Thursday, May 26, 2005

Poor Aayla

Since Jon (Darth Wildious in this incarnation) asked so nicely, I will give you some thoughts on Revenge of the Sith. Have you heard of it?
It was a lot of fun. Yeah it had some cheese and some bad acting, but so did all five other Star Wars movies, so no suprises there. When I see a Star Wars movie, I see it in full-on Little Homie Bear mode. I go back to when I was three years old seeing Star Wars for the first time, or when I was five and I didn't know there was an Empire Strikes Back till my parents took me, without saying where we were going, and being in absolute awe at the tauntauns, Walkers, Yoda, Darth's stunning revelation . . . and the three long years of speculation with people such as Darth Wildious as to whether Vader was lying or not, and what would happen to Han, all encased in carbonite like that. So I forgive the weaker aspects of the new trilogy, because it means so much. I just enjoy them for what they are. And Episode III had much to enjoy- the climactic duel is stunning, and surprisingly wrenching.
Having said all that, there are some things I wish had been a touch different- General Grievous was way cool, but his cowardliness kind of undermined him a little, especially since he was portrayed as having much more class in the Clone Wars cartoons. Oh well. He had four lightsabres so that makes up for a heck of a lot.
Anakin's seduction to the dark side was handled fairly well, though if I were to summarize it, it came a little too close to this:
Palpatine: Hey Anakin, did I ever tell you that I'm a Sith Lord?
Anakin: Really? You are? Can I be one too?
Palpatine: Sure!
Finally, the last thing that made me wince a bit was Lucas' ill-advised homage to Frankenstein at the end, which marred an otherwise brilliant and darkly beautiful scene.
Anyways, minor points. In Little Homie Bear mode, these things hardly matter. And if there is the nagging suspicion at the back of my mind that perhaps it could have been written a little better- perhaps even, forgive the hubris, that I could have written it better- it is only because Lucas himself helped awaken the immense powers of imagination and sense of wonder in me and my generation. May the Force be with him.

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