Louisville with Drew and our dads are very faint, but sitting in a darkened theater as the 20th Century Fox logo comes on and then that old school Star Wars graphic with the music and then the blue lettering...A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...I'm five again.
**On a related note, it was nifty that they used lots of the same 1970's dissolves from scene to scene. Helped hold the whole arc together.
**Pure niftiness it was to see the X-wings and TIE fighters begin to be recognizable. Ditto the way that by the end of the movie the sets and costumes looked like the beginning of Episode IV.
**It was pretty wild to see X-wings and TIE fighters fighting along side one another and to see stormtroopers as "good guys." (Not that this movie lends itself to labels like that. "Only a sith deals in absolutes.")
**Ian McDiarmid was excellent as Palpatine.
**They really did wrap up everything nicely. It all made sense; it all worked. As I was watching it unfold, after waiting for the better part of thirty years, it was almost as if I'd seen it before. Anakin's betrayal of Mace Windu, his battle with Obi-Wan, the assassination of the Jedi, (which felt a bit like The Godfather, though that's probably giving it too much credit,) the hiding of the babies and the exile of Obi-Wan and Yoda. No loose ends. No more leaving questions unanswered for the next movie. Which creates an interesting sort of internal dynamic in me...
**Like I said, I was five when Star Wars first came out and from that first viewing, it was a big deal. We played Star Wars, we listened to the soundtrack, we reminded ourselves that it was called Episode IV, we played with the toys, we acted it out, recreating the scenes as if they were independent episodes, too young to understand how they were connected to each other. And then came The Empire Strikes Back -- 1980 now, and I'm eight and old enough to be developing into the nerd that you now see before you, so I'm reading everything I can get my hands on and still playing hard and wondering what the third movie would hold. Was Darth Vader really Luke's father? What was that about?! Couldn't wait for the next movie. What would they call it? And now it's 1983 and I'm eleven and we thought they were going to call it Revenge of the Jedi, but it's, Return of the Jedi instead, and yes, he's really Luke's father and apparently he's the Jedi the title refers to --get it? -- we were so into it. Bedspreads and wallpaper and lightsabers that actually glowed in the dark (have you seen the $100 versions they have at Barnes & Noble? Wow!). And rumors. Somewhere we got word that it was actually a trilogy of trilogies and that there were three movies to come which took place before what we'd already seen and three that took place after, and we were eager for them. And we waited. And we waited. And they never came. And life got all complicated. There were new schools to attend and treacherous, dangerous social choreography to learn there and people we loved died. There were girls and basketball and good decisions to make and bad decisions to make and there was Van Halen and there was football. We learned to drive and we got in fights and we tried beer and didn't like it and we tried it again until we did. We learned that lots of things could be smoked if you rolled them right and that that's not always a good idea. We learned that our parents weren't always right and somehow loved them more for it. And there was college and there were weddings and jobs and Responsibility and more people we loved died. Somewhere in there we grew up. But always, just under the surface of my subconscious, was the knowledge that there was more Star Wars coming some day. Even when I'd gone years without giving it a conscious thought, it was there. And then it was 1999 and I was so excited to finally have a new Episode that I couldn't admit out loud that it was terrible, but still we were eager for the next one, and then came 2000 and so much changed. A new Life, (a new hope?) a new home, a new job and out of nowhere here's Peter Jackson doing Lord of the Rings and he's absolutely kicking George Lucas's ass and why doesn't George hit him back and the Lord of the Rings movies come out a year apart and they're perfect, and now it's 2002 and Attack of the Clones is bad too, but it's better than Episode I and it's enough that we can't wait for Episode III. And if that one's good enough, we tell ourselves, if that one pays off, it'll make it all worth it.
And it did.
But now there's no more Star Wars to look forward to. For the first time since I was five, it's over. Lucas has been adamant that he's not making Episodes VII - IX. He's done. And it's not that big a deal, but there's a particular feature of my emotional topography that I've gotten used to since 1977 and I'm going to miss it, and that's why I was tempted to get a little misty at the end of the movie yesterday. The end of so much more than just a movie for me.
But hey, I cried at 50 First Dates.
14 Comments:
Yeah, that was a little too Frankenstein, wasn't it?
Ain't it?
50 First Dates is the only movie I can recall ever watching a second time immediately after the first viewing ended--which was only appropriate, considering the theme of the film.
I cried after both viewings.
I'm glad it's not just me.
Ian McDiarmid was way cool...
50 first dates...amazing how many times that movie's come in handy when talking with guys who've treated their wives like furniture for years and can't understand why she won't even talk to them anymore.
Also, it was seriously creepy when Anakin killed the younglings. Chilling.
New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott actually stuck his neck out and said it was better than Episode IV. I'll find out later.
It probably is, but is it better than V?
That's a tough call. It's hard to beat Empire on a lot of levels. The chemistry between Ford and Fisher is something that could never be duplicated...down to that final, "I know."
Why the hell they even tried with Portman and Christensen is completely baffling to me.
Anyway, we'll see III in a week or two (my interest in it is mitigated by my aversion to crowds and people in silly costumes) and I'm sure I'll feel compelled to blog about it.
Ok, I honestly don't remember if I got misty or not (romantic comedies do that to me) but 50 First Dates was awfully cute.
they had to have the romance because luke/leia needed a mother. that's about the only value of that entire onscreen relationship.
one nice thing about this movie is that someone has obviously been working with christensen. he's much improved over episode 2.
i personally think this movie is the best of the 6. really.
Granted, but that could have happened any number of ways (the romance,that is -- the options for conception are usually more limited), almost any of which would have been less painful than what we got.
I think it was a mistake for Lucas to let himself write and direct the thing. He's better as a producer.
Here's my synopsis of the film. Glad to see someone thought McGregor was good !
http://www.madaxeman.com/general/blog.html
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