The lava was overkill

Chris and I just got home from watching Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. We really hadn’t planned on seeing it this early—I was really wanting the sold-out-theater full of Anakin wanna-bes to be finished before we went. But Chris’s mom decided at the last minute to come for a visit, and we figured we’d better take advantage of the free babysitting. It was a sold out theater for sure. No costumed folks, though—the theater staff (about half of whom are Chris’s students or former students) told us the Darth Vader clones were all there Friday morning at 12:01 when the film was released. (I should mention how disappointed I am in my local newspaper, by the way, that we had no coverage of the crowd that night—instead a really bad article about how some fans have related tattoos and others named their kids after Luke and Obi-wan—Ben, at least, not Obi-wan.)

Anyhow, some quick impressions and then I’m off to join my already-snoring sweetie.

1. George Lucas needs a woman consultant who could’ve let him know that pregnant women aren’t supposed to lie on their backs and that there’s no way a woman that skinny had two seven- or eight-pound babies.
2. George Lucas has a huge God complex.
3. George Lucas must be the worst writer of dialogue of all time, including romance writers.
4. George Lucas can blow some shit up.

I remember watching Star Wars (the REAL Star Wars) for the first time as an adult when I was pregnant with Laura—that was the first Christmas we spent away from home, because I was too far along to travel, and some channel was running all the Star Wars movies all day Christmas. I remember thinking (and this was a revelation to me) what a whiny teenaged twit Luke was—but he still had some indefinable charm. Nothing on Han Solo, mind, but still something. That’s what’s missing in these new Star Wars movies—people you care about on their own, not just because they’re connected to the old characters. I’ve been thinking about what made those old movies so wonderful (because when you watch them as an adult, they are sort of awful too—so one-dimensional and full of Ewoks and muppets just for the sake of it). And reading about Star Wars on the web. And even reading Darth Vader’s blog, The Darth Side (which can be really hilarious, I must say). But these new movies just boil down to a bunch of people I can’t quite keep straight and am not too worried about if they die.

But damn, George Lucas can blow up some shit.

Perhaps later, my meditations on why Anakin might’ve been saved from the Dark Side if he’d only been tenured and promoted, instead of being kept off all the really important committees.